Aquatic Ambulances

Short answer: In Venice's historic center and the islands of its lagoon, emergency calls to Italy's 118 number are answered by idroambulanze, water ambulances run by the local emergency medical service SUEM 118. The boats in the footage are yellow, with red-and-yellow checks and the word 'AMBULANZA'.

They are fast motorboats with a covered cabin for a stretcher patient and equipment much like a land ambulance: oxygen, a monitor and defibrillator, and stretchers. Italian sources describe the usual crew as a boat pilot, two healthcare workers and a nurse, with an emergency doctor joining for the most serious ('red code') calls. Italy has no separate 'paramedic' profession like the U.S. or UK, so nurses lead the clinical care. Local reporting has put the service at about 18,000 call-outs a year across the lagoon. It has run seven boats, with several on standby at once, based at the city's main hospital, the Ospedale Civile (SS. Giovanni e Paolo). Getting a patient from a narrow canal or a house without a nearby landing usually means carrying them by stretcher through the streets to the boat. A 2023 paper in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine described the service's unusual conditions.

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