10 free EMT practice questions: Equipment Readiness & Ambulance Check

Change the battery in the portable unit and try it again: Changing the battery and retrying the portable unit is the right move when suction fails and no backup exists, since dead batteries are a common cause of that failure. Here a mounted suction unit is already available in the compartment, and vomit is sitting in the mouth right now. Troubleshooting the broken device spends seconds that airway can't afford.

Clear the mouth with a gloved finger sweep: A gloved finger sweep clears a visible solid foreign body from the mouth, not liquid vomitus. The vomit in this patient's mouth is liquid, which a finger only pushes around or further back, raising aspiration risk instead of preventing it. Suction is the correct tool for fluid, not a manual sweep.

Ask the driver to stop so the portable unit can be checked: Stopping the ambulance would make sense if suctioning genuinely required the vehicle to be still, but the mounted unit works fine in motion. Asking the driver to stop only delays clearing the vomit already in this patient's mouth, and answers how to fix the portable unit rather than how to clear the airway now.

A rigid pharyngeal suction tip: the delivery end of the suction system. It doesn't generate vacuum on its own and is useless if there's no power source driving it.

A large-bore suction catheter: also just a delivery component, not a source of vacuum. It depends on a working powered or manual unit behind it.

A spare collection canister and tubing: A spare canister and tubing are parts that carry and collect what's suctioned. They don't generate suction themselves if the powered unit fails.

The stretcher straps tightened across the child: Stretcher straps tightened across a small child are spaced and shaped for an adult torso, leaving the child able to move inside the restraint during a crash.

A caregiver holding the child on the bench seat: provides no crash protection at all and risks the child being crushed between the caregiver and the vehicle interior during a collision.

A pediatric backboard strapped to the bench seat: isn't a substitute for a proper child passenger restraint system designed and tested for securing a child during transport.

Wait for the receiving hospital to confirm the order: A second set of eyes always sounds safer, and receiving facilities do review care after the fact. The order in this question came from the online physician giving direct medical control, not from the destination hospital, so that facility has no role in confirming it.

Ask the physician to send the order in writing: Written orders exist for standing protocols and some facility-based orders, but this order was given verbally over the radio, so asking for it in writing answers a different question than the one the scenario poses.

Document the order in the patient care report before acting on it: Documenting in the patient care report is a required step and happens after the call, but it does not verify that you heard the order correctly in the moment; it treats the paperwork requirement as if it were the safety check that only read-back provides.

The NRB worn by the patient: This makes proximity to the airway the test. The question states the mask is free of blood; the rule that sends an item to the biohazard container is that the item is bloody or contaminated by body fluids, not that it was near the airway.

The outer wrapper from the dressing package: This gives the packaging the status of what it contained. The wrapper came off before the dressing touched the patient and the question states it is dry, so it never contacted blood; most disposable items generated on a call are handled as general trash.

The emesis basin handed to the patient: This handles any item offered to a patient during care as contaminated. The question states the basin was not used, so nothing was deposited in it, and an unused item cannot meet a contamination-based standard.

Attach the regulator, then open the valve briefly and close it: This turns the brief opening into a leak test performed once the regulator is on. Its purpose is to blow debris out of the valve opening before anything is attached; performed afterward, whatever was in the opening has already been driven into the regulator, which is what the step exists to prevent.

Attach the regulator and open the valve fully to read the gauge: This moves reading the pressure up and makes the brief opening optional. Checking the gauge does come later in the sequence, once the regulator is firmly attached and the cylinder is opened fully, but it does not replace clearing the opening first.

Attach the regulator and open the flowmeter to clear the opening: This flushes the system by running gas through it once assembled. Once the regulator is attached, gas leaving the flowmeter has already passed through the regulator, so any debris in the valve opening has been carried into the equipment rather than out of it.

Add a second box of road flares to the compartment: This makes flares the warning device and covers the gap by carrying more of them. Flares work by burning, which is the reason they can ignite flammable liquids or gases, and on a highway where crashes often involve spilled fuel adding more of them increases the ignition source at exactly the scenes where it is least wanted.

Add a second fire extinguisher beside the flares: This meets a fuel hazard with more extinguishing capacity. Carrying a second extinguisher does nothing about the missing warning devices, and it treats an ignition that has not happened yet as inevitable instead of removing the ignition source that makes it likely.

Move the flares into the patient compartment cabinet: This locates the problem with the flares in where they are kept. Moving them into the patient compartment leaves the outside compartment still without any warning device and takes an item stored for use at the roadway out of the compartment that is reachable from outside the vehicle.

A stable patient with a minor ankle injury who lives 10 minutes from the hospital: Air transport for an isolated extremity injury makes sense only when access is the problem rather than the injury, as in a wilderness, water, or off-road rescue where a ground unit physically cannot reach the patient. This patient is stable, has a minor injury, and is 10 minutes from the hospital by ground. The key requires both a time-critical condition and a long ground time, and this option has neither.

A patient who simply requests helicopter transport because of personal comfort: Patient preference legitimately shapes some decisions, including hospital choice within reason and position of comfort. It is not a clinical indication, and aircraft are a finite regional resource, so committing one to a flight nobody needs makes it unavailable for the call that does. The key is a criterion about the patient's condition and the clock, not about what the patient would prefer.

Poor weather conditions that would otherwise delay a ground transport slightly: Weather is a real reason to change the plan, usually by driving more carefully, taking a different route, or accepting a slightly longer ground time. It runs the opposite direction from what this option claims, since low ceilings, icing, and wind are what ground helicopters in the first place. It also fails the key's other half, because a slight delay is nowhere near the long ground transport that makes flight worth it.

Transport to the closest hospital because minimizing transport time takes priority: The instinct to minimize transport time holds for trauma and unstable patients where any delay itself is dangerous. Here the closer hospital lacks catheterization capability, so arriving faster only delays the actual treatment, PCI, that reperfuses the blocked artery; closest appropriate facility beats closest facility.

Transport to the closest hospital and request a later transfer if needed: Requesting a later transfer fits situations where the cath center is genuinely out of reach, due to weather, distance, or diversion. A 10-minute difference is not that situation; routing through the closer hospital first only adds a second transport and delays the reperfusion the STEMI protocol exists to speed up.

Ask the patient which hospital they would prefer, and transport there instead: Letting the patient choose applies to non-emergent transport where destination has no bearing on outcome. STEMI transport is a protocol-driven, time-critical decision, not a preference question, and a 10-minute difference is well within the range that mandates bypass to the cath center.

Withhold resuscitation based on the family's statement: This fits a scene where a proper, signed DNR is physically produced and verified, letting the crew withhold resuscitation on the spot. Here the family only states the DNR exists without producing it, so acting on that unverified claim risks denying care the patient may be entitled to.

Call medical control and follow whatever the family ultimately decides: Calling medical control for guidance is reasonable, but handing the final call to "whatever the family decides" replaces medical and legal criteria with family preference, which cannot override the absence of a valid document.

Wait until the document is found before beginning any care: Pausing all care while searching for paperwork treats finding the document as a prerequisite to acting, but cardiac arrest demands immediate CPR since every minute of delay lowers survival, so care starts now and the document search happens alongside it.