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A stretcher-bearer is a person who carries a stretcher, generally with another person at its other end, especially in a war or emergency times when there is a very serious accident or a disaster.[1]
In case of military personnel, for example removing wounded or dead from a battlefield, the modern term is combat medic who will have received considerable training. Stretcher-bearers would have received basic first-aid training. The wounded soldier had to wait until the stretcher-bearers arrived or simply the stretcher-bearers will find them.
In times of war, stretcher-bearers may in certain situations be covered by Art. 25 of the First (Geneva) Convention of 1949 under the category of auxiliary medical personnel.[2]