About an hour after the Intercontinental Hotel was stormed on Saturday evening, medical institutions arrived at the scene to help the wounded but first to arrive was the Kabul Ambulance Service– which was also the last to leave.  

Parked as close to the hotel as possible, their ambulances waited through the night to ferry the wounded to hospital.  

Kabul Ambulance Services are among the first responders who work on the frontline in close cooperation with security forces. 

“We help those who have been injured and transfer them to hospital,” Hussain Faqiri, a doctor at Kabul Ambulance Service said. 

Throughout the night, as gun battles raged, Kabul Ambulance Service doctors and medics remained vigil and attended to the wounded who managed to escape.

“People, traffic officers and locals cooperate with us and help us reach the area quickly which is good,” a Kabul Ambulance Service medic Abdul Qayyoum Zuhoori said. 

Kabul Ambulance Service employs 132 people and falls under the structure of the public health ministry. It deals mostly with security related issues.  

But patients can also call for assistance if they need to be taken to hospital, officials said.  

The company has 10 centers in Kabul. 

“Any time that an incident takes place in any part of the city, as soon as the people report it to us and want us to send them an ambulance, we act immediately and arrive at the scene soon and cover the incident,” director of Kabul Ambulance Service Alim Asim said. 

Although sometimes they have been criticized over their performance, employees are committed to serving the people and to get injured patients medical assistance as soon as possible.