Grand Theft Auto III – The Definitive Edition

Wow was this a pain when the gangs are attacking you, but I finally just got it and wanted to help others out that are on the second island and don’t want to restart from the beginning. I used this guide I found on YouTube for the second island.

Get into an ambulance and press to start the Paramedic mini game.
You will have to pick up patients all around town, that's why I'd suggest doing it right at the very start of the game as it's the smallest island.
This mini game will start of easy, but with every new level you reach, you must pick up an additional patient. As your ambulance only has 3 seats, you'll have to plan your route wisely, meaning, sometimes it's better if you only pick up 2 patients and bringing them to the hospital. Also, most of the time it's advised going for the patients which are far away first.

A few tips:
- Blue light and siren will cause madness on the streets, only turn it on when you feel you need it
- Block the road when picking them up, so your patient won't get run over by the NPCs
- Drive carefully, as you can't repair your ambulance and leaving it will result in a game over
- Drive carefully, or else your patients will die, which will result in a game over
- Learn the map, learn shortcuts and avoid running over too many pedestrians

Besides some cash there will also be some other rewards as you progress through the levels:
A health pack to your hideout.
An adrenaline pack to your hideout.
And once you finish level 12, you'll gain the ability to sprint without fatigue, which will be really useful for the rest of the game.

Edit:
Some commenters said that it is kind of tough to do on the first island because of the geography and patients being placed too far from each other. They said it will be much easier on the second island. So try that if you're having any problems.


If I missed anything, feel free to drop a comment below or if I should add anything!

Edit:
If you feel the need to vote negative on a working solution for a rather easy achievement, I feel really sorry for you.

Just an opinion but I found this infinitely easier with the siren on when almost every guide out there recommends turning it off, I found that traffic cut me up far less often and the cars were so much easier to avoid, I had attempted this achievement for about 8+ hours without the siren on and was always finding myself just hitting a car and then toppling over.

With the siren on I feel like you only have to worry about lampposts and going too fast. Traffic becomes less of an issue with this method.

Anyway this is just my opinion and maybe it will work for some of you guys.

Best of luck with this annoying achievement.

Some say that Staunton Island (second island) is way easier than Portland Island (first island). But note that the further you'll be in the story, the more gang members shoot at your ambulance. Going back to Portland Island (first island) and retrying it there will be more impossible than Staunton Island.

I regretted I was waiting for this second island. I think it's better to do this achievement immediately after the first mission when the gang members are not hostile yet. Starting a new game was no possibility for me, because I also want to have the 100% achievement and reaching Paramedic level 12 is also a requirement for that, and I already did all stunts, rampages, hidden packages etc.

After many evenings I finally managed to get this achievement in about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Some tips for Staunton Island if you didn't go for this achievement in the beginning of the story:

- Make sure you put an ambulance inside your garage and save your game. If you fail, you can reload the game and try again, without searching for another ambulance.
- Before you start the mission, kick out the right- and back doors of your ambulance. Patients will get in a little bit faster. Maybe it doesn't seem to make a big difference, but in the end it is really a time saver. And when you have to pick up a patient in the war zone (construction site and big street on the east side), this is really useful to leave this area as soon as possible.

- Try to avoid all streets around the construction site (Columbian gang) and the big street on the east side of Staunton Island (Yardies gang). Don't use this streets unless you have to pick up a patient here.
- When exiting the hospital, drive all the way up to the stadium to avoid the construction site.
- You may take the hospital stairs as a shortcut, but be careful to not make too many collisions.
- If the street in front of the hospital is jammed, you may take a shortcut into the campus (across the hospital stairs) and then drive to the stadium.

- Pick up patients close to the hospital first. This should give you a lot of time in the beginning of a level.
- Then pick up patients on the west side and south side of Staunton. Any damage to your ambulance gets repaired slightly when you deliver patients to the hospital. If you don't cause any damage when going all the way to the south side, any previous damage may be undone.
- Patients in the war zone (east side and construction site) should be picked up last. By delivering other patients first your ambulance could have been repaired a lot so you may enter the war zone with a healthy ambulance, which will take the gangs more time to shoot your ambulance to fire.
- If you picked up a patient in the war zone and your ambulance is smoking, return the patient immediately without picking up another patient in the war zone, to get your ambulance repaired a little bit as soon as possible. You should have more than enough time to do this.
- Especially when you reach level 10, 11 and 12, don't take too much risks anymore. For example, if you had to be on the east side, turn around and go back to the hospital on the west side of Central Park, because on the east side the Yardies gang may shooting you.
- If a patient spawns at the upper right corner of the construction site, don't use the construction site streets, but go through the grass on the east side of the hospital. Be careful here not to roll over.

- Switch to first person view. It will be way easier to avoid cars and objects on the road. It will also be easier to see when your ambulance starts smoking.
- If you go down the stairs at the hospital, switch back to third person view.
- If you enter the war zone, do especially switch back to third person. Some gang members may try to drag you out of your ambulance which you can't see in first person view.

- Do turn your sirens on. Otherwise some roads and intersections would be really jammed by cars and they won't move at all with your sirens off.
- Do not drive on opposite lanes. Really. Cars on opposite lanes are more unpredictable with your sirens on than cars on the correct lane.
- Stay behind a car until you know what direction he will go when he hears your sirens.
- Some cars don't respect your sirens. And some cars will stop in the middle of an intersection. And police cars also won't move away for you.
- For some reason I saw some cars exploding randomly during level 12. Stop driving and wait from a distance until all nearby cars are burned out.

- Use your handbrake a lot. If you think your ambulance starts rolling over, press the handbrake and stop driving until you're balanced again.
- Don't use the gas all the time. Just slide through turns and bumps without using the gas to avoid rolling over.

- If you have to pick up many patients, go to the map and make a plan which three patients to pick up. Eventually do make a plan.
- If you feel your heart rate going up, take a break. The sirens sound will become really annoying the longer you play.
- Practice a lot. After work or school, turn on your Xbox, get in your ambulance which you should have parked inside your garage, and start this mission. If you fail, turn off your Xbox and go read a book or something. Don't progress any more in the story because I read the gangs will get heavier weapons after the story is finished (I can't confirm yet). Instead, try again next evening. Eventually even the unpredictable traffic becomes a sort of predictable to you.

A few tips for people who, like me, will do this after completing the main storyline. Following these rules, I did it the second time in just over an hour.

Staunton Island is the best island to do this. There are too many enemies in Portland shooting at you, and Shoreside Vale is very bad logistically.

Use sound signals - drivers slow down and move away from the road.

If there is heavy traffic - move the center of the street or the sidewalk. In the case of a sidewalk, try not to run over pedestrians. The police are the last thing you need.

Use shortcuts - stairs by the hospital, trees by the stadium, under the bridge and gaps between buildings. Try to use them, but watch out for uneven terrain - especially under the bridge.

Reduce the time - when picking up patients, I tried to manually position the ambulance so that the patient was as close to the door as possible. You can also sense 1 second from the moment the animation starts, the patient gets in to move on. At the hospital, I turned the ambulance facing the stairs, so that I could start practically immediately without fear of hitting the patients getting off the ambulance.

Avoid the construction site and the main street - the idea is to avoid the Colombians and Jamaican shooters. If you have to enter these areas - always use the method of shortening the time.

Plan a route on each level - I did this so that I first collected the three patients closest to the hospital to gain some time, and then took those who were farthest away.

Do not rush to high speeds - the ambulance has very poor grip and it is very easy to knock it over when you turn harder. Only accelerate harder on straight roads with no traffic. It's best if you can sense the ambulance moving in advance. Be prepared to brake at any moment, in case of stupidity of the drivers or just to save the card - exiting it cancels the mission with all the progress Believe me - when planning the route, the game gives you enough time.

Rain - rain further reduces the ambulance's grip.

Other drivers - drivers in GTA3 do things that are sometimes hard to expect. You won't believe it, but on the first attempt in the 12th round I rolled over only because I wanted to replace the car on the right, which had just started and turned right.

Do not use minimap zoom out - in case you have missclicka and canceled the mission;)

Good luck!

First of, I've found it waaay easier to complete on Staunton Island (maybe because I've completed Trial By Fire before attempting those paramedic/vigilante missions and diablos become hostile).
Second, majority of the terrain is plain flat, so there's less chance to flip the ambulance.
Third, you're given much more time - often I've finished level having 3-5mins extra.


what I've learned during my attempts to get this one + what I've read while looking for help:

1. I've followed uneed2chill advice and turned the siren on - once you understand npcs behavior, it makes driving a lot easier, no traffic jams. Only turned it off when approaching people I had to take on board, since cars can ram over your patients

2. stay away from the construction site on Staunton Island, as colombian cartel is hostile towards you from the start. Instead, go next to the stadium. It will take longer, but no one is gonna shoot at your ambulance and fortunately, you'll have more than enough time

3. plan your pickup route - you don't have to fill up the ambulance every time, sometimes it's wiser to drop off only 2 patients than going to opposite side of the island just to get one more patient, if you're gonna drive there anyway for other patients later

4. use handbrake ALL THE TIME - this one is crucial and I cannot stress it enough - thanks to handbrake, I've never flipped the car, it magically gains some traction and firmly sticks to the ground

5. when picking up patients, when the back door opening animation starts, you can start driving without the fear of leaving patient behind. Not the case with passenger doors, here you have give patients some time


still took me multiple tries, but once I've got the hang of it, the rest went smoothly, completed level 12 without any smoke from under the mask

Tips from a former paramedic. It's best to get this done before you start any of the main story mission on Portland. This guide will be specific to Portland.

1) Go with lights and sirens. Traffic will either stop or get out of your way. Without the sirens, you are at the mercy of the crappy driving. Play some music in the background. Sirens have a psychological effect, making you want to drive faster than is safe to do (taught in EMT school).

2) Steal a Yankee boxtruck and park it in the crosswalk of the T-intersection across from the hospital. This may help relieve some of the traffic at that intersection. Also, try to take down the light post between the hospital and the police station (definitely not taught in EMT school).

3) Slow is fast. Go slow through the intersections. You are more maneuverable when you are going slower. You will not have to waste time backing up after a crash, which will save you more time. If you have the road to yourself, drive on the dividing line. This will give you 1 second of reaction time if you see another vehicle coming towards you. Only go fast on the straightaways without any traffic.

4) Check your map frequently. Plan your route and plan on clusters of 3 patients. You should get the group closest to the hospital.

5) Set yourself up so that one of your patients is on your right. They will automatically get in the passenger side.

6) For the 2 patients who go in the back, stop in front of them. This blocks the road and they do not start moving until you stop. Start moving once you see them step into the rig. Don't wait for those doors to close.

7) Once you get the Patients Delivered message, start driving away from the hospital. Go into the hospital through the entrance by the police station, but leave through that narrow opening between the wall and the light posts. You do not want to risk running over the patients! Do this and you will be on the street when the timer starts.

8) Know those shortcuts. The one behind the hospital to the import garage will save time.
The one going across the grass to Joey's Garage is another one.

9) Practice before you do it for real. Steal and ambulance and get comfortable with exiting the parking lot by the light posts on the sidewalk. Get a good feel for how it handles. Use the hand brake (RB) to stop. Get a feel of how to correct skids in it.

10) This is a consecutive mission. You need to deliver 78 patients to the hospital in order to pass. You get the adrenaline spawn after 75 patients are delivered. Don't forget about those last 3 to complete the mission.

Just got this myself, did it in Portland before unlocking Staunton Island. Unfortunately, the Triads made this quite difficult, so I picked up some techniques to counter them. These are my strategies:

1. Prep the ambulance by taking a bat and knocking off the three passenger doors, and protect the driver's side door for as long as you can. Aside from shorter patient animations to try to shave time, it often gave the edge that I needed to grab the patient and escape from a Triad that is attempting to pull me from the vehicle.
2. Really learn the routes. I did this after the taxi missions, and still picked up new routes as I attempted this achievement. This helps with avoiding Chinatown at all costs, approaching the hospital from behind, dodging through the construction, and getting through the port area quickly.
3. Slow is steady, and steady is fast. The ambulance has a high center of gravity, and rolls at the slightest provocation. Let off the gas and use the brake when weaving through cars or taking a sharp corner. When you're taking a hard corner at speed or are tipping, use the hand brake.
4. Use the siren. I had great success with cars stopping and moving out of the way, including waiting to turn until I pass. Beware of cars that dodge you by running over your patient; I haven't had one die due to that, but several were flattened. I turn off the siren when I need great precision, or when a patient may be run over.
5. Be very careful when approaching patients, as patients will frequently start running for the front seat as soon as you are within their radius; if you fly by, hoping to put them in the back seat, you may run them over.
6. Pre-emptively running over gangsters on the sidewalk before they are a threat can be a great help when you're in a rough neighborhood.

Above all, keep trying! It took me several hours to knock it out today, and handling the ambulance and dodging the Triads became more intuitive over time.

Edit: I cleared level 12 twice more since then - once at the same point for a friend, with hostile Triads and friendly Mafia, and again with all friendly gangs at the beginning of the game due to having to restart for 100%. It is way easier to not have to worry about detours to avoid gunfire, getting pulled out of the ambulance, or the extra damage from enemies making mundane collisions potentially fatal. Do it ASAP if you are starting a new run.

There are already several solutions for this achievement, so the basics real quick: you begin this mission by entering an ambulance and hitting (at least in the default control scheme). Level 1 requires you to pick up one patient, Level 2 requires 2 patients, and so on. Unlike Vigilante, exiting your vehicle ends the mission, so it's that much more important to keep your ambulance in good shape.

The earlier in the game you can do this, the better, both because of the in-game rewards and because as the story progresses, more and more gang factions will attack you on sight.

The two major strategy points people argue about are where to do the achievement (as the game will only spawn patients on the island where you start the mission) and whether to have the siren on or off. I argue Portland is the best place to do this; while the hills can be challenging with a top-heavy vehicle like the ambulance, there are also quite a lot of shortcuts to get between streets and avoid traffic, while Staunton Island will involve a lot of straight-line journeys that you can't really optimize; I haven't tried doing Paramedic in Shoreside Vale. I recommend having your siren on, as it will at best get traffic out of your way and at worst bring it to a stop so you can navigate around it. You really should only floor it when you get a straight stretch of road that doesn't have any cars.

In preparation I recommend getting to know as many shortcuts as possible in Portland, but in particular these ones around the hospital are super important. The road that runs south from the hospital doesn't connect with the 8-shaped road further south, but being comfortable cutting across the lawn to get to it will help you a lot when there's patients in the industrial area. Similarly, figure out a path through the trees east of the hospital that works for you, as that will allow you to cut through when patients spawn over there. Finally, get comfortable with driving into the patient drop off from both the north and south; it's a lot wider and easier to get into when you're coming from the south, but entering from the north when you're coming that way will save time over having to spin around to take the southern entrance.

The game tends to spawn patients in clusters, especially when you get to the higher levels. Always start off a level by looking at the map and planning out where you're going to go. Don't always feel like you need to fill up your ambulance; if there's one or two patients who are in a totally different part of the map than everyone else, just drop them off before heading out. The game always gives you extra time when you pick up a patient, and sometimes on drop off as well; I haven't figured out exactly what criteria determines if you get a drop off bonus or not. I've seen other guides advise to always go to the farthest group first. While I think that's a generally good strategy, I think you should first prioritize whichever group you happen to be facing when you start the level. You'll occasionally get groups of four, so just be mindful when you're planning your routes.

Finally, the most important element for success in this mission is how you drive. I found these elements really important:

If you're driving on a hill, especially downhill, try to go straight with the incline as much as possible; anything else is a risk of flipping over. It's worth tapping the emergency brake ( with the default controls) before changing directions on hills.

Always use the emergency brake to come to a complete stop when picking up patients. The regular brake doesn't slow you down fast enough and you might accidentally back up and run over the patient.

Patients have a relatively long animation for getting in the ambulance. If you drive too early in the animation you'll interrupt them and they'll have to start over, but you don't have to wait for the full thing to complete; experiment with it a little to get a feel for when you can start driving safely and not lose them.

Patients start getting out of your ambulance as soon as the blue circle disappears. You can safely drive forward as they're getting out; I don't recommend reversing over them because it can sometimes fail the mission.

I recommend doing the ambulance missions in the beginning in the game because Gang members won’t be coming after you. When doing the ambulance missions You’re siren is you’re best friend and you’re enemy, use it when necessary like when you turn a corner. When turning use you’re handbrake and brake a tiny bit. Another important thing is when you pick someone up from the back of ur car the second they change animation you can drive off. On the side of ur car you have to wait till the open the door then right before they get in start driving off. Last thing is you have to think about people before getting them like go in you’re map think to you’re self How close they are and if they’re is 3 people you can pick up. If they’re is 2 people you can pick up that are close then they’res 4 that are far, depending on the time you can drop off those people. Best of luck to you all!

For this achievement the easiest way to go is to do it at the very beginning of the game. Once you get in the ambulance make sure you press up on the D pad so that way the vehicles will move out of the way, The rest is fairly simple just be careful with the speed and use the quickest route to each pick up for each wave. If you do this achievement after the mission the “last requests” it will be way difficult where you’ll have the mobsters shooting at you get in their territory which some of the patients will be for you to pick up.