One of the notable co-founders is a Romanian Firefighter Lt. Col. Mircea Pintilie who coordinated the activity between firebrigades from the three countries, Romania, Norway and Great Britain.
It deals with the worst emergency cases, all in a very good collaboration with the regular Ambulance Service (Serviciul de Ambulanţă).
With the guidance of the Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Clinic, in September 1990, an emergency system functional in other European countries was experimented.
The SMUR mobile unit's drivers were students at the Faculty of Medicine, physicians or Red Cross volunteers from Târgu Mureș.
This experiment, which was to be a success and to become a permanent solution, was based on the models found in many countries in the world, where firemen are directly involved in providing of emergency medical assistance and first-aid.
In 1992, SMURD kept on progressing, concentrating on the training of the mostly volunteer personnel and on developing international relations with similar services from other countries.
In November 1992, following a training period of 3 weeks, with trainers from Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland and the United States, an exercise was performed to which were invited to participate the representatives of several Ministries and institutions.
The new Intensive Care Room staff members were the doctors, medical assistants and volunteers who worked in the pre-hospital emergency units.
The new department or "Emergency Service" was placed in the yard of the Mureș County Clinical Hospital and started its activity on 31 July 1994.
In 1995 and 1996 the system continued its development, especially in the field of training and professional growth of physicians and medical assistants coming from all corners of the country.
For the first time in Romania, in this law at articles 9 and 18.k it was established that Military Firemen have a duty to provide emergency medical assistance and extrication.
In 1997 and following a series of intensive training programs in the field of catastrophe medicine with the help of colleagues in France, the Fast Response Group was created; it includes a number of 25 people wearing pagers which allow their calling in at any time in case of serious accidents.
In June 1998 a public fund-raising was organized, destined to raise funds for purchasing a new, fully equipped mobile intensive care unit.
This fund-raising continued until December 1998 and was finalized with the acquisition of the most modern intensive care unit in Romania, for the price of DEM 183,000, fully equipped by Miesen, Germany.
On 2 June 2016, a SMURD helicopter crashed near Haragîș in south-west Moldova, near the Romanian border, killing all four crew members on board.