A paramedic is assaulted and his badly-injured patient left bleeding and unattended on the road as a callout rapidly escalates to violence.

An hysterical woman kneeling beside the victim's body screams as an apparently intoxicated friend of the man attacks the ambo, before hitting a nearby emergency vehicle.

"This is something that happens on a weekly basis to ambos, personally I've had violence and aggression come towards me on a regular basis," Jordan Pring, the paramedic who appears in the highly realistic video, later said of the incident.

Mr Pring said the graphic social media video was something all ambulance officers were able to relate to.

"We are there to help the patient, we are not police and are not trained in self-defence — there are some areas we won't enter unless there is police involvement," he said.

The clip was released by the SA government this week as part of its new statewide strategy to prevent violence against health workers.

Health Minister Jack Snelling said SA Ambulance had reported a 74 percent rise in such incidents in the past three years, with 125 this financial year alone.

This was a statistic mirrored in hospitals, high care residential aged care facilities, mental health services and drug and alcohol services where staff are routinely subjected to violence.

"This new campaign emphasises that every interruption an ambo has to deal with prevents them from helping save someone's life, and that life might be yours," he said.

"Violence and aggression towards anyone working in a hospital, health service or in an ambulance is unacceptable and it's time people get the message it will not be tolerated."

The three-year campaign will be rolled out across health workplaces over several phases, with the safety of ambos first on the bill.

The move was welcomed by Phil Palmer, from the Ambulance Employees Association, who said he hoped the video would encourage people to intervene to help ambulance officers harassed at work.