I wish.......

As you know if you read the side of this blog, I am an EMT. My job has the ability to tax you to max, or drive you mad at peoples stupidity and ignorance and every conceivable mixture in between.

So..... here's the scenario.......

999/911 call comes in.....
we respond, putting our blue lights and two tones on, rushing to the scene, taking a position in the middle of the road, driving fast its an emergency after all, split second to think about what you are going to do when at last you see or hear us above the stereo.........

and what do you do??......
well from personal experience, you stop dead! Stop on a bend so we can't see past, drive past the lay by to crawl along the road, or the classic, you indicate that you are pulling over, but thats it, you maintain the speed and stick your fingers up when we get so frustrated at not being able to make progress that we give you a blast of the air horns.

On arrival at the scene, all the passers by who are crowding around won't let us through, your drunk friends try to fight us, you try to fight us, because you have had too much to drink, but claim your drinks have been spiked, (and yes we do put bets on to see how many times we hear that in a night) and yes calling an ambulance because you can't control yourself is a drain on resources and finances. Once on the ambulance your friends all want to come too, well news flash, one drunk in the back of an ambulance is more than enough.

Or..... the relatives are anxious, they tell us every thing we need to know, they shut Tyson the man eating Yorkshire terrier away so he doesn't bite us or get shocked at 200 Joules, and clear everything out of our way so we can get the stretcher in. They answer questions and remain as calm as they can, then once the patient is on board they follow the road signs and laws and make their way to the hospital.

If the patient is very ill we take them into hospital on blue lights and two tones, alerting the hospital that they have a priority patient.
We have to pass an exam to drive on blues and two's, just because you are following doesn't mean you can jump red lights and "ride the bow wave". That is putting peoples lives at risk.
Follow sensibly, after all the doctor will usually have to do several assessments before you can come and sit with the patient, the emergency is with us not you.

If you go into hospital by ambulance you are assessed the same way as if you had gone on your own, you don't jump any queues in fact if the hospital staff think your trouble didn't warrant an ambulance but you wanted to be seen faster you will have a long wait! Yes we know you pay your taxes! SO DO WE!!

One last thing, we are there to help, we are doing all we can for the patient, please don't be rude or violent, usually someone has called and asked for our help.