Over the weekend, one of our followers (via Emergency Services Humour) sent us a picture of a note that had been left on the windscreen of their emergency ambulance by a member of the public who was moaning that they could not get to work, because the emergency ambulance had parked next to their vehicle (see below).
If serving on the #ThinGreenLine wasn’t hard and stressful enough already, the last thing our Medic colleagues need, is to come back to their ambulance after a potentially life-saving call, only to be met by an insensitive note left on their vehicle by an anonymous ‘author’.
Having the largest combined emergency services and pro-emergency services audience on social media, we get messages from our followers all of the time via our main website sharing information with us about not only the manner in which our emergency services are being treated, but also about the utter contempt with which some people view the emergency services.
The note below was left on an ambulance as its crew dealt with a life-or-death ‘R1’ call.
We made contact with the crew member who found the note so that they could share with the general public the effect, intentional or otherwise, that these notes can have on the morale of our Medic colleagues.
When we originally shared the post, a few people asked us why we were giving publicity to the numpties who leave these notes.
The simple answer is that by ‘shaming’ the authors of these sort of notes, then we hope that, in some way, future would-be note leavers might think twice before leaving their footprint of selfishness on the hard work of our emergency services:
Q: What type of call was it ? (life threatening / non-life threatening)
A: Category 1 call – fitting (life threatening)
Q: How long were you at the address for (roughly) ?
A: Approx and 2 hours (moved the ambulance half way through after assessing the patient properly)
Q: Did you find the note at that point ? Or when you returned back to the vehicle after you had finished treating the patient ?
A: Didn’t notice it until after I had moved the ambulance.
The road was full so parked where I could until I went down to collect some paperwork and there was a suitable sized space to move the ambulance to.
Q: How did you feel after you read the note ?
A: Annoyed because if it had been their relative we was attending and we drove up and down the road looking for a space we would of got criticised for that
Q: Did the individual who left the note hang around / did you seem them at all ?
A: When going back to the ambulance I saw a male walking away from it but didn’t think anything of it as hadn’t seen the note.
After moving it a car came out of the block of garages. But no one approached me to discuss the “parking issue”.
We try not to inconvenience people but when your choice is block what looked like a garage block or block the entire road. The garage block was the best option.
Q: What would you say to the person who left the note, if they were to read this article?
A: Please refrain from writing notes pointing out the obvious in regards to our parking.
If it’s not come down as a life threatening call we spend more time trying to find suitable parking down the road. But in this case when someone’s family are inside the property scared and want help it’s not appropriate for us to drive up and down the road or to park too far away from the property we are attending.
If this was your relative we was attending you would be flagging us down telling us to hurry.
Our patient is our main priority and we will always come and move the ambulance if and when our patient is in a stable condition.
We will always apologise if we block someone in if they’re polite to us upon our arrival back at the ambulance. Please respect all the emergency responders. Our jobs are difficult and stressful as it is.
Before you go...
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