Gye Greene's Thoughts

Gye Greene's Thoughts (w/ apologies to The Smithereens and their similarly-titled album!)

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Call cancelled

(BTW - this image of an aid car that I snagged off the web -- **excellent** (and tasteful) use of *.gif-ness.)


A few weeks ago I was doing some yardwork in our front yard when an ambulance pulled up on our footpath. (Around here, ambulance officers fulfill the role of paramedics/aid cars [i.e., medical response] and ambulances [i.e., medical transport].)

I went over to see if they needed anything. They said, no, they'd simply been on the way to a call, and it got cancelled.


Just a few days ago, I finally remembered to ask a friend of ours who is a paramedic: Is a call being cancelled a good thing, or a bad thing?

That is: is it that another unit closer than you has covered it, so's you're off the hook? Or is it that the subject of the medical emergency has died, so there's no point?


The response:

No it means someone who called for the ambulance either :

A: got better (they broke wind and the tummy pain went away)

B: they got tired of waiting and got a relative to drive them to the family doctor or hospital (like they should have done instead of calling the ambulance)

C: they realised that we would see the forty dope plants in their house and tell the police

D: the dispatcher realised that there were indeed fifteen closer units than us (sorry to stop you from eating)

E: the "dead person" on the front lawn got up and walked home to sleep off the effects of whatever they have indulged in.

If the person had died they would not cancel us - no one likes a bad smell in their house - so actually they will scream down the phone for us to come quicker.

To sum up: cancelled calls are good for us, probably bad for the caller.


--GG

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