There’s an older guy who lives across the street from me and I’ve literally seen him get picked up by an ambulance at least 15 times over the past year or so.
I’m not exaggerating…and I always wonder how he pays for that, if he does at all.
Because from what I’ve heard, ambulance rides cost a fortune.
And it kind of reminded me of this story from Reddit.
Read on to see what happened.
You want to go to the hospital in an ambulance when you live across the street? Okay.
“I was in an apartment building for work earlier today when I saw an ambulance pull up to the front door and two paramedics come out.
I opened the door to let them inside and they proceeded up to the unit of their call. I wasn’t deliberately eavesdropping but the walls are paper thin so I could hear the entire conversation.
EMT: Did you call for an ambulance? P: Yeah, I’m feeling kind of anxious and I need them to give me something to calm me down. EMT: You do realize the hospital is right across the street, right? P: Yeah but I didn’t want to walk.
Context: This building is literally across the street from the hospital, separated by a seldom-used road. I don’t mean down the road, or a couple blocks away, you can literally see the front entrance of the hospital from the front door of the apartment building. If I’m being generous it’s about 100m door-to-door.
Normally an ambulance costs money, but this individual was forthcoming enough to inform the paramedics that he was on government assistance and that the program covered ambulance costs for transport to the nearest hospital.
The paramedics were audibly annoyed at the situation, essentially being used as a free taxi to get across the street in the rain for a non-emergency, but they end up taking this guy down to the ambulance. When I finally left the building several minutes later, the paramedics were still sitting outside with the patient doing their assessment, hooking him up to a blood pressure and pulse monitor.
The patient was annoyed that they wouldn’t just drop him off at the hospital, but policies are policies, and the paramedics could be liable were a medical emergency to occur en route to the hospital. As I drove away they were still sitting outside. A part of me hopes they’re still out there, assessing, hours later.
Perhaps the patient will learn his lesson about calling an ambulance for mundane health concerns and will elect to walk to the hospital next time. That’s probably wishful thinking though.”
Here’s what Reddit users had to say.
This retired paramedic shared what they would have done in this situation.
Photo Credit: Reddit
Another reader told a funny story about a person who used to frequently get ambulance rides.
Photo Credit: Reddit
A Reddit user who works as a paramedic shared another story about this phenomenon.
Photo Credit: Reddit
And finally, another former paramedic agreed that this happens all the time.
Interesting…
Photo Credit: Reddit
Do you have any stories like this?
If so, please share them with us in the comments.
Thanks a lot!
