Ambulance chasing

Not amusing for the poor chap who was waiting to be whisked to hospital, but this was a case of the ambulance with four wheels and a driver getting there before the helicopter.

In the high gusting winds, the chopper was tossed around, waiting for a junction to be cleared in town for it to land. Eventually it had to land on the seafront greensward. In the meantime, the ambulance team had tended the patient, popped him in the back of the vehicle and vanished round the corner towards Colchester Hospital. A few seconds later, the airborne team arrived in the back of a police car, having been picked up from the seafront, to find the scene empty of prospective patients!

According to paramedic friends of ours, this is not an unusual event, the air ambulance teams being desperate to add 'lives saved' to their list to justify their being. I am sure they do a fantastic job, probably very dangerous at times and have saved many lives, but today it was a little 'Keystone Coppish':)


BTW, for the aficionados, the helicopter is a Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105.