Inverness ambulance service suffer delays due to drivers panicking on the road
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Inverness ambulance staff have expressed their concern for drivers panicking on the road which subsequently forces them to lose their momentum when getting an emergency patient to hospital.
A critical part of a paramedics job is to ensure that the patient, who is in a critical condition, gets to a hospital in time, however, if drivers aren’t aware of how to react to emergency vehicles, then it could cost a person’s life.
Paramedic, Heather Mackintosh, and ambulance technician, Amber Connor, revealed some of the core issues when it comes down to their job on the road.
When talking about what they feel needs to change to minimise these situations, Heather said: “We always talk about this in the station and we feel that learner drivers need to learn how to deal with us coming up behind them because people panic.
“People see blue flashing lights in a big ambulance and wonder what to do.”
Amber added: “I think even if it just meant driving instructors, and assessors put learners through a sicario where there is an ambulance, fire engine or police car coming up behind you, what do you do? They would then perform an emergency stop as a practice, so that people know how to appropriately pull over and stop for an emergency vehicle.”
Both Heather and Amber have experienced difficulty on the road, particularly on the A9 where it is essential to maintain the vehicle's momentum to get to the patient.
Heather said: “On the A9, if you are on a fast bit of road, even if you just slow down and put your indicator on to allow us to pass will help because we are coming up at speed and then having to slow down, resulting in us having to build that momentum back up again due to stopping.
“That then takes a while because it is a big vehicle”
When giving advice to drivers, Heather said: “Just slow down and indicate to allow us to know you are slowing down and turning. That then allows us to overtake safely because we can’t take risks either and we are not always exempt from road markings.”
As well as driving, the teams have also struggled when the ambulance is stationary. Due to the size of ambulances expanding, it’s harder for them to park, which can sometimes inevitably cause the ambulance crew to block a road.
Heather said: “Our ambulances are wider and bigger, and certain driveways aren’t big enough so we have to park on the road, which sometimes has cars, therefore we have to block the road.
“We don’t like doing it, but we try to do it as quickly as we can to try and get the patient out to move on.”
Amber added: “When it’s an emergency situation, sometimes the only option is to block roads and driveways. There’s nothing we can do about it because we need to get a patient that is in an emergency situation and we need to have the vehicle as close as possible.”
