999: Don’t waste our time!
Saturday 2nd August 2008, 10:00AM BST.
JERSEY’S Ambulance Service is warning Islanders to think twice before dialling 999 in the wake of a shocking catalogue of hoax and trivial calls.
It says that at least 700 of the 6,000 emergency calls it receives each year are ‘inappropriate’. And it has warned that the callers are putting Islanders at risk by diverting paramedic crews away from dealing with genuine calls.
Among the 999 calls was a call from a mother who claimed that her son had badly cut his finger and the wound was gushing with blood. When they arrived at her house, paramedics found that he had actually suffered a paper cut.
The control room has also received calls from a person wanting help in getting to the toilet, a pregnant woman wanting to know if she could take Beechams flu medicine for her cold, and a woman who dropped a hot chicken and ham pie on her foot.
• Picture: Richard d’Ulivo-Rogers, station officer paramedic
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Absolutely ridiculous! Are people really that stupid they ring 999 for a paper cut?!
They could have put someone’s life at risk who really did need an ambulance!
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totally ridiculous how on earth can anyone with half a brain be so stupid i mean 999 for a paper cut,I know the waiting time at A & E is at least 3 hours most of time but to call 999 so you get seen faster only makes things even worse. I think people who do this should be charged for the time the paramedics are on the road and for the petrol that it uses then they may not be so keen to do it again. Its a sorry state of affairs when things like this happen our paramedics work hard, long and unsociable hours to keep us safe and to be there should we need them and to abuse this is wrong.
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They should make these people pay if caught and then they will think twice before calling.
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you didnt sdee that paper cut i had evey right to call
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must have been a rather LARGE sheet of paper did it cut a major vein did it ???????? as I said a person should be charged for this kind of abuse of the paramedics time. Then they would not do it again !
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