Ambulance Chasing

It was a chance for a last Summer day out for my sister's family. They were intending to go for a walk along the cliff paths around Worth Matravers. Driving towards the village, they saw a gentleman coming towards them on a bicycle. He was a bit wobbly. Suddenly he appeared to lose control of the bike, fell off onto the road, and stayed there. 

They came to a halt abruptly. My brother-in-law went to alert any traffic coming up the blind hill to the south while my sister checked the victim and their daughters acted in a supervisory capacity. The poor fellow was unconscious and bleeding dramatically from a cut to the head - he hadn't been wearing a helmet. The advice from 999 was not what my sister was anticipating. 'We can get an ambulance to you in about five hours. Do you have a towel to staunch the bleeding? Can you move him to the side of the road?' The road, as those who know the area might anticipate, doesn't have any sides, at least not any that would keep someone out of the way of vehicles. 

After about twenty minutes, the injured man was coming round and my sister and brother-in-law called 999 again. They discovered - and it's at this point that the story becomes hard to credit - that the original call hadn't been logged. This time, the incident was recorded 'but the ambulance will still take about five hours. Can you take him to the cottage hospital in Swanage?' 'But he's hit his head, is that safe?' asked my sister. 'It's probably the best option', was the reply.

Well, Swanage is only five miles away so that was naturally what they did. The bike was an electric contraption which the gentleman had on approval with the intention of buying it. They took it to the local pub and asked if they could look after it. 'The landlord said yes', reported my sister, 'as though it was the kind of thing that happens every day'. We suspect that as soon as their car drove off, he was on the phone to Andy the Fence in Wareham, and that bike was on its way to a new owner.

My sister and family did get their walk, albeit delayed by a couple of hours. However, it is rather sobering to reflect that the emergency services are now expecting ordinary members of the public to get potentially seriously-injured people to hospital. I'd advise you all not to do anything that could injure you, or put you in the way of someone who might be ... !