Disturbing accident

[dntemp_ca]

On my way to work this a.m. I came upon an accident with a biker down at an intersection. Looked like the biker T-boned a car. He laid pretty still and was being tended to by some kind samaritans. Another good woman and man were directing traffic at the intersection (rush hour) to try to keep some idiots from going into road rage. Here's the disturbing part....an ambulance rolled up to the intersection...obviously not on a call.. no siren/no lights...and stopped at the red light and waited...through at least one complete light change...before pulling into the middle of the intersection. Only then did one of the ambulance attendants get out and go over to the scene! This sight was mind numbing! What were they waiting for?! ...to be dispatched?! A few minutes later, sirens from another direction proved to be a fire truck racing to the scene to tend to the guy. My wife and I talked about this over supper and we reasoned?! that there MUST be some legal or regulatory issues to cause such a delay, but that's a real stretch for me. The delay was probably only a few minutes, but felt like a lifetime. I'm still angry and confused. Can any paramedics or EMT's out there shed any light?

[Pat Kelly]

I work at a hospital. I'll ask in ER tomorrow.

[John]

I know that doctors are professionally obigated to lend assistance at an accident scene, but are ambulances bound by law, like tow trucks, to be dispatched to the scene, and cannot just show up at a 'target of opportunity'?

[Hobbit]

care

Also are the laws different in Canada? I know that their health care system is different.

[Pat Kelly]

I talked to some ambulance drivers today about this.
The ambulance at the intersection might have had a patient they were already transporting. Possibly that and they heard other units (the firetruck) dispatched and knew they were on the way.
There are several possibilities but these seem the most likely.

[Pain]

It could also be a local issue between the ambulance and local EMS. Here we have Ambulance services that do not provide emergancy care, and even when we (We do provide emergancy care) just happen upon an accident, while we would not hesitate to help unless we already had a patient, we often step on several toes by doing so. We just shrug it off, mostly.

Another possibility, if the entire crew was able to get out and help (Something they could not do if they had a patient on board) is they were responding on a call without lights and sirens (For any number of reasons) Stopping that responce to care for the accident victem could constitute abandonment of the patient they were heading for, even though they had not reached him yet (Different states have different feelings about this). For our service, they would have to check with the dispatcher before actually helping. Again, in this case the answer would be "Yes, go help." but the t's still need to be crossed.

-xsPain

[Dragonrider]

Ambulances in many (most) communities are not owned by the community...they are privitized and run by companies...

They don't get paid unless they are dispatched.

Seriously.

But, hopefully those you saw were radioing in the call and requesting to be dispatched.

They're a little more calloused here in Dallas...and I hate to say it...even more so when motorcycles are involved.