Feline Warrior

May you never require the assistance of an emergency medical vehicle.

I truly do hope that you are never in need of an EMT. But what brings this thought to mind is a growing number of scenarios I’ve witnessed. In these scenarios, drivers of non-emergency vehicles simply toddle along, apparently unaware of -or even more disturbing, indifferent to- the flashing lights and sirens blaring behind them.

I believe the law states -pretty much everywhere in the US- that one is to pull to the side of the road to allow emergency vehicles with sirens and flashing lights the right of way. However, this is heeded less and less. What I see is one car after another zipping along, and others happily making turns, often right in front of the path of the oncoming emergency vehicle.

You already know how I feel about turn signals, but this is different. In Washington, DC, I remember a big deal being made about fire trucks, ambulances, and paramedics not arriving on emergency scenes in a timely fashion. As a longtime pedestrian in that fine city, I had an up-close view of exactly why those emergency vehicles took longer than expected to arrive at their destinations: Cars don’t move out of their way. And with this as the norm, the drivers of those vehicles must use extra caution in order to not cause an accident on their way to an existing accident, or other such emergency.

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the driver of the emergency vehicle: You’re on your way to help someone who has suffered a heart attack, or is maybe in the middle of one. Pretty serious stuff. You have to get to that person quickly in order to (a) keep them alive; (b) resuscitate a dying person; (c ) get that person to a hospital pronto; or (d) all of the above.

Safety is your goal, of course, but as you maneuver through traffic, you think, “Why in the hell am I having to maneuver through traffic?! I’ve got flashing lights and a siren; people are thereby alerted that I’m on my way to save someone’s life!”

Indeed. Why is your left turn more important than the safe and timely arrival of an emergency vehicle at its destination? Why is pulling to the side of the road for 3 seconds a waste of your time in this situation? If this trend continues, what will happen if you are ever in need of emergency care? Will the 5 minutes lost because the EMT folks had to go 15 mph -because nobody would move out of their way- cost you your life? Will those 5 minutes cost you the ability to recover from a stroke? Will you bleed to death in those 5 minutes?

I’m no medical person by any stretch of the imagination, so I can’t think of all the medical situations that could be altered dramatically in 5 minutes, but I imagine there are plenty. And I will ask several doctor friends to give me some scenarios, just to back me up.

The world is a busy place, our lives are filled to the brim with things to do, places to go, people to see. Yeah, I’m important - to me, that is. And I’m important to my loved ones, coworkers, acquaintances, and so forth. But am I so important that I can give myself permission to break the law? So important that I can be the reason paramedics can’t get to a wounded person quickly?

I don’t think I’m that important, but I would like to think I’d be that important if I were the person in need of the paramedics. But the way that I see it now, I would not be at all important if I needed emergency medical assistance. And neither would you. Maybe if we can start looking at it like that -”what if that ambulance was coming to get ME?”- people will open their hearts and pull over for 3 seconds. Is that so much to ask?