Golfer breaks ankle in freak buggy accident (From Worcester News)

Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

kjb71 wrote:
Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

I would prefer to trust the judgement of a trained paramedic at the scene not someone who wasn't there and is probably totaly untrained to decide on the best couse of action.
Also I thought the Air Ambulance was a charity not a drain on NHS resources.

kjb71 wrote:
Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

My brother was a pilot for the West Midlands Air Ambulance until his untimely death 7 years ago and i can assure you the aircraft would not be called out and used unless it was thought necessary.The paramedics also have to take into account the possibility of unseen injuries i.e. internal bleeding or restricted blood supply,if it had beed you kjb71 i'm sure you would have wanted to get to hospital as soon as possible.

spider666 wrote:

kjb71 wrote: Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

My brother was a pilot for the West Midlands Air Ambulance until his untimely death 7 years ago and i can assure you the aircraft would not be called out and used unless it was thought necessary.The paramedics also have to take into account the possibility of unseen injuries i.e. internal bleeding or restricted blood supply,if it had beed you kjb71 i'm sure you would have wanted to get to hospital as soon as possible.

LOL, lets not spoil a good rant with facts

kjb71 wrote:
Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

I think it's a bit much calling members of the ambulance service lazy.
I trust they were doing their job properly.

kjb71 wrote:
Too lazy to put him into the golf buggy or the 4x4 and haul him back to the ambulance, so light up the whirly-bird and pick him up? So much for sensible use of NHS money. Can I get a lift to the grocery store? It is difficult to get up the steps in front of my house.

Absolutely right kjb71...although the Air Ambulance is one of society's sacred cows that can't be critised, so expect a lot of flack for your comments! I know for a fact that many ambulance staff share your (and my) frustrations at the huge amount of money wasted on using the air ambulance for anyone who gets injured any more than 50 yards from the nearest highway. Although I believe most of the funding is from public donations rather than from direct NHS funding - if the NHS actually believed that ferrying people around in a helicopter, that costs £1000s everytime it takes off, was a good use of resources than you can be sure they would be funded directly in the same way other ambulance services are. If people really want to save lives then please give money to Cancer Research or the British Heart Foundation instead of the Air Ambulance. People working in laboratories may not appear as exciting as helicopters, but these charities are doing work that will genuinely save millions of lives. You can be certain a £10 donation to Cancer Research wouldn't be wasted, the same isn't true of the Air Ambulance.

Molecat, I beg to disagree with your last sentence. Cancer Research does fine work but it is an extremely rich charity and many of the people that work for it are paid a lot of money. Only a small donation actually goes direct to good works.
My advice to anyone donating to charity is to concentrate on the smaller local charities where nary a penny is wasted - there are plenty to choose from. For example:
Maggs Centre
Noah's Ark
Asha Centre
The local hospices