A VIDEO clip was posted on a Facebook page earlier this week under the user named Itthikorn Butsara showing a view from within an ambulance looking out the through the windshield to a white sedan in front of it that showed no sign of any attempt to make way for the ambulance.
“The patient was already using respiratory apparatus and risking cardiac arrest. You could’ve given way, but you wouldn’t !!!!!!”, said the video clip owner.
The event was surprisingly identical to the one shared on social media at the beginning of this month when a red passenger car refused to move from the far-right lane to allow an ambulance to overtake.
That incident caused even bigger social media uproar as the red car driver and passenger were found to be health care workers. Especially, the driver herself was working at the National Institute for Emergency Medicine which should have given her the best possible idea of how she should have responded to the incident.
Unfortunately, she decided to stay put at the same speed in the same position.
It was reported a day later that the patient in that ambulance, 61 years old Mr Prasit Ramkhonburi from Nakhon Ratchasima, passed away.
Considering how active the public, media, and officials were corresponding to the news, most would have thought the big news was enough to educate the public, but they were wrong.
According to the latest report on this topic, the same kind of incident has just occurred to an ambulance rushing an emergency patient from Kaeng Khoi Hospital to Sara Buri Hospital.
Only this time it was a white car that refused to make way for the ambulance, not even after full-on lighting signal, siren, and honking.
A volunteer who was taking the video clip from within the ambulance told the Street Hero Project Facebook Page in an interview, “I’d like to encourage people to be aware that making way for the emergency vehicle is very important.
“Every second counts. Forcing the ambulance to switch lanes back and forth is neither convenient nor safe to the patient and to the weight of the vehicle.
“It cannot accelerate as quickly as normal passenger cars do and it also has a speed limit at 90 kilometers per hour.”
Sadly, it was reported that the patient in the ambulance has passed away.
CAPTION:
Top: An image of the white sedan blocking the ambulance which a volunteer within the ambulance captured.
By Piboon Awasdaruharote