By Rebecca Smith
The Evening Standard (London)

Paramedics will travel on mountain bikes in an effort to improve response times to 999 calls in the City.

In a two-month trial, a team of four will be sent to all emergency calls in the Square Mile and a regular ambulance will be dispatched at the same time.

The bright yellow bikes are fitted with blue lights and sirens and carry equipment including a heart-starting defibrillator, oxygen, pain-relieving gas and a maternity pack for delivering babies.

For more minor calls a bike paramedic will be sent alone and can request assistance if required. It is hoped the move will free ambulance crews to attend more serious calls where patients need to be taken to hospital.

Bicycle teams have already been judged a success in saving lives at Heathrow.

City Cycle Response unit manager Paul Davies said: "More than 300,000 people work in the City of London and their numbers are swelled by the several million tourists who visit the area each year.

"Using the bicycle gives us an opportunity to save potentially vital seconds in starting treatment, especially in the narrow streets which ambulances have difficulty negotiating quickly."

Copyright 2005 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.