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Calif. EMS providers express frustration over ‘frequent fliers’

Alameda County EMT Tonya Powell said she often spends the majority of her shifts transporting people who don’t actually need an ambulance

ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. — EMS providers expressed their frustration over transporting 911 “frequent fliers.”

During a ride-along with a CBS San Francisco reporter, Paramedics Plus paramedic Son Tran responded to a call about a man who could not move at a transit line station, and said he already knew who he was before they arrived.

“Oh yeah, single male in his 60s. That’s him!” Tran said.

When they arrived, police told Tran that the man was sleeping on the platform and said he needed to go to the hospital when they woke him.

The man is considered a “frequent flier,” or a person that calls 911 on a regular basis without needing medical attention.

Minutes after he was dropped off at the hospital, the man was back on the curb and upset about not getting a sandwich.

“They will become belligerent if they don’t get what they come to the hospital for, which is food,” EMT Tonya Powell said. “And in this case, the patient was upset because he didn’t get the sandwich that he wanted.”

Powell said most of her transports are frequent fliers.

“If I work a 12 hour shift, I run four to eight calls. And I want to say 50 percent to 75 percent are frequent fliers or don’t need an ambulance,” she said.

Powell added that her ambulance essentially works as a taxi service by the end of most nights.

“This is — in the far wider sense of the situation — a public health crisis,” Paramedics Plus COO Rob Lawrence said.

Lawrence added that ambulances have no choice but to transport anyone who calls 911.

“We are the number one provider for the County of Alameda. We are here 24/7,” he said.

According to a list provided by the county, 25 of the top frequent fliers have collectively called 911 4,291 times in two years .

With an average transport cost of $600, those calls add up to over $2.5 million.