Coventry Evening Telegraph
COVENTRY, England — Paramedics in Coventry and Warwickshire have been asked to resuscitate a dead pigeon and to help find a lost pair of trousers this year.
Frighteningly these are just two absurd examples plucked from a long list of bogus calls made to West Midlands Ambulance Service.
Other “emergency” calls include: A drunk whose mobile phone was out of credit so he wanted the 999 operator to call him a taxi.
A man who complained his eyes hurt after playing computer games for six hours without a break.
A 32 year-old man who couldn’t walk after too much dancing.
Two care home staff who wanted a lift to a hospital job interview.
Even more serious were so-called “patients” who pretended they had a genuine emergency to con paramedics into turning up, then revealing the real reason for their call.
These included a woman who faked a serious illness then asked the crew to collect her son from the pub because he was late for dinner. Other patients wanted paramedics to make them a pot noodle, plump their pillows or change a light bulb.
Ambulance service spokesman John Hawker said: “If our call handlers and crews are tied up dealing with this sort of call, they are not there to deal with people who have genuinely life threatening conditions such as a stroke, chest pain and choking.”
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