Why all the ambulances [on Cross Street] yesterday?

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 10:11am #1

was anyone else around Cross street yesterday about 4 p.m.

There was an ambulance wide open on the road blocking the traffic outside Yes Flowers with flashing lights.. Also another ambulance open and lights flashing on Quay Sreet just outside Riordans. Loads of people hanging round wondering what was going on - all the traffic backed up.

snubbleste · 02-11-2010 10:17am

Phone them up and ask.
Under Ambulance in the golden pages.

There are more than two ambulance vehicles in Galway, right?

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 10:21am

no need for your sarcasm.

It is an odd sight to have a road blocked off with two ambulances on two separate roads with stretchers on the street and doors wide open with lights flashing, and traffic blocked up for miles. (or maybe you are just used to that kind of carry on).

snubbleste · 02-11-2010 10:27am

Quay St. is pedestrianised at 4pm so traffic can't be blocked there.
This is galway, there are traffic jams galore especially when it is raining at 4pm on a november weekday.
Let us know what the ambulance control dispatcher says!

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 10:36am

snubbleste wrote: »

Quay St. is pedestrianised at 4pm so traffic can't be blocked there.
This is galway, there are traffic jams galore especially when it is raining at 4pm on a november weekday.
Let us know what the ambulance control dispatcher says!

cross street isn't or did you not know that - going round with your eyes closed :rolleyes:

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 10:39am

don't bother replying you've been officially ignored. life's to short ...

mikom · 02-11-2010 10:40am

Explosion in a pastie shop?

snubbleste · 02-11-2010 10:40am

dolphin city wrote: »

cross street isn't or did you not know that - going round with your eyes closed :rolleyes:

Yes I willfully am aware that Cross St. is open to motorised traffic, just specifically omitted it from my post.

biko · 02-11-2010 11:04am

On topic please

Nothing on www.galwaynews.ie but will probably be in Advertiser.

kraggy · 02-11-2010 12:43pm

biko wrote: »

On topic please

Nothing on www.galwaynews.ie but will probably be in Advertiser.

No surprise there.

galwaynews.ie is an absolutely useless website. They are unbelievably slow to put stories about Galway on their website even though the same story has been on rte.ie/news a day, or even 2!

SlipperyPeople · 02-11-2010 1:12pm

ya i was stuck there for 20-25 mins have no idea what happened. would love to find out though.

Fey! · 02-11-2010 1:27pm

A man collapsed in an office on Cross Street. The first ambulance had to reverse into Cross Street, but had to park in the middle of the road as the clearway there was blocked. All of the vans but one moved fairly quickly, but the driver of the last one decided to leave his there for about 40 minutes, at which point he pulled to the other end of the clearway, barely allowing room for trucks to pass (he was aware for a while that he was causing the blockage, but just didn't appear to care). Incredibly, another car which had been stuck in the traffic attempted to park behind him, blocking the place up again!

The second ambulance must have entered Quay Street from the Jurys end, as it couldn't get through traffic. Both ambulance crews were to busy trying to resuscitate their patient to move the ambulance on Cross Street.

The Gardai for some reason did nothing to remove the illegally parked van and allow traffic to flow. Ditto for the corpo.

What the Gardai also missed was the owner of the van loading a friend into the back of his van and driving off, which meant he was driving in contravention of the law (no back seat, no back seatbelt).

Galway Corporation have been asked on numerous occasions to keep that clearway clear, but they seem to feel that it's cheaper to ignore the complaints, seeing as there's nowhere else to load to the city centre from.

Hopefully the man who collapsed is OK; they were working on him in the ambulance for a few minutes before pulling out.

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 1:54pm

thanks Fey. Wow I hope he is okay.

ronnie3585 · 02-11-2010 2:25pm

Fey! wrote: »

Hopefully the man who collapsed is OK; they were working on him in the ambulance for a few minutes before pulling out.

Unfortunately he died.

confuseddotcom · 02-11-2010 2:34pm

OhMyGod how tragic is that ..... Time is of the essence, what a shame that it had to be proved in such a harsh tragic way ....

R.I.P.

inisboffin · 02-11-2010 2:36pm

Could that offending driver now be charge in connection with a death?

It's sickening how people didn't move.

cardoor · 02-11-2010 2:36pm

RIP

Some Ambulances are operated by staff that have different qualifications. If an EMT or Paramedic came across somebody suffereing from Cardiac Arrest they would call Control to get an Advanced Paramedic because they can give more drugs and interventions that can really help. This was probably the reason you saw two Ambulances. Sometimes an AP is not always available. If not; they load and go. If there is they make a call to wait for the help and do the best they can. They always do the best they can.

biko · 02-11-2010 2:37pm

ronnie3585 wrote: »

Unfortunately he died.

Can you verify this somehow officially? Or do you work with the hospital?

dolphin city · 02-11-2010 2:47pm

oh my god how shocking. Poor man. Unbelievable if cars did not move out of the way for these ambulances.

ronnie3585 · 02-11-2010 2:47pm

biko wrote: »

Can you verify this somehow officially? Or do you work with the hospital?

The deceased was in a consultation with a colleauge of mine when he collapsed. I heard it from her that he passed away.

Fey! · 02-11-2010 3:15pm

Very sorry to hear that, Ronnie. Condolances to his family and friends.

As for vans/cars not moving, it wasn't that they wouldn't move. They were illegally parked, with the result that the ambulance had to park in the middle of the street. Those cars were not stopping the ambulance crews getting to their patient as quickly as they possibly could; I'd say that the ambulance drivers would have driven over them if necessary!

As for the guy in the red caddy (the last van left there), he wasn't in the way of the ambulance, he was in the way of the traffic (if he hadn't been illegally parked, the ambulance could have pulled in there and traffic would have flowed. If he had moved after the ambulance stopped, then traffic could have gotten around the ambulance). He impeded traffic, but not the ambulance crew getting to their patient.

inisboffin · 02-11-2010 3:47pm

But just wondering why the second ambulance had to park so far away? I assume this was because of the traffic blockage caused by these idiots? Wasn't the 2nd ambulance the one called with additional skilled personnel? I know the ambulances staff work their a*se off, but we all know in relation to heart attack and stroke, every second counts, and I strongly hope that this illegal parking didn't impede them AT ALL in trying to save a life.

confuseddotcom · 02-11-2010 4:15pm

Would love to know what/where the Gardaí were actually at in all of this ??

Fey! · 02-11-2010 4:32pm

Inishbofin; I think that the first ambulance was a cardiac one. The driver of the second one had the smarts to get around the traffic; we could hear the sirens from Cross Street for a couple of minutes, but not too long (I know that minutes count in these situations).

confuseddotcom; the Gardai were watching it from the control room, thinking that the ambulance was the obstruction, and not realising that the van shouldn't have been there. They were trying to contact the owner when he arrived back to his van (I was on the phone to them at the time to see if they could move it).

One of the problems would have been getting a towtruck to it!!!

Why all the ambulances [on Cross Street] yesterday?

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