What situations warrant using sirens?

There are also times when you can use the lights/sirens for urgent but non emergency things.
Like a patient getting increasingly agitated or confused, and pulling at the seatbelts, or in some cases you have a relatively stable baby on board, but the nurse (and baby) is getting upset that they need their feed and are getting uncomfortable and you're 1 hours from the hospital so it's in the babies interest to not be sitting in rush hour traffic at 6pm.

Of course, once you clear the traffic you end up switching them off again.

Also while the policy and training says the sirens should be on all the time....sometimes the sirens can make a patient panic and freak out. Especially if they're already confused or perhaps have psychiatric issues.

Another misconception people have about ambulances is lights + sirens means that the ambulance wants to go over the speed limit. In nearly all cases, you do not want to break the speed limit with a patient on board.
Responding to a call is a different story.

Leo Demidov wrote: »

Do Not Troll!
I take it you're not a professional ambulance driver?

What makes you think that?

Leo Demidov wrote: »

The content of your post. It reads like it was written by a private emt who does taxi runs on blues. Your blue light policy just seems a bit too discretionary.

Quite disrespectful. Are private EMT's no professional ambulance drivers?
Also the use blue lights in general are discretionary.

Let me reword the scenarios.

You're tasked to somebody experiencing either a mental health crisis or maybe even an elderly person who is suffering with a UTI and new onset of confusion. You get there, and after your assessment you manage to coax them into the ambulance with some difficulty.
You have a 45 minute transport time to the hospital.

En route, the patient becomes increasingly agitated. They keep trying to remove their seatbelt and get off the stretcher. You stop the vehicle, and try reassure and calm them. This works momentarily, but as the vehicle moves off again they continue becoming increasingly agitated and confused. They risk falling off the stretcher, and it's very difficult to calm them down.
As you approach the city, traffic is gridlock and you might be 30 minutes bumper to bumper. Your patient is vitally stable, but is kicking off and you have to get out of your own seat to try keep them safe. You'd like to get them to hospital in a timely manner. So you ask if the driver could jump the queues but take it handy. Blue lights come on.


Scenario two.

You're tasked to pick up a 2 week old premature baby in an incubator for transfer from Cork to Dublin for review in Crumlin. You pick up the pt and nurse and off you go. 3 hours later you arrive in Dublin and the baby is reviewed by the consultant while you spend an hour or more waiting around.

On the return journey, the baby starts to cry. No major issue. But 2 hours into the journey the baby is increasingly upset and is now wailing and it's difficult to comfort them. The SCBU nurse informs you that it will be due a feed and meds very soon and we're running behind schedule.
You've been with the pt for the guts of 6 hours now.
As you approach the city traffic is again gridloc at rush hour.

The nurse is concerned, the baby is stressed, and she asks how long this is going to take? Some times the nurse might even ask can you use the lights. Other times you might take the initative yourself.

I'm not saying ambulances do these things all the time. I'm just saying, there are many scenario's where the use of blues in non emergency situations can be utilised as long as it's safe.