May 24 2014
When Someone Asks for an Ambulance, Call the Ambulance (Part 3)
The third and most frustrating example of the ambulance non-call involved a coworker named Kumiko.
It began like the others — shortness of breath, inhalers and oral prednisone don’t kick it. I told Kumiko to call an ambulance.
She grabbed her cell, stepped outside, and dialed. She came back and informed me that she’d made a most helpful call to Miyuki, owner of the chain of English schools who lived about an hour away. When you’re losing oxygen, a minute is a long time, let alone an hour, and let alone waiting for someone who couldn’t possibly help you. Oh but Heath, be at ease! Fearless Miyuki was on her way!
Understand, Miyuki had about as much medical expertise as a bag of hammers. Except, actually, less, because at least a bag of hammers could knock someone out if the situation called for it. Miyuki also demonstrated an utter lack of ability to engage in complex conversation, especially in emergencies. She was also an awful human being, but that’s another story for another day. What’s important here is that she was not what the situation called for, she was a freaking hour away, and she wasn’t what the dying guy asked for.
Yet Kumiko called Miyuki, even knowing about my history and how I’d ended up in the ICU for this very affliction only a year earlier.
Needless to say, I was furious. I called the ambulance my damn self, on my own phone after that. I didn’t think I’d have to — why would I, when there’s a perfectly capable, adult, native Japanese speaker right there next to me? I shouldn’t have had to, but I did. (If you want something done right….)
Kumiko, proving to not quite be as smart as I’d given her credit for, didn’t understand my rage. I yelled “Miyuki? You called Miyuki!? WHY? WHY did you call Miyuki instead of an ambulance!?” as I dialed 119 myself. I knew I was using up valuable breath, but my rage at her level of stupidity could not be contained.
I lived, thanks partially to the paramedics and thanks partially to my own will to survive.
My reward for making it out of this was a stern lecture about how I should speak more politely to coworkers. But maybe my coworker would have done well to heed this piece of advice, stated again for emphasis:
When someone in distress asks you to call an ambulance… call an ambulance. If you’ve got other bright ideas, get to them after the call is made.
So that’s three times in my life when I’ve been low on oxygen and needed to be taken to a hospital ASAP, yet the person I asked to call an ambulance fumbled the request and put my life in danger. Consider these stories if someone looks at you with wide-eyed terror and asks you to call an ambulance.
The previous two posts in this series are here:
Part 1: In Which The Guy at the Front Desk Almost Doofuses Me to Death
Part 2: It’s Like She Was Trying to Avoid the Hospital Instead of Get Me There