Ambulance Priorities

[p1t1o]

So I was wondering something when I saw an ambulance negotiate a busy junction against red lights. Two cars had a low speed near-miss when getting out of the way of the ambulance.

 

If an ambulance is on the way to an incident, and a traffic accident occurs immediately ahead of the ambulance (the ambulance is not involved in any way), does it continue on to the initial incident, or stop to assist?

Both incidents are definitely in need of paramedics.

One question is, does anyone know anything official, naturally if there are official guidelines for paramedics they may not be the same everywhere.

Second question is open for discussion - what SHOULD they do?

Lets assume for the moment that the initial incident and the immediate one are of comparable severity (although this is largely moot as "severity" can be subjective and it also could not necessarily be ascertained with any accuracy in the timeframe discussed - or perhaps you think it could?)

 

I honestly cant find a reason to feel strongly one way or the other, about stopping or continuing, every scenario has the good or bad cancelled out by en equal and opposite reaction.

You could try and take into account every wasted minute or drop of blood to calculate a logical answer, but you could never do that in the field.

 

 

[tater]

I'm unsure. I would assume they would go tot he target they were called to, with a new ambulance going to the new call. Otherwise, scheduling would get screwed up. I'd think the dispatcher would deal with any edge cases---say they were heading to e fender-bender, and the accident right in front of the ambulance was really serious.

 

[kerbiloid]

Afaik, in Russia ambulance must anyway stop, estimate the situation and make a call to the medical center describing the situation: are there injured, are additional ambulance teams required.
If there are injured - they provide first aid, while their initial assignment gets reassigned to another ambulance team, closest to the target patient.
If there are no injured - medical center either lets them continuing their initial task, or reassigns it to another team (because their estimation and call had already taken some time).
Also there are specialized ambulance teams (cardiological, psychiatrical, pediatrical, etc) which in turn plays role in these reassignments.

Edited October 23, 2017 by kerbiloid