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by danso 2786 days ago
A severed finger is a pretty serious and catastrophic injury. You think workplace clinic has the ability stabilize that kind of injury, such that there's little difference between a 10 minute and a 30 minute trip to the hospital? Don't you there's a better outcome than the patient not bleeding to death, like getting to a surgeon ASAP to increase the chances of a successful reattachment surgery?

Besides the dickishness of pressing a typical Uber/Lyft driver into emergency service, ambulances have other advantages, such as the legal authority to speed and clear roads, and on-board medical equipment to continue stabilizing the patient during the trip.

1 comments

Like I said, we can make assumptions about travel time difference between Lyft and an ambulance - however unless we're in the actual scenario and know the circumstances, and likely times/estimates for each, a private driver can certainly be faster than when an ambulance can arrive (and likewise what is the indirect cost if not using that ambulance means someone else gets an ambulance faster who more reasonably needs it?).
Maybe an ambulance is slower than a Lyft. What's definitely faster than a Lyft is: a car that's already on-site, driven by a co-worker tasked to take you to the hospital.

Can we agree that, even if an ambulance isn't the best choice, it's amazingly callous to make a person with a severed finger sit around and wait for a fucking taxi rather than pull someone else off the line?

I don't think anyone was arguing against what is likely the fastest option (someone already on-site driving), it's however possible that once being assessed but before being ready to go, a vehicle could be ready to transport them immediately - whether that is someone from on-site or a Lyft et al that was ordered.
So you continue to make assumptions about a Lyft being faster than an ambulance. Do you also believe that an ambulance lacks trained medical personnel and equipment compared to a Lyft?

I'm sorry, what is this "indirect cost" of using an ambulance, when the purpose of them is to service severe injuries? Maybe you think a severed finger is no big deal, but how common do you think severed fingers are, to think that victims constitute a serious threat to the supply of ambulances on any given day?

> Do you also believe that an ambulance lacks trained medical personnel and equipment compared to a lyft

It depends on the case. The problem is that people has a stereotyped vision of what is an ambulance. One vision that is typically urban and adapted to their country. The truth is that there are at least three types of ambulances and they are very different when in isolated areas or in big cities.

> how common do you think severed fingers are, to think that victims constitute a serious threat to the supply of ambulances on any given day?

Emergencies happen in clusters much more often than you could think.