Rules of Engagement

Everybody knows that when you hear the siren on the highway, you either have to pull over or yield the right of way for the emergency vehicle.

So now what about among themselves? Is there a rule or some sort of hierarchical system where say the ambulance shall yield to whatever else? Now I do not doubt that there maybe indeed have rules about that, but who is to say in such situation, which side has a bigger emergency?

Now there's an incident that just happened in Oklahoma where such questions are being raised. So basically what happened was that both the police trooper and the ambulance were on the highway, and when the ambulance didn't give the troopers the right of way, they got stopped and questioned.

The trooper had its siren on, while I am not sure if the ambulance did, but the ambulance was in fact rushing somebody to the hospital, although the patient wasn't in a life-and-death situation. Before I get any deeper into the incident, let's take a step back and think.

So the trooper did had its siren on, which means the cops were responding to an emergency call. But they had the time to come back and stop the ambulance, what's up with that? I can understand that an emergency vehicle may stop for something else if that something else appears to be an even bigger emergency, but to stop an ambulance because they didn't give them the right of way? Now it would be hard to rule out personal vendetta.

After that, they realize that the ambulance did indeed had a patient in the back and they are on their way to a hospital. So at this point the cops do understand that the ambulance is going for a sort of emergency run, but they asked the paramedics to come out and process to "talk" with them. The patient in the back along with her family express their concern, and that they wish to be driven to the hospital first and asked if the police would agree to continue their "conversation" with the paramedics at the hospital.

Although not being fully explained, but from the video that was recorded by one of the people in the ambulance, we do understand that the police refused to let them go just yet, which led to the direct confrontation between one of the paramedics and the cops.

It is hard to decide who had wronged who, but I am sure we can say that the lady who was in the back of the ambulance, along with her family, perhaps are the biggest victims in this incident. Helping and serving the public, kinda ironic. I am still a bit surprised that there appears to be no "professional courtesy" between the cops and the paramedics, especially when cops rely on paramedics quite often. Let's hope things wouldn't go so horribly wrong for that cop in any of the near future.

Video here