The 911 dispatcher replied, “Usually, when they turn into a residential neighborhood they’ll turn them off,” but added that the driver is legally required to keep them on while transiting main roads.
In fact ambulances and other emergency apparatus often don't run lights or sirens when responding to calls. Other times, they do in order to get there quickly but then turn them off as they are approaching the target. There are various reasons for this, but it's not unusual.
One common reason is not to scare the patient. Especially in cardiac cases, the realization that your life is in immediate danger can worsen the event. Having a lights-blaring-and-sirens-screaming ambulance show up might increase blood pressure. Likewise in responding to apparent mental health incidents, upsetting the patient may cause problems that could be avoided with a quieter approach.
Another common reason, equal and opposite, is that death isn't imminent. You need an ambulance ride, but it doesn't need to go screaming down the highway. Many medical conditions need hospital attention without being quite so urgent, like broken hips. They definitely are unpleasant, and you're going to need surgery, but as long as there isn't internal hemorraging you aren't going to die in the next hour or two. There's plenty of time, so rather than risk lives by speeding down the highway ambulances will respond quietly and in an ordinary manner.
Police can use similar tactics to avoid exciting or escalating a situation -- again, mental health emergencies may often benefit from not roaring in with blazing lights and blaring sirens. Obviously search warrants may benefit from not alerting the people that you're coming while you are still two blocks away.
Even fire apparatus often responds quietly. Fire alarms are very often false alarms, so if there is no visible smoke or other indication of trouble they will frequently roll up to check the alarm on a non-emergency basis. That saves lives in traffic, and since so many of the alarms are false it just makes sense of the averages.
Locally our dispatchers will advise us to respond "on a routine basis" or "on an emergency basis." That lets the responders know whether lights and sirens are advised. Routine calls are, as the name suggests, routine.
2 comments:
Those aren't the only reasons for no-siren approaches, at least by ambulances. In Plano, ambulances often will not use sirens in the middle of the night in residential neighborhoods so they don't wake up the neighbors. Which is perfectly fine when they have reason to believe that, though they're seriously needed, the situation isn't immediately life or death.
Eric Hines
I didn't intend to suggest that as a comprehensive list of reasons you might not run a siren. As suggested, that is the "routine" response.
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