GPS Article & Question for Emergency Response Personnel

[Ben]

See the below article. For both our UK and US folks in the know -- is it actually "policy" to follow the route computed by your vehicle's nav system when responding to a call? I recognize that the events here are way over the top, but I can certainly see where a nav system route could delay responses by 5-10 minutes on a fairly regular basis.

I have a car GPS and I love it, but I certainly know it's limitations. It's great for getting me exactly to places that I am unfamiliar with.  I know though, from experience in places I AM familiar with, that it almost never takes me by the fastest "local knowledge" route, even when I have it set for "fastest route." If this story is accurate, I wonder if there's something having to do with insurance, lawsuits, etc. that would keep an emergency vehicle driver from "overriding" the decision of his nav system?

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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17083173%26method=full%26siteid=66633%26headline=satnav%2dordeal%2dof%2dambulance%2dgirl%2d%2d10-name_page.html

16 May 2006
SATNAV ORDEAL OF AMBULANCE GIRL, 10
Crew took 2 hours for 10-min journey
By Karen Bale

AN AMBULANCE took almost two hours to get an injured girl to a hospital which was just a 10-minute drive away.

Ten-year-old Chloe Banks kept asking her distraught mum, "Am I going to die?" as she lay in the road vomiting and bleeding after being hit by a car outside a skate park.

Paramedics were at the scene of the accident within six minutes.

But the youngster then lay for another hour for an ambulance to arrive to take her to hospital after the satellite-navigation system sent it to the wrong street.

Even when Chloe was eventually picked up, the on-board system again failed. The journey back lasted 40 minutes.

It took Chloe and her mum Maggie Banks, 39, from the accident scene near their home in Greenside, Gateshead, through the rural villages of Rowlands Gill, High Spen and Chopwell instead of the direct route along the A695 road to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

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Mum-of-three Maggie, 39, said: "We had to wait for almost an hour for the ambulance to come.

"I thought we would go then straight to hospital but they went round Rowlands Gill and Swalwell.

"We told them it was not the quickest way. The driver was really apologetic but he said he had to go by the satellite navigation system."

North-East Ambulance Service said it would examine whether there was a problem with the satnav.

There was no ambulance crew in Gateshead to take her to hospital.

But a crew from Sunderland became available at 1.54pm after dropping a patient in Newcastle.

The crew was delayed when the satnav system guided them to a narrow road in nearby Ryton, which they were unable to negotiate, forcing them to be manually guided by A&E control - eventually arriving at the scene at 2.26pm.

The North East Ambulance Service in England apologised to the family for the incident on April 21.

North-East Ambulance service's Patient and Public Involvement Forum chairman Michael Dalton said he would monitor the use of satnav systems in ambulances.

He added: "Satellite navigation can be very effective when it is used correctly and with local knowledge. It should not be relied on by itself."

[Tallpine]

I think we are reaching the Post Intelligence Era, where no one either makes the effort or is allowed to think for themselves.

Our rural VFD recently got GPS units for each truck, and while they could be useful in some circumstances such as directing aerial retardant drops, there is still no substitute for simply knowing the territory that you are responsible for responding to emergencies.

[Fly320s]

Agreed, Tallpine.

As machines become smarter, and approach intelligence, people become dumb.

[Guest]

But a crew from Sunderland became available at 1.54pm after dropping a patient in Newcastle.

The crew was delayed when the satnav system guided them to a narrow road in nearby Ryton, which they were unable to negotiate, forcing them to be manually guided by A&E control - eventually arriving at the scene at 2.26pm.

Thats 30 minutes despite the assertation from the mother that: "We had to wait for almost an hour for the ambulance to come.

The journey back lasted 40 minutes.

For a grand total of 70 minutes

Crew took 2 hours for 10-min journey

When it become OK for an aticle to start off with a bald faced lie? 70 minutes does not equal 2 hours. Maybe the total time from call to arrival was 2 hours, but thats not what the article says.

I think people need to remember that the girl was treated by the EMS system within 6 minutes. The ambulance company provides transportation for NON emergent patients. The girl was not placed at any significant risk due to this. If her transportation to the hospital was life threatening then the paramedics would have taken her. Is it fun to wait "nearly an hour" for an ambulance? No, it isnt. Does it happen? yeah, all the time.

[jefnvk]

Another thing I noticed, it was the mother trying to provide directions.  If I were the driver, I would not be so quick to take advice from someond I didn't know riding in the backseat.

[Tallpine]

A year or so back, my wife's uncle and aunt came to visit us.  I gave him explicit directions how to get to our place, including landmarks like: "be sure to take the right hand fork of the road at the top of the long hill that comes right after you cross the river."

But, no  - he had one of those new navigation systems on his new car, and of course he tried to take a better route.  Yeah, there is such a road as shown on the computer map, but it doesn't go all the way through because the landowners on each side have mutually agreed to close it to through traffic (it's a private road, and only exists to access parcels of private property).

Can you imaging if a damn ambulance tried to pull that stunt ?  

[Guest]

Dunno bout the hi-tech stuff, but a few yrs ago, before GPS was common, I rode ALS backup to a vol squad running Code 3 (lights & siren) via the interstate to hosp. When we got there my partner was having a smoke and a coke in our truck. He'd stopped for the Coke and obeyed traffic signals enroute, came in "the old road".

Bob