West Midlands Ambulance anger at holiday hoax calls
Emergency services received an average of four hoax calls a day for ambulances over the festive season, it was revealed today.
Stabbings, assaults, a car crash and a report of someone not breathing were just some of the examples of malicious calls made to the region's lifesavers.
Between Thursday, December 24 and Sunday, January 3, there were 40 cases highlighted as hoax calls to West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS).
Health bosses today warned of the dangers of hoax calls which they said only acted to put lives at risk.
Murray MacGregor, communications director for WMAS, said: "These calls waste valuable time and resources that could have been used to save lives."
He gave examples of some of the hoax calls to non-existent emergencies.
"There were a wide variety of cases such as stabbings, assaults, an RTC, someone having a diabetic episode and perhaps, the most sickening, a call to someone not breathing," he said.
"All 999 calls are received in good faith, so to receive hoax or inappropriate calls is disappointing.
It is extremely frustrating for our staff to have to deal with hoax calls when all they want to do is help patients in their hour of need.
"If our staff are tied up dealing with a hoax they are clearly not available to help a patient in genuine need."
In October alone, the service dealt with 70 hoax or inappropriate calls.
The calls came from across the region with one in Telford and another in Shrewsbury.
