A paramedic from Leicester who was verbally abused by a frustrated driver while helping a patient has spoken out about the experience.
Paramedic Pavel Klim, based at Gorse Hill Ambulance Station, was verbally abused at the end of his 12 hour shift while attending a patient experiencing an emergency in St Matthews, Leicester on 26 April.
Pavel explained that when he and his crewmate arrived at the patient's address, they had no choice but to park and unfortunately block the road so that they could transport the patient safely from the house to the ambulance.
Pavel said: "While we were in the house doing our observations of the patient, we heard a car horn. We looked out the window and could see the driver was repeatedly beeping their horn at our ambulance.
“We needed to get the patient to hospital quickly so we began moving them outside, and the driver approached us and started shouting at us to move our vehicle.
“I apologised and explained that we would only be a few minutes and that the patient was our priority. But he started swearing at us, called me an idiot and was angry because he wanted to get past.
“Once we had the patient safely on board we moved the ambulance so that the driver could get past.
“It was a horrible experience - not just for us but for the patient as well. We come to work to help people, not to be abused. We have a zero tolerance approach to abuse and so it has been reported to Leicestershire Police and the EMAS security team for further investigation."
Pavel has only worked for EMAS for a year and was a paramedic in the Czech Republic for five years before joining us.
He said that he was never abused while at work until he came to the UK.
Richard Lyne, General Manager for Leicester, said: “Assaults on our staff are absolutely unacceptable and we take a zero tolerance approach towards anyone who verbally or physically assaults them.
“Our frontline colleagues, and the team in our control room, spend their days helping people and deserve to be treated with respect.
“Sometimes we will need to block driveways or roads so that we can access a patient experiencing a medical emergency. Please be patient with us, one day it could be you or your family member who needs our emergency help.”