Police are investigating an abusive note left on an ambulance in which an irate resident said they “couldn’t give a shit” if the whole street had collapsed.
The hand-written message was placed on an emergency vehicle in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, demanding that paramedics move on.
West Midlands Ambulance Service paramedic mentor Katie Tudor posted a picture of the note on Twitter, copying in Staffordshire Police’s main account.
The note read: “If this van is for anyone but Number 14 then you have no right to be parked here. I couldn’t give a shit if the whole street collasped (sic). Now move your van from outside my house.”
Tudor, who said the crew in question had also been verbally abused, used Twitter to draw the note to the attention of Staffordshire Police Chief Constable Gareth Morgan.
Copying the message to other senior officers, Tudor wrote: “Is there anything that can be done about this? It’s becoming a regular occurrence.”
Among a string of subsequent posts from Twitter users criticising the note-writer was one which said: “They probably had to write van because they were unable to spell ambulance.
“Hope they’re visited by @StaffsPolice and prosecuted.”
The commander of policing in Stoke-on-Trent North, CI John Owen, responded by saying it was looking into the “full details of the incident”, adding: “It’s important that those working to save lives feel safe in the course of their duty. I’m sure that’s the view of 99.99% of our population.”
The West Midlands Ambulance Service Hazardous Area Response Team also blasted the note.
The team’s official twitter page commented: “Unfortunately this appears to be acceptable behaviour in some small minded people’s minds these days #sadtimes.”