Emergency lights and sirens on ambulances may do more harm than good
Ambulances respond to calls with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. That may be doing more harm than good.
Jonathan Studnek knows some people imagine that driving an ambulance at high speed with lights flashing and sirens wailing — racing through messily parted traffic to the scene of a crisis — is the best part of being an emergency medic.
For him, that couldn’t be further from the truth. “If you’ve been in the industry for any length, you know innately: When you’re in the front of an ambulance and the lights are on, that’s the most dangerous situation for you,” said Studnek, deputy director of Mecklenburg EMS Agency, which serves the Charlotte, N.C., region. “It’s not fun. It’s risky.”
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