At the risk of seeming insensitive, I will describe what happened today. My son met a friend to bike downtown. The friend had a friend along. The kids were biking at their normal pace when my son looked back to see the friend's friend had fallen way back. So, they went back to him where he was not feeling well. After talking to him about him feeling light-headed, this boy starts to faint. My son and his friend kept him from falling hard as they grabbed him.

A police car drove past before my son or the friend had a chance to call 911. By the time the police officer got out of the car, the boy was coherent. Yet, by the end of the whole thing, another police car showed up shortly before the ambulance AND a fire truck did.

My son said the officer radioed for the ambulance, which makes total sense. But WHY does a fire truck and another squad car show up?

And I am curious if the parents will be billed for this. According to my son, he thinks the boy did faint as they were holding him up, then letting him slowly fall down...which would have been ten seconds or less.

I am not one to make light of any situation, but I think the second squad and the fire truck were total overkill. And again, hope his parents are not billed.

Two police cars and a FIRE TRUCK? Are you kidding? What the hell kind of service is that? Just because somebody faints; the cops don't even like coming out here when somebody dies, they want us to prove over the phone that somebody's croaked before they can be bothered to come out to make the report.

Yeah, isn't it crazy? I truly don't justify fire truck in fender benders but I guess that is a precaution. But if an ambulance has EMTs, I have no clue why a fire truck is on site. As it seems totally unbelievable, I can swear my son was not embellishing as my friend is the first parent on site and saw the whole thing....one officer per squad car, three from the ambulance and four from the fire truck. Lotta tax dollars at work and still not fair if the parents have to foot the bill.

Fair or not, I wouldn't be surprised if the parents get a bill. Especially in these economic times. More and more, I've heard stories of how towns are trying to charge extra for services that have always been covered by local taxes. You're probably lucky that your son didn't get a chance to call 911, Red, or they might try to bill you. But I'd still be proud of him.

Alan Smithee wrote:

Fair or not, I wouldn't be surprised if the parents get a bill. Especially in these economic times. More and more, I've heard stories of how towns are trying to charge extra for services that have always been covered by local taxes. You're probably lucky that your son didn't get a chance to call 911, Red, or they might try to bill you. But I'd still be proud of him.

Funny you say that, Al. A year or so ago, I did have a conversation with my son about what to do if someone gets a cut because he had an ER aficionado pal. I didn't want my boy to be careless, but he was still young enough to always be near me should injury occur and he had a friend with a cell who was not afraid to dial 911. The thought was in the back of my mind if my son used his emergency tracfone would we ever be responsible for a bill.

When I got hit by a car, I was just dazed with blood dripping outta my head. Someone musta called 911 because an EMT truck showed up. They just gave me a mini-physical to determine that nothing was broken and put a bandage on my head and said I should go get stitches.

Months later I get a call from the Miami Fire Dept. asking about paying. I told them I didn't call them. They never pressed it again. IDK, they may have gotten paid by the insurance of the driver who hit me.

You would think these things are covered by the taxpayers (me) who support public services. Of course they need extra money for the extra use, but had they not been there checking on me, they woulda been at the fire house still drawing their pay.

I called once for my wife who passed out and realize there was a charge for the trip to the hospital but our health insurance paid that.

Years ago I heard a story on the radio of about this poor woman who returned from her son's funeral to find a bill in the mail for the repair of the guardrail he struck in the car accident that killed him.

Usually, when they radio for an ambulance, the ambulance that comes is from the fire squad. Especially if that fire squad was the closet available ambulance that got the call. So it's not farfetched to have the fire truck come as well. And it was involving a child that fainted. It's all precaution. Better safe than sorry. Had something been seriously wrong with the boy, I doubt this would've raised any eyebrows. As far as the bill, the parents don't get billed unless the son was treated or taken to the hospital. They were supposed to come out and make sure he wasn't seriously ill. So the tax dollars pays for it.

There has been a story on the local news about a good samaritan in my city who was slightly injured rescuing someone else. Both people are doing fine but the samaritan got a $600 bill from an ambulance company he will have a problem paying because like so many he has been layed off work and has no medical insurance.

Adding insult to injury he probably didn't even need the ambulance he wasn't all that hurt. So maybe next time he may think about saving anyone because it could cost him.

What a crazy world we live in.