I always love the family members that follow the ambulance with the four way flashers on.  Especially when I am driving non-emergency.
But obviously it's worse when they think their 4-ways somehow are equivilant to red lights and sirens and proceed through intersections on a red light.

Well, this seems to be another case of stupid family members…

Mary Butler was driving in her car and worrying about her father, who was in the ambulance up ahead. She thought he had suffered a stroke, and he needed to be taken to Citrus Memorial Hospital right away.

But the ambulance, Butler thought, wasn't taking the most direct route. So she pulled beside the vehicle, honked her horn and tried to get the crew members' attention. She wanted them to slow down and roll down the window so she could offer help if they were lost in the maze of Citrus Springs.

The emergency medical workers didn't respond the way she wanted. They called law officers, who pulled Butler over and allowed the ambulance to proceed alone to the hospital.

That chain of events, which played out during the early morning hours, still has Butler upset. She is a former law enforcement officer and believes the emergency crew owes her family an apology.

Officials with Nature Coast Emergency Medical Services say they did everything by the book.

Butler said it all started when her father, Lawrence Nyegard, fell in his Crystal River home near Lake Rousseau. His children believed he was having a stroke.

Emergency medical workers went to the scene and determined the patient, age 80, was stable, according to Teresa Gorentz, executive director of Nature Coast. She was reading from a report that her agency had prepared about the incident.

When the crew arrived, Gorentz said, Butler was upset, yelling and telling the crew what to do. In turn, the crew tried to calm her and assure her that her father was being treated.

"Naturally, I was concerned," Butler said. But she explained she wasn't trying to interfere, just trying to help based on her observations of her father.

Butler requested that her father be taken to Citrus Memorial in Inverness, according to Gorentz. She "insisted" that the ambulance have its lights and sirens activated, Gorentz said.

That seems to be where the contention began.

The crew decided to drive without lights and sirens. Gorentz said the crew determined the patient was stable, and that going without lights and sirens would be safer for the patient and the crew. Gorentz said lights and sirens are used in cases when the patient is deemed unstable.

Butler said she understands. But her main issue was with the route the crew chose. She said they could have chosen a route that was more direct and included roads that have higher speed limits.

According to Gorentz, the ambulance departed for the hospital at 12:45 a.m. and arrived at 1:30 a.m., traveling 24 miles.

With her mother and sister, Butler followed the ambulance driving another car.

But the back roads Butler said the ambulance took were not the ones she had in mind. "I'm thinking (like a) deputy," Butler said. And she was thinking about her dad in the back.

Among other things, Butler said, the ambulance took a left on Citrus Springs Boulevard when she thought it should have gone right.

"I knew right then they were lost," Butler said.

She said she pulled up beside the ambulance, honking. She tried to get the crew's attention.

"I was just thinking, why are they doing this to my father?" Butler said.

But the emergency medical technician who was driving, Tom Dawiczkowski, saw Butler's actions another way. Butler drove very close to the ambulance, Gorentz said, at one point driving on a grassy median, flashing lights and yelling.

Dawiczkowski was concentrating and became very nervous of Butler's actions, Gorentz said. He called the Citrus County Sheriff's Office for assistance.

In Beverly Hills, a sheriff's deputy pulled Butler over. While the crew proceeded to the hospital (without incident or change in the patient), Butler said she explained to the deputy she was trying to get the ambulance out of Citrus Springs.

The deputy let her go, Butler said, but she never caught up with the ambulance. She said her husband, a slow driver who left after the ambulance did, beat it to the hospital.

At the hospital, it was determined that Butler's father had suffered a seizure, not a stroke as family members thought. He is okay, Butler said.

Also at the hospital, Butler complained to EMS officials about what she believed was a long route to the hospital and suggested other ways they could have gone, Gorentz said.

Gorentz said the driver "took the route he felt most appropriate."

The crew determines the safest route, she said, considering the number of stoplights and turns and the unsecured people traveling in the back.

Butler argued that the route the ambulance took involved more stops than others and questioned the comfort passengers experienced on what she described as a snake-like route of curvy roads.

Gorentz said it's unfortunate that Butler is upset. But as far as EMS is concerned, Gorentz said, the case is closed.

"The medic did the right thing," she said, "made the right call."

Butler said she knows there are a lot of responsible, competent emergency workers out there. Still, for this incident, she said she would like to see an apology to the family, something like, "We didn't mean any harm, and we know you didn't mean any harm, and we're going to try better next time."

Source: [1] EMSNetwork