Ambulance Abuse By “Super Users” In Fresno County Is Down 178 Percent – Here’s Why

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When you call 9-1-1, you expect an ambulance to come and quickly. But in Fresno County, health officials say a relatively small number of people had been making that difficult, so-called ambulance “super users.” These are people who call for an ambulance ride frequently, sometimes hundreds of times a year, in non-emergency situations. Now five years into a project to reduce the burden of “super users” on the system, the numbers show the effort is working. When the scanner crackles and a call goes out for an ambulance, the paramedics and EMTs who are headed to the scene are usually given an address. But American Ambulance paramedic Derek Ratzel says some addresses are so familiar to their crews, there is no need for GPS. “We know those addresses off by heart, most of us do, or the street corner that they happen to be calling from. But we get an address and it’s like ‘yep. Been there before’. Happens all the time,” Ratzel says. The addresses are so familiar because Ratzel says they’re
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