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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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4:46pm on Monday, 28th February, 2011:

Delayed by Red Tape

Miscellaneous

I'm on a tube train to Brunel University as I type this. There's a training day for external examiners starting at 10:30am, and I suspect I'm going to be late.

The reason I'm going to be late is because the train to London I came in on had to make an unscheduled 40-minute stop at Brentwood because a passenger was taken ill. OK, well if I were taken ill on a train, I'd want it to stop, too, I've no complaints there. However, what happens in these circumstances is that paramedics arrive at the station and treat sick the passenger on the train. According to my wife, who is a seasoned veteran of train rides to London (she commutes), this always happens when someone falls ill; it's apparently the responsibility of the train operator, not the station operator, to deal with medical emergencies. This means 12 carriages full of people have to wait while the paramedics deal with the problem on the train instead of on the platform. Women have given birth on trains when there's a waiting room right there at the station.

This doesn't happen on flights. Sick passengers are removed once the plan has landed. Why does it have to happen on trains?


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Copyright © 2011 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).