It saddens me to read stories like this. Makes me so cross that people are so thoughtless and selfish. Just to give you an idea of how others treat the LAS - whilst I was doing my nurse training, a friend and I were both on shift over christmas. I decided to pop by her flat in out students block after work to share some festive cheer with her (and to share the depressing fact that 3 children has died that day!) I knocked on her door and she took a lot longer than ususal to answer. When she eventually did, she was a bit of a funny blueish colour and breathing rather fast. I wanted to call her an ambulance immediatly, but she refused, saying she has been like this all day AT WORK and no one had worried (!?! in a hospital for petes sake!) I persuaded her to let me call NHS Direct. They called back flippin quick becuase I mentioned those golden words...'difficulty in breathing.' they asked to talk to her, so I put her on the phone. She said 3 words, 'no, I'm fine.' They then asked to be handed back to me and said an ambulance was on its way. I managed to ger her downstairs to the ambulance. They took her in the back, checked her sats (98%) and heart rate (120bpm, so a bit tachy then!) and looked at her. Then one suggested that maybe she was just a bit tired and needed a good nights sleep. I got a bit uppity then, played the 'nurse' ace, and went to St Thomas' with her, where, within an hour, she was in HDU, on back to back adrenalin and salbutamol nebs, with a double pneumonia and pleuresy! Goes to show - Tom mentions in his book he has a relatively low threshold for blueing someone - these paramedics obviously had a much higher one!