INTERNATIONAL ORGAN DONATION AWARENESS - UNITED KINGDOM

LIFE-SAVING AMBULANCE RUN BRINGS SPEEDING TICKET

A MAN WHO DRIVES A SPECIALTY AMBULANCE that delivers live human organs for transplant, and similar transports, is facing the possibility of losing his driver’s license and job in Cambridgeshire, England, after a traffic camera caught him speeding on July 7.

Paul Bex, 51, drives the emergency cars for a private firm that has a license to run blue lights and siren the same as any other emergency vehicle whenever they are transporting a live organ that has a limited time available for use.  On the day of the violation he was given a freshly-harvested liver and told that he had only three hours to get it to a hospital in the northeast part of the country.  The speed camera clocked him at 112 mph on a freeway.

The prosecutor in the jurisdiction of offense is reaching back to a law written in 1946 that describes an ambulance as “a vehicle constructed or adapted for the purpose of conveying sick, injured or disabled persons.”  As you can tell from the photo below, this vehicle is not designed for litter patient transport.

Mr. Bex displays his summons in front of his organ ambulance.

The Daily Mail continues:

And despite an appeal by his employer, Lifeline Medical Transport Service, the main service provider for GP collection services for Addenbrooke’s, Mr Bex, of Duxford, Cambridgeshire, will have to appear in court.  Anyone caught speeding in excess of 100 miles per hour faces a 12-month ban.

Mr Bex, who has been driving for more than 30 years, said: ‘I was doing my job safely and as quickly as possible. Now I find out I could lose my licence.  It was on the A1, a dual carriageway. The conditions were dry, clear and safe.  I have been trained in the same way that the police are trained. I have to take care of myself and the organ and other people on the road.  The worst outcome is I could lose my licence, which means I will not be able to work.’

Don Williams, president of the British Ambulance Association, also told the Daily Mail:

‘If he [Mr Bex] was driving an ambulance and taking a patient for a transplant, he could exceed the speed limit.’  He said the law defining an ambulance is ‘nonsense’ and puts drivers in a ‘double jeopardy’ situation.

He said: ‘If a senior surgeon hands me an organ and says the situation is time-critical, I owe a duty of care to the patient, the surgeon and the relatives of the person who donated the organ.  If I fail to deliver it on time, I am in breach of everything I stand for. The alternative is I get done for speeding.’

No court date has been set yet.