Coach claims home team's ambulance refused to take his player to hospital following injury
The coach of a junior hockey team in Russia is upset over what he feels was the shoddy treatment of his player by the home team's ambulance during a game. Vladimir Potapov is the bench boss for Ufa Tolfar of the MHL, which serves as the junior affiliate of the KHL's Ufa Salavat Yulaev. He told the KHL team's website that defenceman Dmitry Tabatadze was injured, but was refused a trip to the hospital by the ambulance team of the Siberia Snipers. What was worse, was the reason he was given: it's quitting time.
I would like to draw attention to the situation that happened! Our defender Dmitry Tabatadze was injured, but his condition is unknown yet, because the home team's ambulance team refused to take our player to the hospital for a diagnosis, citing expired pay time. This is the first time we encountered such an attitude. We need the league to pay attention to this! At the moment, the player is under observation by Tolpar's doctor, the city medics were summoned, we are waiting for the results. - Vladimir Potapov, Sport24.ru
According to our team doctor, the ambulance service said they had an hourly rate. And it was running out. That is, it wasn't over yet, there was 15 minutes left. But it was out of their time frame and they wouldn't take the boy anywhere. Our doctor called a city ambulance. We just got off the phone, the internal organs were examined. We`re waiting for the results, but a rib fracture is suspected.
Our player blocked the puck, it hit the abdomen. The referee stopped the game because the boy was left lying on the ice. The doctor came out on the ice, he took the player to the bench. There were signs of bleeding from the mouth. It was only later revealed that he bit his lip in pain when the puck hit his stomach. - Vladimir Popatov, Sport-Express.ru
Our player blocked the puck, it hit the abdomen. The referee stopped the game because the boy was left lying on the ice. The doctor came out on the ice, he took the player to the bench. There were signs of bleeding from the mouth. It was only later revealed that he bit his lip in pain when the puck hit his stomach. - Vladimir Popatov, Sport-Express.ru
If what he's saying is the way everything actually went down, I don't ever recall hearing of a similar situation from the world of hockey. There was one recently where there was no ambulance available to pick up an injured player in B.C., but nothing even close to flat out refusal to do it because it would have involved going outside of regular work hours. Media outlets aren't making it clear whether the "ambulance team" consisted of actual trained paramedics, or whether these were simply people appointed to drive the vehicle should it be needed. Either way, it's not the best practice for anyone involved in healthcare field.
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