There’ll be no more boots on ambulances at Dublin’s airport, after one disabled an ambulance that was waiting to transport a seriously injured man to the hospital.
In Ireland it’s called a clamp, and police at Dublin International Airport use them to enforce a no-parking rule outside the arrivals entrance.
In this case, the ambulance got the clamp even though it was parked in a section reserved for emergency vehicles.
To add insult to injury, the paramedics had to withdraw money from their own bank accounts to pay the fine because police wouldn’t accept the ambulance company’s credit card.
A spokeswoman for Dublin Airport Authority says the incident was “deeply regrettable.”
She says police clamped the vehicle because it had been in the emergency area for 30 minutes, when the area is supposed to be used only in “life or death cases.”