I understand his claim, though, I've been forced to ride in ambulances when all I required was a transport and been left with ridiculous amounts of debt to pay.

Opportunistic bastard.

However, if you're involuntarily committed or in police custody, you lose that right.

Ambulance rides in Seattle cost a lot of money. Rides in any Seattle fire medic unit are free.

The fire department EMTs and paramedics cannot force you to do anything.

don't jump! call us & worsen your debt load instead!

cops are not in the wrong here.

Last time I went to the ER, I flagged a cab (which is really easy in my neighborhood). According to a friend that's an EMT, rides can run about $2,000 here.

Mind you, if I was a cop, I'd have done the same thing as they did.

If you call 911 they have to dispatch EMS which in Seattle involves the police, EMS and at least one fire truck. The fire truck comes in case doors need to be broken open to get to the victim and there are more of them so they are the first responders. After arrival, the EMS team evalutes the patient for acuity of need. If the patient has life-threatening condition or is very unstable he/she is transported via EMS. If EMS stablizes the patient or deems them stable at the scene they call in the aid car for transport. This system keeps the EMS teams more free to respond to multiple calls without bogging them down in routine patient transfer. Thus constituted the system is expensive to operate but of a such high quality Seattle is routinely used as the model for other cities wishing to improve their systems.

That said, there are very many people who abuse the system for a variety of reasons.

Dude is a fucking dick.

I hate frivolous lawsuits.

The Fire Department cannot force you to do anything. However, the police department can. The transport in the ambulance is called an "IVT" or InVoluntary Transport. This is used then the patient cannot be trusted to make judgements in their own best interests.

A good example of a person who might not be thinking clearly is one who walks to the Aurora Bridge and then uses the emergency phone to try to chat with someone about his student loans.

This is crap. Any time you say ANYTHING about self-harm to Emergency Services personel, you can expect to end up at a hospital. The idea is that field personnel do not have the training to evaluate the mental fitness of the individual in question. Should they, in fact, let someone go - someone who later kills themselves, they would be liable for that death.

What the hell were they supposed to do in this circumstance? Let the guy who used the suicide phone go free to wander around the Aurora Bridge some more to see if he came up with any better ideas?

Ambulances are expensive because no-one in this country has health insurance. Fewer than 30% of the people in Harborview's ER have any insurance at all. Just think about how much more expensive a burrito at Taco Del Mar would be if 70% of their customers walked out without paying - and then factor in the occassional customer who just randomly sues them for a few million. You'd probably end up with a pretty fucking expensive burrito.

This guy was an idiot, and on paper this is a classic cry for help. Debt is a classic trigger for suicidal ideation.

What the fuck ever.