Mouldy tomato causes 999 call
STAR TELLS OF CLOSE CALLS
PEOPLE dialled emergency number 999 because they had eaten a mouldy tomato or had a paper cut.
Others rang after getting their plaster cast wet or to ask for a lift to hospital after getting an earring lodged inside their ear.
Almost a quarter of the 470,653 calls to the Welsh Ambulance Service in the past year were non-essential, it has been revealed.
One caller had diarrhoea and another wanted to ask about their medication.
Chief executive Jason Killens said: “Our ambulance service exists to help people who are seriously ill or injured, or where there is an immediate threat to their life.
“That’s people who’ve stopped breathing, people with chest pain or breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness, choking, severe allergic reactions, catastrophic bleeding or someone who is having a stroke.
“Time spent dealing with non-essential calls could be time spent helping someone in a life-ordeath situation.”
SURVIVAL expert Bear Grylls reckons he’s cheated death at least 21 times.
The telly adventurer fears he is running out of lives after so many scrapes in the wild.
Bear, 47, said: “I can count a solid 21 times I should’ve died during the early episodes of our TV shows.
“Not a number I’m proud of, but in the early days we didn’t know any better.
“Bitten by snakes, falling down crevasses, pinned in rapids, avalanches, rockfalls, that time in the Costa Rican jungle I thought it was a good idea to use a vine to rappel down a 100ft waterfall. That vine wasn’t as strong as I’d anticipated! It all taught me the simple lesson: don’t be an idiot and always be grateful for life.”
Bear also admitted in his new book Never Give Up that he knows time is not on his side as he nears 50.
He added: “One factor becoming ever clearer is that, however good we try and make our TV shows, they will always be limited in the number of episodes we can produce and the ever-increasing odds in terms of danger.
“I will get older and the odds of injury will increase.”