Ambulance crews busy as heavy snow covers region (From Watford Observer)

Ambulance crews busy as heavy snow covers region

2:45pm Monday 6th February 2012 in News By Mike Wright

The cold snap that brought thick snowfall across south west Hertfordshire this weekend has seen a steep rise in calls to the area’s ambulance service.

The East of England Ambulance Service, which covers Hertfordshire as well as Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, took 3,700 calls between 11pm on Saturday, when snow started to hit the region, and 9am this morning. The trust said this represented a rise of 23 per cent on the first weekend in February last year and 19 per cent up on last weekend.

The number of car accidents requiring help from paramedics also shot up sharply with the trust being called out to 65 across the six counties - 48 more than last weekend.

However the number of patients needing hospital treatment was significantly fewer.

Alan Murray, the trust’s director of operations, said: "It has been an incredibly busy weekend and our staff and volunteers have worked exceptionally hard to make sure patients got the care they needed.

"We have had control room, frontline and support staff making their way into work in treacherous conditions, community first responders going out despite heavy snow and ice and our Rover Rescue 4x4 team has been invaluable in helping us get to particularly difficult locations.

"But we continue to warn people to take care of themselves while out driving. Road conditions are potentially more dangerous now with black ice replacing snow so please drive carefully and only do so if you need to. We want to keep this weekend’s low number of hospital admissions that way."