Today’s question relates to calling an ambulance to a sporting field.
How would a sporting association stand if the strictly informed their members at sports fields that only the club/control room could call an ambulance, and as a result there was a significant delay in phoning triple zero for an unconscious player. I am referring to recreational Saturday afternoon sport but think of the poor outcome with the professional cricketer a few years back and alleged delay/confusion in calling triple zero.
The association is obviously trying to reduce frivolous calls for sprained ankles but some members are concerned of ramifications of this ruling. It is on public sporting fields.
A ‘sporting association’ that says ‘only the club/control room could call an ambulance’ is overreaching itself, because it’s clearly not true. Anyone with a phone can call an ambulance and what’s the sporting association going to do if someone does call the ambulance?
One might expect that the club has an emergency plan, which says something like ‘In the event of an emergency, call the onsite first aid people and they will call an ambulance if required’ or some such thing. There is value in making sure there is coordination and for example that grounds people know that there’s been an injury and that an ambulance is expected in order to clear the way, stop games if necessary and take other action. The control room wants to know what’s going on so it does make sense to say ‘we’ll call an ambulance’ but, at the end of the day, they can’t stop anyone calling an ambulance if they think they should.
As for ‘delay/confusion’ there can be both if people aren’t sure if an ambulance has been called or there are multiple calls for the same injury (though hopefully a modern ambulance service can cope with and identify duplication).
The question was ‘How would a sporting association stand …’ I suppose the question is would they be liable if there was some delay. I suppose the argument could be made if a person did follow the emergency plan and it wasn’t acted on in the control room. Imagine a person has collapsed, someone starts CPR and in accordance with the direction, someone else runs to the control room and asks them to call an ambulance and they simply fail to do so, but no-one else rings triple zero because they think that’s been attended to. That would certainly look ‘bad’ and if it could be proved that the delay made the outcome worse there could be some liability.
But assuming people aren’t idiots, it does make sense to ask for calls to be made from a single point so that the arrival of the ambulance, as well as safety on the field, can be managed and coordinated. Having an ambulance turn up at a gate that is locked because the people with the key didn’t know it was coming is not effective. So the edict seems quite reasonable but having issued it, there has to be procedures in place to make sure it is effective, that is that someone does call triple zero or dispatch the on field medics, and the person with the key does unlock the gate.
But at the end of the day, anyone with a phone can call triple zero if they think they need to.
Australian Emergency Law 
As an ambulance 000 call taker and dispatcher … Someone physically close to the patient is the best one to call as they know age, exactly what happened, if patient is alert, breathing normally. We can also give immediate first aid including CPR instructions to someone right beside the patient. Depending on the patent condition we also stay online to monitor the patient and give instructions till ambulance arrives.
We also instruct someone to wait in car park or meet the ambulance at the road etc as well as gather directions to the patent which go down to the MDT. So the chances of meeting a locked gate etc are slim.
Always call from a mobile phone from directly beside the patient of that is at all possible!
Duplicate calls are also managed looking at address, patient age, sex and injuries. If in doubt a call back to both calls can be made by the dispatcher to obtain a patient name if there is any doubt. The CAD system allows multiple calls to one incident be merged, combining all the notes together into one job for the ambulance, so all the information gained from multiple callers is retained.
Are you asking as an official of the sporting association,
or as a representative of one of the clubs in the association,
or as an individual participant (such as a player, or perhaps the parent of a player)?
The reason I ask is that your reasons for asking may be different.
For example, club or association officials may be acting out of fear fear of litigation, or because of some condition attached to the use of the fields, or even in an effort to comply with their obligations as a PCBU (in the WHS sense).
By comparison, a player’s parent may be more concerned with the welfare of the individual, and care nothing for the things that drive officials.
The enthusiasm with which sporting bodies exceed themselves can at times be astonishing – especially when ill-informed individual officials get all foot-stampy about always being right, or when having their petty power challenged.
This can be especially true of amateur bodies, with honorary officials, who are not always well trained as to their responsibilities and scope of authority, and are not always as carefully selected for their roles as one might wish.
Let’s be clear – there is nothing in the law (even in the quasi-contractual relationship between a sport(s club) and its players/members) that could prevent somebody from calling an ambulance at any time they felt it would be helpful.
That there may be First Aid providers, or “a physio” or somesuch, or even a doctor available at “the event”, is irrelevant.
As a general thing, a person is not obliged to accept one kind of health care ahead of any other, and cannot be made to.
Also a sporting association that has a large complex – such as multiple outdoor ovals, stands and indoor courts can contact their state ambulance to have a first responder plan put in place. If a call comes from a destination that has this in place (like many shopping centers), the ambulance can contact the first responders to get them to respond plus this arrangement normally has designated access points/contact info that can go down the CAD.
Certainly.
However, this is not always and automatically a free service.
Cost can be a factor for some clubs, associations, event operators etc.