Yesterday, Friday 21st of November, there was an accident on the highway from Paphos to Limassol, in Cyprus. I was in the car with my father when we saw a car crashed in the middle of the street and someone lying on the ground. The 32-year-old man wasn’t wearing a seat belt and the police believe the cause of the accident was speeding. My father, a retired firefighter rushed to help. People were getting out of their cars and bringing clothes to cover the wounded while at the same time they were talking to him trying to keep him awake. Luckily for the man, a doctor on his way to Limassol stopped and hurried to help.

The nearest hospital is about 10km away. Someone had called for an ambulance before we got there, and 15 minutes later, the ambulance had still not arrived. The man, in agony, was barely breathing and could not keep his eyes open, so I called the hospital for a second time. Their response was “the ambulance can’t find you”, when in reality, we were impossible to miss, especially when a car is blocking the highway resulting in having so many stationary cars.

After a while came the police, who started moving the traffic and looking fpr anything that could help in revealing the man’s identity, and 25 minutes since I got there, there was still no sight of the ambulance. By the time I was making the third call to the hospital, I was terrified and very worried for the man. I could see him at a terrible state and the people around him were very angry about the delay. “He’s not going to make it…. The ambulance should have been here 20 minutes ago” was all I could hear. The lady on the phone replied with an annoyed tone that the ambulance was on the way and hung up. The doctor there decided to take action and called himself his acquaintances, informing that there should be a standby anesthesiologist and an operating room ready, since it was serious. The ambulance finally arrived 10 minutes later. It took them about 40 minutes to cover a distance a normal car at an average speed would have covered in 15 minutes.

At the moment, the man is in the hospital in a critical state, and many are wondering if the situation would still be the same if the ambulance had arrived earlier. I do not know what took them so long, and apparently nobody ever will, but the question of normal citizens remains; who can guarantee that the ambulance will be there for them on time in case of an accident??