Heart-attack victim in ambulance stopped at U.S.-Canada border

Two things here:

First, the U.S. border guard was far too overzealous, or stupid. Either that or he never got a call that an ambulance was on the way. Common sense would do a lot of good.

Second, Windsor is not a small city. No hospital there can perform an angioplasty? And here I thought Canada had the world's most perfect health-care system -- so perfect the U.S. is its safety valve.

http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=8639f88d-394a-4462-b261-d43c9dcf8c5f&k=82041

 

Second story of this kind.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=ffbb028c-9b13-4ef4-9dec-1fa41bcab425&k=45302

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=59f09d51-b6ae-48cb-b9cb-b65c25144af1&k=45226

 

It seems like a pre-emptive phone call would solve a lot of this.

 

Guess Lyman missed this thread on the other bit of idiocy by the US Border folks as HB pointed out

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/49495/

Oh, Lyman, just in case you think I'm being "anti-American", border officers are equal opportunity idiots on both sides of the border.

 

I've dealt with idiots coming and going.

 

Tell me about. Damn fools deported me from Canada in '92.

 

Why, if I may ask (and if you want to answer)?

 

Forgot my ID. It's a long story. I think I've posted it on SJ before. If not, I need to. It was the dumbest day of my life.

I think Z-Man should post it. He was there for the whole thing.

 

i once got into canada using a classmate's ASB card, and i didn't look a damned thing like him, either.

 

The situation described in the Montreal newspaper with the firefighters was right next door up here. The way the border is run here is a joke - they do all sorts of "show of force" searches in which they don't really search at all, but make sure that what could and should take 30 seconds to do takes 5-6 minutes, which in a matter of minutes insures backups of hours. It has nothing to do with security, but a periodic, vindictive little spat between US and Canadian officials - if you delay us, we delay you, and vice versa - that has ZERO to do with security. And meanwhile Border Patrol drives around in brand new SUV's - all of which just got new paint jobs, for some reason - and sit on the side of the road drinking coffee, watching the grass grow and occasionally harassing locals so they can justify their salary - the son of a friend moved away after being stopped for like the sixth time in six months. And in the meantime all the little volunteer fire departments have brand spanking new special equipment courtesy of DHS that sits in the town barn.

 

Yes, the border agent was an ass.

And, of course, because one person had to go elsewhere for a heart procedure, an entire country's health-care system sucks. (After all, having to be transported from one facility to another never happens in America.)

Maybe the closest option was across the border.

My God, Canada must be the safety valve for the U.S. fire-department system.

 

I just found it odd that hospitals in my town, which is smaller than Windsor, can perform heart transplants, but performing an angioplasty in Windsor is impossible. The closest domestic hospital for that was in London, two hours away.