KUANTAN: An ambulance captured on video travelling against the flow of traffic at the East Coast Expressway on Sunday was rushing to an accident site involving a motorcyclist.
Pahang Health department director Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar said initial investigations revealed that the ambulance driver, who was returning to Raub after transferring a patient to the Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Hospital (Hoshah) in Temerloh, spotted the accident some five kilometres before the Karak toll plaza but decided not to stop.
"However, after traveling for some distance, the driver and his assistants decided to make a U-turn and rendered help to the victim.
"Upon arriving at the scene, they picked up the victim before sending him for treatment at the nearby Bentong Hospital," he said, adding the ambulance was from the Raub Hospital.
Dr Zainal said the department will conduct an internal investigation to check if there was a breach of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) committed by the ambulance driver and the medical staff.
"In any circumstances, we have to help people and try to save lives. However, we have to comply to SOP in order not to endanger our own staff as well as the public, including preventing any mishap.
"To be fair to all parties, the Health Department will investigate the matter and if the ambulance driver had violated the law, then action will be taken. It will also help us to avoid similar cases from recurring," he said, adding the department will also look into claims in the social media that the ambulance driver did not turn on the emergency siren while travelilng on the fast lane.
The 28-second video of the incident, captured using a video recorder installed in the Facebook user's car, has gone viral on social media since it was uploaded about 1.30pm on Sunday.
The video showed several vehicles which were heading towards the Bentong toll plaza were forced to switch to the slow lane after noticing the oncoming ambulance.
As of 4pm yesterday, the video has already garnered almost 70,000 views on YouTube and Facebook, and was shared by 2,580 social media users.