Firefighters responding to calls get flipped the bird, yelled at, and sometimes hit by angry drivers

firefighters tell us every time they respond to help you they really put their lives on the line near misses like this one right there yeah becoming far too common nowadays well tonight ABC Action News reporter Michael paloa shows us what you can do to avoid becoming a statistic it's aggravating so if it's grid loock for you definitely gridlock for us too oh yeah we get shot at the bird quite a few times Sirens BL ing horns honking engine 48 barrels to an afternoon call many turn out to be false alarms but they won't know until they get there if they get there and every second counts if I've got a a drowning I'm going to want to get that out as fast as I can Kevin Bowden affectionately referred to as Biff slows down or even stops at green lights that's aggravating um but there's really not much you can do you just have to be prepared for them to get in your way you got to be prepared to get out of their way Clearwater Police released this video of a car running a red light nearly hitting a rescue vehicle something firefighter paramedic Casey Matt sees too often there's been times multiple times where care is delayed because of our response time being delayed due to traffic Matt's rides the box as they call it rescue runs on more calls than the trucks or engines they'll look at us like we're the bad guys and you know throw their arms up at us arms up like this woman trying to drive through an accident where a woman woman was seriously injured so running into a call now the thing that stresses them out the most is just getting there especially with traffic the way it's been here in clear waterer today according to government statistics in the past 10 years there's been more than 31,000 accidents involving fire vehicles 49 of those accidents killed at least one firefighter Nationwide since 2006 76 firefighters died while responding to a call last year year a Hillsboro County fir truck was hit head-on by a driver that crossed the center lane he died they weren't injured the next time that you hear that sound just use your head stay calm stop let us go around you so everyone can make it home safely in Clearwater pelis County Michael Pusa ABC Action News

Channel: ABC Action News

Views: 2,851,576

Keywords: distributable, Firefighters, responding, calls, get, flipped, bird, yelled, sometimes, hit, angry, drivers, video, shows, rescue, unit, nearly, T-boned, car, motorist, Clearwater, Florida

Id: 8lC6Z92t_gI

Length: 2min 21sec (141 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 13 2016