Ambulance bill comes as shock

[five_alarm]

WINNIPEG, MB - Kiran Singh couldn't believe an ambulance ride would cost her family $1,080. "We never thought if you had a real emergency you would have to pay for it," she said. The 24-year-old mother, her husband Raj and their two daughters, age one and two, were asleep last Feb. 10 when their carbon monoxide detector began to beep a little after midnight. She called the police non-emergency line and the dispatcher sent the fire department. Firefighters detected high levels of the gas from an incorrectly installed furnace cover. They ordered the family out of their Tyndall Park home and called an ambulance, Singh said. "I thought I'd have enough time to get a bottle of milk but the fire department told us to get out," she said. Paramedics told them they should go to the hospital as a precaution. Singh told paramedics her husband could drive. "They told us it would be better if we went with them because we would be seen sooner," she said. Despite feeling healthy, the family agreed to go. The paramedics didn't mention the price of the ambulance ride.

Source: Winnipeg Sun (http://www.firehall.com/refer.php?url=http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/08/04/568231.html&linkid=828&parent=news(headlines)&)