The paramedics incident in Oslo (Norwegian: ambulansesaken) involved two paramedics and their ambulance being dispatched to Sofienberg park in Norways capital city on 6 August 2007. At the scene, the paramedics called their headquarters saying that it was a police matter, and in their opinion not a medical emergency. The paramedics left the scene, after police had contacted them and the subject of the dispatch (an apparent victim of being punched by a third party).
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The events
Ali Farah, a Somali Norwegian man, was apparently physically assaulted and hit in the head by a 23-year-old male from Ghana while he was having a picnic in the park with friends and family. Farah was knocked to the ground after asking the attacker and his friends to tone down what Farah perceived to be rowdy behaviour. After the attack Farah's friends called for an ambulance which arrived on the scene approximately 15 minutes later. However, the ambulance paramedic crew decided not to take Farah to the hospital on the grounds that he seemed to be intoxicated and urinated, with the urine hitting first the trouser leg of one of the paramedics and then the ambulance car. The paramedics requested that a police patrol that was present on the scene take Farah to the hospital. The ambulance left shortly thereafter, leaving Farah in the park. He was then transported in a taxi by his friends to a medical centre, where it was determined that the injury to his head was life-threatening. He was diagnosed with intracranial hemorrhage and had to be operated, after which he also developed meningitis. He had to spend some time in artificial coma, but eventually recovered.
The decision by the paramedics to leave Farah in the park led to a massive outcry when the story first broke in the Norwegian media and accusations of blatant racism were directed towards the paramedics by several politicians and leading figures, including Beate Gangås, the Norwegian Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud. The paramedics were eventually removed from active duty due to their handling of the case and they were also fined for failing to give proper duty of care to Farah. Several subsequent inquiries and a court found that the paramedics' actions, while "indefensible" and "unprofessional", could not be shown to be an act of racial discrimination.
Investigations
After several investigations into this matter, it has been shown that the way the media covered the event was wrong, and among others, Dagbladet.no has had to pay 1 million in restitution to Erik Schjenken. The legal actions against the paramedics have clearly shown they did not break any laws or act like racists.
The paramedics version of the events
The paramedics stated that they conducted a thorough medical examination of the victim when they first arrived on the scene and that they reached the conclusion that the victim wasn’t in need of urgent medical assistance. They also stated that the victim was standing up and walking around when they arrived and that he was not lying down on the ground like the pictures that were eventually published in the media showed. They also stated that the victim urinated on the ambulance and one of the paramedics and that this was the reason why they asked the police officers that were present on the scene to take Farah to the hospital. The paramedics interpreted Farah's erratic behaviour as a result of drug use and feared that he could become violent.
Ali Farah's version of events
Ali Farah and his friends state that the ambulance crew acted hostile towards them and that the paramedics did not perform a proper medical examination of the victim. They also considered the paramedics to be disrespectful towards Ali Farah owing to his ethnicity, and therefore also racists.
The media coverage of the event
The case was widely covered in Norwegian media and a heated national debate ensued. Most of the media articles focused on the failure of the paramedics to properly deal with the victim, and hence portrayed this incident as one of racial discrimination. The photograph that the media used to strengthen this claim showed an injured victim lying on the ground bleeding heavily from the nose. This picture clearly contradicted the paramedic's version of events in which they claimed that Farah was standing up when they left the scene.
Eventually a picture was published in the media that did support the paramedics' version in which Farah can be seen standing next to the ambulance as it is leaving the park.