News flash...the Internet is not always correct. Have you ever tried to use Google maps or Mapquest to find a location, and it turns out to be incorrect? Google has been known to be wrong, as we all have. Let me tell you a little secret...don't use these sites if you are driving an ambulance in Williamson County, Texas. Especially if it is a life threatening situation. Use the old paper kind of map, you know, the one that you have to physically unfold, turn by hand, and actually read. Oh Hell, have a list of hospital addresses on hand if your job is to take an emergent case to a hospital. Stop using that newfangled GPS crap that is the not so latest craze. Why? I'll tell you why.
Today there was a story on the local Fox News station blaming Google for potentially causing a neighborhood to freak out, and perhaps deter someone from possibly needed immediate medical care. There is a hospital in Round Rock, Texas, there may be two, who knows, but I digress. Anyhoo...apparently Google had the wrong address given to them which brought about ambulances mistakenly driving through a neighborhood looking for that particular hospital. The residents panicked.
Yet, instead of calling the EMT headquarters they called the local Fox affiliate. If you have ever been to Williamson County, you would not be surprised. Fox was on the case. Residents were quoted. The one quote that stuck with me was, "I figured, somebody is going to die out here, on the, at the intersection here, looking for the dag-gone hospital." Fox e-mailed Google to let them know of their snafu. Google quickly updated their system to the correct address. Of course, the hospital had to put their two cents in after it was all said and done. "Ensuring accurate information on increasingly popular web based mapping services has become a priority for us. We have already taken steps to correct wrong addresses on the mapping services of Google and MapQuest." This administrator also recommended that the hospital site be referenced if in need of their address.
My advice you ask? Call a cab...they know the ins and outs of their city, they drive like bats out of Hell, and they are less expensive!
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Yeah, if your an EMT driving you shouldn't proactively know where all the hospitals are in your city....especially one as big as Round Rock.....I think they may have 4 or 5 major streets!!
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