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Man who left angry note for paramedics on ambulance says he is ‘disgusted with himself’

Hassan Shabbir says he is ‘deeply ashamed’ by his actions

Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith
Tuesday 14 November 2017 11:59 GMT
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The note was left on the ambulance's windscreen as paramedics attended to a dying patient
The note was left on the ambulance's windscreen as paramedics attended to a dying patient (Tasha Starkey)

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The man who left an angry note on an ambulance complaining that it was blocking his drive while paramedics tended to a critically ill man has said he is “disgusted with himself”.

Hassan Shabbir said he was "deeply ashamed" by the note which read: “You may be saving lives, but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive.”

He left it as paramedics from West Midlands Ambulance Service were attending to a man who was suffering from major internal bleeding and vomiting blood. The 42-year-old from Birmingham later died.

Mr Shabbir said that he was embarrassed by his actions even before he heard of the man's death.

“What I did is monstrous, but I am not a monster," the 27-year-old told MailOnline. "There is no justification for what I did."

Paramedics did not find the message until after they had taken the man to hospital, where he later died.

One of the crew, Tasha Starkey, tweeted a picture of the note with the message: “Crew alerted to an extremely poorly patient to hospital… minimal scene time, arrive at hospital to find this note… this patient was TIME-CRITICAL.”

Mr Hassan said he snapped on finding he was blocked by the ambulance because he had to get to an appointment.

He added that he had "a rush of blood to the head" when he scribbled the note down.

Apologising to the man’s family, he said he regretted his actions and suffering from a congenital condition himself, he had a lot of respect for the NHS, which he said had helped him a lot in his life.

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