Did an ambulance driver in New York have a heart attack and did the injured patient he was transporting have to drive himself to the hospital? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Spanish satire website and later translated (badly) for their English version.
The English version of the story appeared as an an article published by There Is News on December 14, 2018 titled "Ambulance driver had a heart attack, so the injured man inside had to drive" (archived here) which opened:
The event happens last Monday in New York City while an ambulance transported a man who had an accident with his moped. And then, suddenly, the injured person realized that the ambulance driver was complaining of a severe chest and left arm pain. He quickly moved towards the front of the ambulance to held the wheel and prevent an accident, "his second".
The Spanish original appeared in February 2018 and was set in Valencia instead of New York:
Sufre infarto llevando una ambulancia y el herido conduce hasta el Hospital
Los hechos sucedieron en Valencia el pasado lunes cuando durante el traslado en ambulancia al Hospital de la Fe de un hombre que había tenido un accidente con su ciclomotor, éste observó que el conductor de la ambulancia se aquejaba de fuerte dolor en pecho y brazo, pasando a la zona delantera de ambulancia teniendo que sujetar el volante y tirar de freno de mano para evitar una colisión, el segundo accidente para él.
The site There Is News carries a "Legal Warging" (archived here) that reads:
Legal Warging
The site "There is news" (http://thereisnews.es) (hereinafter referred to as TIN) is a humor site whose purpose is entertainment.
The content of TIN is fiction and does not correspond to reality.
All references, names, brands or institutions that appear on the site are used as contextual elements, as in any novel or fiction account.
(Note that the site thereisnews.es doesn't exist, only the .com version is live)
The site is the English language version of the Spanish satire site Hay Noticia, which is owned by Spanish humor website/collective La Fabrica de la Comedia S.C.
We wrote about thereisnews.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Man Did NOT Put 70 Fake Weed Plants on Terrace to Taunt Police
- Fake News: In Ghana You Do NOT Need To Dress Like Your Wedding Day To Get Divorced
- Fake News: Two Altar Boys NOT Arrested For Putting Weed In The Censer-Burner In Santiago de Compostela
- Fake News: Sperm Bank Nurse Did NOT Get Pregnant After Not Washing Hands Properly
- Fake News: Young Men Did NOT Rent Yacht, It Did NOT Sink By Excess Of Prostitutes
