My ambulance made headlines this month because someone left a note on the windscreen saying, “You may be saving lives, but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive”. A colleague tweeted a picture of it that went viral.

We noticed it after arriving at hospital with a patient in a critical condition. It had been our first job of the day and when we had pulled up outside the property, people were waiting outside to meet us. I could tell from the expression of one man that he was very concerned. We weren’t going to be at the scene for long. The patient was vomiting blood. I told my colleague to get a stretcher.

Tasha Starkey (@WMASTStarkey) Crew alerted an extremely poorly patient to hospital... minimal on scene time, arrived at hospital to find this note... this patient was TIME-CRITCAL. 😡😡😡 @OFFICIALWMAS pic.twitter.com/uGGAC2TUpI

We usually take a measured approach to parking but with an incident like this we want to know what is going on before looking for a parking space that could see us backtracking 200-300 metres. The road was double parked and, to be honest, I can’t remember if my crewmate had blocked the drive.

The note didn’t surprise me. I’ve seen it before. I was probably more surprised that someone hadn’t confronted us. It would be more common for people to knock on the door or approach us in person while we’re on a job. When you’re working as a solo responder in a car, that can be quite intimidating.

The tweet was covered by most of the UK national newspapers. It was the most read story on the BBC website for a while. It wasn’t long before the story escalated further. I was concerned about how quickly details of my patient’s condition were published. I’m not sure who disclosed that they were vomiting blood. I found it upsetting that some titles were quick to mention that they were in a rehabilitation facility but that they were clean at the time we attended and took them to hospital.

Does that matter? Does it make their life any less important? These details would have made the patient identifiable to some people – perhaps even some family members who didn’t know they were in rehabilitation.

I later found out via the media that my patient had died. I was only with them for 45 minutes, but they were conscious and I had talked to them. Many patients are unconscious or too poorly to communicate, so you expect the worst. This wasn’t like that. Normally I’d find out about a patient through a colleague or someone at the hospital.

All this information came out because of one tweet. I have mixed thoughts about social media. I think, in healthcare, we have to use it to our advantage to take opportunities to educate people about what we do, as well as for health promotion to big audiences. Nobody would take any notice if all we were doing was saying the symptoms of a stroke.

I think we’re navigating fine lines, however. My main concerns are around personal information that could make people identifiable when they don’t want to be. Even if people consent to images or details being shared – like a woman who has had a baby in the back of an ambulance – is it informed consent when someone is in a vulnerable position? Getting in an ambulance is a stressful incident for many, after all.

A couple of weeks later and I am still troubled. How did it get to the point where the national media was reporting personal details that would normally remain confidential and potentially amounted to intrusion into a family’s grief?

As paramedics, we have brief relationships with people at their most vulnerable: a short window where trust is gained and reassurance is given. I think of my patient’s family and their grief, which has been overshadowed by this social media storm. In 17 years of working for the ambulance service, there have been few cases that I have taken home with me, but this is one I cannot avoid.

This story made headlines, but I wonder if it’s helped anybody. Has it made people think twice before being confrontational with ambulance crews? Livingstone House, where we attended, is a charity. Has it had any donations? Has it been helped? I would like to think so, but probably not.

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