Pretending to pass out to get home: Emergency services (Picture: REX)

Drunken revellers are trying to use emergency services to get lifts closer to home and are calling it ‘getting a Bluber’.

Ambulance, fire and police services are clamping down on nuisance call-outs and will fine anyone they can prove is making up stories or symptoms to get to hospitals or police stations closer to home.

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One disgusted Birmingham night-clubber saw an acquaintance take ‘a Bluber’ – so called because it is like taking a free Uber with blue lights.

He said: ‘He had been drinking with us for free all night and was obviously skint. I knew he had no money for a taxi home and then suddenly he was on the floor outside the club lying on his back.




‘I watched as someone felt sorry for him and called an ambulance and he was taken away but I was thinking something does not seem right.’

He added: ‘I phoned him a few days after and he said he’d ‘got a Bluber’ because he lives near City Hospital. He just had to sit through a quick check-up and then walked home. I could not believe the cheek of it. He reckons him, his house mates and students on the same road are always doing it.’

A source who declined to be named who has ordered a ‘Bluber’ on multiple occasions told Metro.co.uk: ‘A student on my road told me he did it at Christmas, and I`ve done it a few times since when I am stuck in town without any money.

One advantage of a ‘Bluber’ is that it never gets stuck in traffic – but you could be endangering the lives of many people truly in need (Picture: Getty)

The Birmingham office worker, who is in his late 20s, added: ‘It is always best if someone else rings the ambulance for you.’

However, not only could using the emergency services as a ‘Bluber’ seriously endanger the lives of those more in need, it comes attached with a high risk of getting caught.

For those who recklessly take the chance anyway, the system does not always work.

He added: ‘One of the students did it and got taken to Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield which is about ten miles away so it is not foolproof.

‘I got beaten up trying to do a runner from a taxi last year so I will not do that again but if I am in a fix I will get a Bluber.’

‘I pay my taxes so I don’t see why I can’t use ambulances as taxis, I won’t always live next to a hospital.’

Don’t do it. Don’t think you can call a ‘Bluber’ to get closer to home (Picture: Getty Images)

West Midlands Ambulance Service, which has the fastest response times in the country, run sophisticated computer models to ensure efficient use of its ambulances and takes a very dim view of people who use them when they do not need to.

A spokesman said: ‘The inappropriate use of the 999 system can have a profound effect on the ability of ambulance service to get to patients in a timely manner.’

Two weeks ago Bedworth firemen shamed a drunken man who called 999 for a ‘Bluber’ because he had no money and could not get home from a night out in Birmingham.

The Bedworth Fire Station’s Facebook page post stated: ‘Our fire control received a call from an intoxicated male who wanted our crews to take him home because he wanted to go to bed.

Drunk people are a drain on resources in ambulance services across the country (Picture: Getty)

‘Please think before you phone our control staff requesting a taxi. Total misuse of our resources.’



Unbelievably the drunkard had phoned the ambulance and police before phoning the fire service.

A Warwickshire County Council spokesman said: ‘The caller had already contacted the police and the ambulance service with the same request. He explained that he had no money for a taxi home and asked if the fire service could give him a lift back.

‘Fire Control advised him to contact a family member or a friend and explained that this was not what the fire service was there for.’

Earlier this year Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service announced people who made call-outs that waste time will be fined £266 plus VAT after claiming such calls cost tax payers £500,000 in two years.

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