A video showing two Milanese in their twenties feigning illness to travel from Coriano to Riccione in an ambulance went viral within hours.
“Guys, we got lost in the village, let’s solve the situation now.” This sentence opens a video posted on the TikTok profile of one of the boys, who has over 56,000 followers. Stuck in the industrial area of the municipality of Rimini and not knowing how to get to the Riviera, both of them are seized by a stroke of genius: why not call 118, feigning illness, in order to be able to give them a lift? No sooner said than done. One of the young people contacted the rescuers and said that his friend became ill during the walk, he collapsed to the ground and now lost consciousness on the bench. While barely holding back laughter. Shortly thereafter, the arrival of an ambulance, transport to the emergency room of the Ceccarini hospital, and a visit that would obviously rule out the possibility of illness. The main characters of the antics continue to shoot on their smartphone until the moment they leave the hospital, as if nothing had happened.
Within hours, the video uploaded to TikTok had over 50,000 views and about 8,000 likes. It may have been a stunt, which, however, cost both of them a complaint about the interruption of public service and alarmed the Romagna Ausl. This was explained by Maurizio Menarini, Chief Director of 118 Operations and Territorial Emergencies, who, while denouncing the episode, stressed that the operators followed the procedures correctly and punctually, following the information provided by the callers. “Shameful and in no way justified phenomena like the one described in the video,” continues Menarini, “should make us think even more about the need to protect the value of public health and to spread a civic culture that allows its most appropriate use.”
The video, which can still be seen on the social network, caused outrage among many users. And although most of the comments left are scolding, there is one who writes “Excellent!”