Patient Grateful To Speedy Driver

LONDON, England --A man who received a life-saving organ transplant has vowed to pay any fines or legal expenses of an ambulance driver who was charged during a high-speed organ delivery.

"If it wasn't for the ambulance service I wouldn't be here," said kidney transplant recipient Steven Traylor.

Traylor, 44, made the offer to pay Ferguson's legal expenses Tuesday, saying that it was "the right thing to do."

Mike Ferguson -- a senior ambulance driver in Yorkshire, northern England -- could lose his license and job if found guilty.

He was charged with driving 104 miles per hour in a 70-mph zone while in an official vehicle with blue flashing lights, the Press Association reported. Ferguson was taking a liver for a transplant operation in Cambridge on January 16 when he was caught for speeding.

Traylor, who received a transplant five years ago, said he was "enraged" to hear of the ambulance driver's situation.

"I'm supporting the gentleman wholeheartedly," he told the PA. "I just find it pathetic. This gentleman should be supported by all the organ transplant patients."

Ferguson, 56, was due to appear Wednesday before magistrates in Grantham, Lincolnshire, although his lawyers have asked for an adjournment and the prosecution does not intend to oppose the request, the PA said.

The case has enraged unions who have warned that lives could be lost if ambulance drivers carrying organs are not exempt from speed restrictions like their counterparts the police, fire brigade and ambulance drivers carrying patients.

Ferguson's union, the GMB, has said that the driver was acting routinely to deliver the organ in time and it is concerned the case could set a dangerous precedent.

Ferguson -- who has an unblemished record of more than 30 years service -- claims that he was "just doing my job."

"I can't help feel that it's the UK transplant service that could suffer from this," he told the PA. "I wouldn't dream of speeding unless it was an emergency but with some organ transplants time really is of the essence."

Livers should be transplanted within 10 to 12 hours, according to Chris Rudge, medical director of UK Transplant.

"The longer they are stored the more likely it is that they will fail," he told PA. "It is an absolute disaster if an organ is wasted. a donated organ is such a precious gift."

The GMB union has written to the UK's Home Secretary, the Health Secretary and other Members of Parliament demanding clearer guidelines on organ deliveries.

"If certain police forces say that drivers risk prosecution, then do they have the right to say who will survive these life-saving operations?," GMB spokesman John Durkin told the BBC. "I don't want that on my conscience."

The largest union representing emergency workers, Unison, has also called for an urgent review of legislation to take the responsibility away from the individual ambulance driver in life or death emergencies.

Copyright © 2003 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. An AOL Time Warner Company.

This article posted June 8, 2003.