A worried passerby panicked after spotting a woman sitting on a bench in the freezing cold.
The anonymous person saw this woman in Brampton Park, in Newcastle-under-Lyme. From a distance, it appeared that the woman was sitting motionless and with her head bowed, as heavy snow fell on and around her.
Understandably concerned, the Good Samaritan quickly placed a call to 999, England's emergency telephone number.
A West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) crew responded to the call on December 11, 2017, only to find the woman couldn't be helped — because she wasn't a woman at all.
She was a park statue.
Specifically, it was "The Lady in the Park," erected to commemorate "all the women in Newcastle-under-Lyme who lost husbands, sons, and friends in the first World War and subsequent conflicts."
Scroll through to read how the story unfolded and went viral online!
Thumbnail Photo: Twitter / Katie Tudor
[H/T: Mashable]
Katie is a paramedic with West Midlands Ambulance Service.
The young woman, based in Stoke-on-Trent, England, has worked for WMAS for four years.
Katie often shares dispatches and photo updates from her shifts with the ambulance crew.
On December 11, 2017, she shared the story of one of the day's particularly absurd calls.
"Next, call from a member of the public who was concerned that there was someone sat on a bench, not moving and covered in snow! Luckily, on our arrival, it turned out to be a statue!" Katie explained.
People couldn't get enough of the story, and it quickly went viral. Some other paramedics even shared their own similar stories of being called upon to "save" a statue.
Others joked that Katie and her crew should go check on similar statues.
Others were just exasperated that the person hadn't checked and seen it was a statue themselves before getting the paramedics all the way out there.
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman confirmed to Mashable that the story had taken place as Katie said.
They said:
“We received a call from a member of the public who was driving past the park and was concerned that there was someone sat on a bench, not moving and covered in snow. An ambulance responded to the scene. Fortunately, it turned out not to be someone in distress. The person did call in good faith while genuinely concerned that someone was in distress.”
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