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Merger bid ‘puts lives at risk’
Efforts to turn firefighters into ambulance workers could be deadly, warns union

PLANS to use firefighters as emergency ambulance crews will “put lives at risk,” union reps warned yesterday amid Tory cries to go even further.

Fire chiefs in South Yorkshire have agreed to make staff available to step in when the Yorkshire Ambulance Service is understaffed.

But only 229 of the brigade’s 640 firefighters have any training in initial emergency care, meaning many officers would be unable to help patients in desperate need.

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