A runaway alligator and other non-emergencies that hampered UK ambulance dispatchers

Ambulance services stretched thin in the U.K. are drawing attention to the non-emergency calls that are hampering their response times. The Welsh Ambulance Service says 15% of the more than 425,000 calls it received last year were for non-emergencies. They included calls for a chipped tooth, a finger stuck in a beer bottle and a man who was scared because his son's pet alligator got loose. Dispatcher Emma Worrall says she told the gator caller that they wouldn't be sending an ambulance unless he got bit. South Western Ambulance Service in England says more than a quarter of its 1 million-plus calls last year did not require an ambulance.