Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 -- Given the UN's claims of immunity, like on bringing cholera to Haiti, it is rare to see New York City emergency services let into the UN.

 So when Inner City Press saw a New York fire truck at the UN's gate midday on March 18, then some fire personnel allowed in without the truck, beyond running a photograph and running to get the story, some questions had to be asked.

Inner City Press asked the office of UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric:

"Beyond the outstanding questions, I just witnessed the NY Fire Department arriving at UN gates with truck, an FDNY team came into the UN, went down to 1B between Conference Rooms 1 and 2, were stopped, were escorted to the gate and out of UN. Please provide a description of what happened, why FDNY wanted in, if they wanted truck in, on what basis UN let them in on foot, and what if anything was done by them while inside. There were also two ambulances, one inside on the traffic circle and one at the gate."

Two hours later, Dujarric's office answered:

Subject: Your question on the FDNY
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 3:47 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Regarding the Fire Department of New York's (FDNY) appearance at UN Headquarters, we can confirm that they were responding to a 911 call. We had a serious medical emergency in one of the Conference Rooms, with a delegate whom UN responding medical personnel subsequently assessed needed to be urgently moved to hospital. The FDNY responded first and were shortly thereafter joined by a paramedic team from New York Presbyterian hospital. The patient was evacuated to hospital in an ambulance and the FDNY left the scene thereafter.

Allowing in emergency services personnel of the host country -- the US, here NYC -- is a change of sorts for the UN. But the UN wouldn't allow in those seeking to serve legal papers in the case about the UN bringing cholera into Haiti. So it seems selective access. We wish the patient the best.

It has been pointed out that Ban Ki-moon *could* have waived immunities, including the immunity against legal service of process in the UN campus. The dodging on the nail and mail service on Ban's residence continues. Watch this site.