Narrative:

Just prior to top of descent the aircraft experienced two sharp jolts of turbulence at FL360. The seat belt sign was not on at the time and two passengers experienced cuts and one a twisted ankle. I was in the seat at the time. My copilot was returning from the lavatory and there was a flight attendant in the cockpit. The lights in the cockpit were turned down and the weather radar was on. There were no clouds in the area; and there were no weather returns on the radar. Also; there were no sigmets for the area. My copilot immediately jumped in his seat and I turned on the seat belt sign and made an announcement to return to seats and fasten seat belts. I called the back and was told they would check to see if everyone was ok. About 5 minutes later I was told that we had three persons injured and that we would need an ambulance. I sent an ACARS message to the station and requested medical assistance and an ambulance. We were in a descent at this time and were quickly trying to get down since ATC had left us high on the arrival. I did not declare an emergency and elected not to involve ATC because I was told the injuries were not life threatening. I noticed that the station did not reply to our message so I followed up with a radio call to operations. A lady took the call and I explained the situation. It appeared to me that she did not seem too concerned. Shortly after the radio call I got an ACARS message from dispatch telling me they saw my message to the station and they called the station and talked to someone and that assistance would be there on arrival. So I felt a little relief and continued with my duties since we had less than ten minutes to touchdown. Upon arrival at the gate we noticed there was no ambulance and no discernible medical assistance in sight. After finishing our checklists we called the operations frequency twice and spoke to what I believe was the same lady and again she was indifferent about our situation and would not give us any clue as to when we could expect medical assistance to arrive. What really concerns me about this whole episode was the attitude and inaction of the operations person that took our radio calls and phone calls. I was told by the purser that we needed an ambulance and I asked for one; but one was not present on arrival despite three radio calls; an ACARS message and a phone call from dispatch.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier Captain reports passenger injuries from unexpected turbulence and requests medical assistance upon gate arrival. No medical personnel were present at gate arrival and the Captain believes that Station Operations showed indifference.

Narrative: Just prior to top of descent the aircraft experienced two sharp jolts of turbulence at FL360. The seat belt sign was not on at the time and two passengers experienced cuts and one a twisted ankle. I was in the seat at the time. My copilot was returning from the lavatory and there was a Flight Attendant in the cockpit. The lights in the cockpit were turned down and the weather radar was on. There were no clouds in the area; and there were no weather returns on the radar. Also; there were no SIGMETs for the area. My copilot immediately jumped in his seat and I turned on the seat belt sign and made an announcement to return to seats and fasten seat belts. I called the back and was told they would check to see if everyone was OK. About 5 minutes later I was told that we had three persons injured and that we would need an ambulance. I sent an ACARS message to the station and requested medical assistance and an ambulance. We were in a descent at this time and were quickly trying to get down since ATC had left us high on the arrival. I did not declare an emergency and elected not to involve ATC because I was told the injuries were not life threatening. I noticed that the station did not reply to our message so I followed up with a radio call to Operations. A lady took the call and I explained the situation. It appeared to me that she did not seem too concerned. Shortly after the radio call I got an ACARS message from Dispatch telling me they saw my message to the station and they called the station and talked to someone and that assistance would be there on arrival. So I felt a little relief and continued with my duties since we had less than ten minutes to touchdown. Upon arrival at the gate we noticed there was no ambulance and no discernible medical assistance in sight. After finishing our checklists we called the Operations frequency twice and spoke to what I believe was the same lady and again she was indifferent about our situation and would not give us any clue as to when we could expect medical assistance to arrive. What really concerns me about this whole episode was the attitude and inaction of the Operations person that took our radio calls and phone calls. I was told by the Purser that we needed an ambulance and I asked for one; but one was not present on arrival despite three radio calls; an ACARS message and a phone call from Dispatch.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.