Response times & ambulances firegeezer on 01 Apr 2008 03:12 pm
Troubled Ambulance Company In More Trouble
IN GENNESSEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN (FLINT), THE EMERGENCY ambulance service is provided by Regional EMS, a private not-for-profit company.
Yesterday (Monday) a 7-yr.-old boy was riding a dirt bike in an indoor motocross track in Fenton when he lost control of his bike and crashed into a steel pole. An ambulance was called for the obviously injured boy and one was dispatched from the nearest station 6 miles away at 5:09 pm. Three minutes later the ambulance radioed back for directions to the address on Thompson Street, which is a main thorofare in Fenton. Eleven minutes after that transmission, the ambulance radioed again that it had broken down and could not complete the call. A second ambulance was then dispatched and it arrived on the scene 22 minutes after the original call.
A sheriff’s dept. paramedic arrived on the scene five minutes after the intial call and tended to the boy while waiting for the ambulance. Three hours later the boy died at the hospital.
Regional EMS photo
This lengthy response time is not unique for Regional EMS, however. The Flint Journal explains:
Until January, Regional EMS was on probation because of what regulators called a “pattern of delayed responses” to emergency calls and because of other problems.
Regional was allowed to operate while on probation but was required to give its dispatchers more training, show that it was using updated map books of Genesee County, and to turn over its dispatching policies and procedures to the county Medical Control Authority.
Regional’s probation came after Medical Control said it saw a “pattern of delayed responses” to calls for help for more than two years.
Medical Control claimed at the time that 15 of 17 allegations against the company for delayed responses and dispatching trouble were valid.
Read the entire story in the Flint Journal HERE.
Regional EMS company WEBSITE.
Firegeezer wants to know:
The only reports on this say that the boy was on a “dirt bike.” Was this just a simple bicycle with those knobby tires, or was it a motorbike? I just cannot imagine parents sending a child that young out to play on a motorcycle. But it happens, I know.
Whether it was motor- or pedal-powered, why was this arena allowing someone that young and irresponsible to ride on a hazardous course like that?
And what gives with this ambulance company? After being on probation for, among other reasons, employing drivers who get lost, why are they still sending out people who cannot find the main highways? (and don’t have sense enough to know where they are going before they leave the station).
There are a whole lot of people who have a share of the responsibility for this debacle.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 5:23 pm 1.Mffcaptain said …
I agree totally with firegeezer I personaly transported a seven year old boy to our local hospital with a basaler skull fracture from being unattended on a small dirt bike while the family was out for a ride. in this case as with many the parents are to blame.
on 10 Jul 2008 at 9:42 pm 2.Baxfm said …
The boy was on a motor dirtbike. He was riding at an indoor complex he had been to before. Apparently, he just lost control and hit the metal pole on the side of the course. Regional claimed their people knew where the site was, but had difficulties with their rig. They also stated the response time was 19 minutes and not 22 minutes. Either time is bad in my mind. I required their services in the summer of 2007, and I had no problems whatsoever. I was quite pleased with the care I received. Check out the website www.tctimes.com to view the article they had on the incident.