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Fort Worth Mother Waits 1 Hour For Ambulance
13-Month-Old Baby Suffered Seizure
POSTED: 10:09 pm CDT May 19,
2008
UPDATED: 6:04 am CDT May 20,
2008
FORT WORTH, Texas -- The director of an ambulance service apologized to a Fort Worth woman who waited an hour to get help for her infant.Jack Eades, the executive director of MedStar Ambulance, said last Thursday afternoon was especially busy, but it's not excuse for what happened."It was the scariest thing I've ever seen," Nancy Milliken said.
She said she believed her 13-month-old baby, Aidyn, was having a seizure at 4:35 p.m., so she called 911."She was just shaking, and she wasn't breathing, and she was turning blue," Milliken told the dispatcher, according to the 911 tape.
Blog: Scott Gordon
"We have the expectation that when you call 911, someone's going to come," she said.Milliken told the dispatcher her daughter started breathing again, "kind of shallow breaths." But because Aidyn began breathing again, MedStar gave the call a low priority.The minutes ticked by with no ambulance.Milliken called back."Do you know when somebody is going to be here?" she said, according to the 911 tape."We've been extremely busy, and they had to respond from a far distance, but they are on the way," the dispatcher told her.But an ambulance was not on the way. Two ambulances that had been dispatched were diverted to higher priority calls, and a third ambulance got stuck in traffic on Interstate 30.Milliken called back a third and fourth time.At 5:19 p.m., 44 minutes after her first call, MedStar asked the fire department for help. A fire station was just blocks away, and firefighters arrived within minutes.Finally at 5:34 p.m., 59 minutes after the first call, paramedics arrived.Eades said there were an unusually high number of emergencies at the same time."We would apologize for it, and we certainly do not like it when these things happen," he said.He said did not know why MedStar waited so long to ask the fire department for help."Whether we should have called them sooner should be reviewed," Eades said. "Perhaps we should have."Milliken's daughter was fine, but doctors said she had a seizure."I think we got very lucky this time," Milliken said.MedStar is 20 paramedics short right now, but Eades said response times have improved over past years. He said Thursday's incident was an extreme case.
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Blog: Scott Gordon"We have the expectation that when you call 911, someone's going to come," she said.Milliken told the dispatcher her daughter started breathing again, "kind of shallow breaths." But because Aidyn began breathing again, MedStar gave the call a low priority.The minutes ticked by with no ambulance.Milliken called back."Do you know when somebody is going to be here?" she said, according to the 911 tape."We've been extremely busy, and they had to respond from a far distance, but they are on the way," the dispatcher told her.But an ambulance was not on the way. Two ambulances that had been dispatched were diverted to higher priority calls, and a third ambulance got stuck in traffic on Interstate 30.Milliken called back a third and fourth time.At 5:19 p.m., 44 minutes after her first call, MedStar asked the fire department for help. A fire station was just blocks away, and firefighters arrived within minutes.Finally at 5:34 p.m., 59 minutes after the first call, paramedics arrived.Eades said there were an unusually high number of emergencies at the same time."We would apologize for it, and we certainly do not like it when these things happen," he said.He said did not know why MedStar waited so long to ask the fire department for help."Whether we should have called them sooner should be reviewed," Eades said. "Perhaps we should have."Milliken's daughter was fine, but doctors said she had a seizure."I think we got very lucky this time," Milliken said.MedStar is 20 paramedics short right now, but Eades said response times have improved over past years. He said Thursday's incident was an extreme case.
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