Makes me sick..

Why exactly does it make you sick? There's not enough information to make a decision one way or the other.
 
Typical "media-overhype". There's ALOT of missing information that probably wouldn't make this article worth reading if it was added.
 
I've read a bit about this incident and the strike that was occurring at the time. I'll hold off on judging the medics actions but from what I've seen the outcome would most likely not have been different had they responded immediatey.
 
Agreed that a lot more details are needed before forming a more informed opinion.
 
My first thought was why are they staging? Is it a downtown apartment building in a high crime area, or where paramedics have been assaulted in the past? and why did it take Toronto PD 35 minutes to arrive to escort the paramedics inside?

My second thought is why were FFs sent on the 3rd 911 call, but not the first? 4 FFs + 2 PM will get attacked less often than 2 PM (strength in numbers).

my third thought is what would a strike have to do with staging at a scene?

looks like some media hype to sell papers, some emotional pull to paint EMS as the bad guys, and a lot of information missing from the article.

for the OP, got a question for you: if this had been a triple shooting involving 2 kids down, bleeding to death, and the paramedics staging around the corner under the scene was secured, and the kids died, would the actions of the EMS providers make you sick too?
 
bigbaldguy said:
I've read a bit about this incident and the strike that was occurring at the time. I'll hold off on judging the medics actions but from what I've seen the outcome would most likely not have been different had they responded immediatey.
Click to expand...

The article I read yesterday about the actual cause of death was apparently not credible and has been taken down so I withdraw my statement regarding response time making no difference. We'll just have to wait and see.
 
DrParasite said:
My first thought was why are they staging? Is it a downtown apartment building in a high crime area, or where paramedics have been assaulted in the past? and why did it take Toronto PD 35 minutes to arrive to escort the paramedics inside?

My second thought is why were FFs sent on the 3rd 911 call, but not the first? 4 FFs + 2 PM will get attacked less often than 2 PM (strength in numbers).

my third thought is what would a strike have to do with staging at a scene?

looks like some media hype to sell papers, some emotional pull to paint EMS as the bad guys, and a lot of information missing from the article.

for the OP, got a question for you: if this had been a triple shooting involving 2 kids down, bleeding to death, and the paramedics staging around the corner under the scene was secured, and the kids died, would the actions of the EMS providers make you sick too?
Click to expand...

What upsets me the most is this is a repeat patient, priors. And it takes three 911 calls before they respond, and the first two calls were labeled non-priority?
 
Unless the dispatch transcript has been released, who knows what was said between the caller and the dispatcher. I'm sure you know this, but it is not uncommon to have a low priority call be super serious as well as the highest priority calls be the exact opposite.
 
epipusher said:
Unless the dispatch transcript has been released, who knows what was said between the caller and the dispatcher. I'm sure you know this, but it is not uncommon to have a low priority call be super serious as well as the highest priority calls be the exact opposite.
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Your right.. I guess I read the article and just jumped to conclusions.. There really isn't enough information to make a decision.. I'm sure they were staging for a legitimate reason.
 
Oculuck said:
What upsets me the most is this is a repeat patient, priors. And it takes three 911 calls before they respond, and the first two calls were labeled non-priority?
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if I call 911 3 times for a stubbed toe, isn't it still a low priority call?

One of the basic rules of dispatching: the amount of panic in a callers voice often has no relation to the severity of the call. Ditto how many times they call.

I can get a caller call 5 times for their 3 year old with a fever of 102, and one call by a 90 year old woman who just found her husband not breathing in his bed. Which do you think is the priority call?

if the caller calls twice reporting a sickness, it will probably be classified as a low priority call. on the 3rd call for the unconscious, it gets upgraded
 
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DrParasite said:
One of the basic rules of dispatching: the amount of panic in a callers voice often has no relation to the severity of the call. Ditto how many times they call.
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Actually, a strong argument could be made that the less they call and the less they panic, the more serious the call (I've seen it happen before).
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

STOP JUDGING PEOPLE BY WHAT THE MEDIA PUBLISHES.

I know the OP admitted he jumped the gun and I'm glad they recognized it.

You weren't there. You don't know the details of the 911 call. You don't know what dispatch told them. You don't know the agency's SOPs/SOGs. People die every day. Who's to say this guy was even viable when the call came out? We don't know. We can't judge their actions.
 
I don't see any problem on the part of the paramedics here. They chose to stage for whatever reason, and it took guts to continue to stage even when the PD response time was increased. How many times have you staged, been given an ETA of 20-30 minutes for police, and decide to peek around the corner, drive by, or go in once you have more personnel on scene?

3 to go, 1 for no.

1) Why it took police that long to get there is a legitimate question.

2) Why it was dispatched as a low priority is a legitimate question.

1) is a resource evaluation issue: do we need more cops in this area?
2) is a CQI issue: was the response appropriate based on the 911 tape?

These questions should be addressed as a query and not as an adversarial investigation.

Yes, people die due to slow response times, but I have to admit, while sad, this story does not make me the least bit sick.
 
WuLabsWuTecH said:
1) is a resource evaluation issue: do we need more cops in this area?.
Click to expand...

Need more cops, more firefighters, more medics, more free clinics, more doctors, more home healthcare, more education, more prevention.

The very definition of "underserved"

Simple answer is "yes"

Show me the money.


WuLabsWuTecH said:
Yes, people die due to slow response times, but I have to admit, while sad, this story does not make me the least bit sick.
Click to expand...

I would say people die less often due to response time than EMS providers like to believe.

Response time does not dictate survivability, severity of pathology and the body's ability to compensate does.

As for being sick over this...

Not in the least. We do not live in a perfect world with perfect resources.

You must do what you must with what you have.
 
We dont know all the details such as the initial symptoms which may have qualified it as a low priority call. I'm still confused about the staging though.
 
ffemt8978 said:
Actually, a strong argument could be made that the less they call and the less they panic, the more serious the call (I've seen it happen before).
Click to expand...

I don't know about either.

I have to confess hearing a dispatcher say:

"...multiple calls, house on fire."

always seemed credible and desirable to me.
 
Don't feel bad. I sometimes wonder if the current events section ought to be edited or dropped, the press never gets it right and we wind up wasting brain cells (mine included) trying to guess what happened and even getting into blogtercations about it.
 
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