College Park/Grady EMS Fails Child

[BobBarker]

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/co...s-grady-ems-gives-timeline-requested-response

So let me get this straight. Grady EMS is at level zero, limited communication initally categorizes the call as low acuity then it gets upgraded to high acuity BUT College Park EMS is literally in an ambulance that can transport yet refuses to and waits almost 40 minutes on scene before the mother finally said this is ridculous and takes her child in her own vehicle to the hospital.

 

[FiremanMike]

I’ll wait for more info on this, but if the FD was on scene with a transport unit and this all went down, then it’s 100% on them..

 

[DrParasite]

hold on... as per https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/c...d-into-lack-of-ambulance-response/ar-AA1vq6wp

Emergency responders from College Park Fire Rescue and EMS arrived quickly after 911 calls were made just after 6 p.m. Paramedics stabilized the teen, who was alert and able to speak at the time. However, the city says an ambulance requested from Grady EMS never arrived, despite multiple follow-up calls to the dispatch service.

A city spokesperson told FOX 5 that with no ambulance on site, staff from the recreation department and volleyball club helped the teen into her mother’s van. Her mother transported her to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding Hospital, near Grady Memorial Hospital, for evaluation and trauma care.

sounds like a reasonable understanding that the patient was stable, at least after their initial assessment. Also, many/most fire departments have paramedics on non-transport capable units as first responders, so it's unlikely that they were a transport-capable ambulance. also, Grady is likely the contracted ambulance provider.

The teen, who reportedly had chronic health conditions, suffered cardiac failure at the hospital. Medical staff were able to revive her once, but she later died despite continued efforts.

tragic as this situation is, she didn't die on the scene, and it's not like they were doing CPR at the school. she died at the hospital, as per https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/pa...ho-collapsed-died-hires-high-profile-attorney

Mandy arrived at the hospital at 7:20 p.m. Doctors revived her heart after it stopped once, but she was pronounced dead at 8:40 p.m.

I'm not saying the patient wasn't sick, and didn't need to be transported and evaluated, but it's not like she was dying immediately, nor has there been any indication that she was going to die in the next 30 minutes. Dispatching is all about trying to manage the ever increasing call volume with a finite amount of resources, using only the information currently available.

The obvious solution is that the township needs to pay Grady EMS to have a dedicated EMS unit in town to handle all of the EMS calls within the city limits, so their ambulance availability doesn't get affected by Atlanta's EMS call volume.

 

[FiremanMike]

hold on... as per https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/c...d-into-lack-of-ambulance-response/ar-AA1vq6wp

sounds like a reasonable understanding that the patient was stable, at least after their initial assessment. Also, many/most fire departments have paramedics on non-transport capable units as first responders, so it's unlikely that they were a transport-capable ambulance. also, Grady is likely the contracted ambulance provider.

tragic as this situation is, she didn't die on the scene, and it's not like they were doing CPR at the school. she died at the hospital, as per https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/pa...ho-collapsed-died-hires-high-profile-attorney

I'm not saying the patient wasn't sick, and didn't need to be transported and evaluated, but it's not like she was dying immediately, nor has there been any indication that she was going to die in the next 30 minutes. Dispatching is all about trying to manage the ever increasing call volume with a finite amount of resources, using only the information currently available.

The obvious solution is that the township needs to pay Grady EMS to have a dedicated EMS unit in town to handle all of the EMS calls within the city limits, so their ambulance availability doesn't get affected by Atlanta's EMS call volume.

First article has Grady EMS claiming there were two firefighter/EMS providers on scene who could treat and transport if necessary, MSN article states no ambulance on scene.

Facebook stalking of College Park Fire shows pictures of their "rescue" units which appear to be ambulances going back 15 years or so.

Will probably need to see court documents to find the truth, although I bet the overarching issue is a long-standing pissing match between private service and fire-based EMS.

 

[DrParasite]

First article has Grady EMS claiming there were two firefighter/EMS providers on scene who could treat and transport if necessary, MSN article states no ambulance on scene.

Facebook stalking of College Park Fire shows pictures of their "rescue" units which appear to be ambulances going back 15 years or so.

Will probably need to see court documents to find the truth, although I bet the overarching issue is a long-standing pissing match between private service and fire-based EMS.

It looks like the FD's vehicle wasn't licensed to transport, but it was an actual ambulance, at least as per https://www.11alive.com/article/new...apsed/85-f4aa681d-5a4a-4f03-a7d5-cfad07bf7b86 Also, did they have a stretcher in the back, or was it just an old ambulance used to carry equipment?

There is also the political aspect (it's Grady's responsibility to transport, that's what they are paid to do), and if they transport this patient, shouldn't they transport more patients if Grady is unavailable?

my old fire department's EMS response vehicle was a pickup truck; our previous vehicle was an SUV... while I do know of departments that use old ambulances as non-transport capable "rescues", this confuses the general public on what its abilities actually are. Truly a bad situation all around.