A Rimbey area family want some answers after they waited nearly an hour for an ambulance to respond to a 9-1-1 call.
Brian Schneider said he doesn’t understand why it took nearly an hour for an ambulance to arrive at his house to deal with the medical condition of his wife, Carmele when they live only seven minutes out of Rimbey.
“Why did it take nearly an hour to arrive at a residence eight kilometers away from Rimbey? We have two ambulances in Rimbey that we pay taxes for. Do they not have GPS or maps to enable directions to be qualified and followed, or do they not understand how to read the map?
It has since been determined it was not Associated Ambulance who responded to the call.
Nick Thain, executive director South Sector AHS EMS operations said the situation is being investigated.
“We are now aware of a complaint about a response involving one of our contract EMS crews and are in the process of investigating to determine what happened,” he said. “If our investigation determines there were issues with the response, we will take appropriate actions to ensure it does not happen again.”
Schneider, who was in Calgary at the time, said his son, Kevin called 9-1-1 at 7:14 p.m. on Nov. 22 after he discovered his mother, Carmele was confused and appearing to have had a stroke.
“I was on the phone with the call center for 30 minutes while we waited for the ambulance to show up.”
He said the ambulance appeared at the end of the driveway, sat there for a few minutes and then started to drive away.
He said his friend, Jason Evernden, who was with him at the time, jumped in his truck and chased the ambulance down the road for about five kilometers flashing his lights until they finally pulled over.
Meanwhile Schneider remained on the phone with the call center telling the lady to get them ambulance to stop.
The ambulance turned around and followed Evernden, but, didn’t turn into the driveway, but flew past it and had to back up.
By this time more than 40 minutes had elapsed since 911 was called.
Schneider said the ambulance attendants, once they came inside were calm and relaxed, and told him they believed the patient was suffering from a drug overdose. He said they made him feel like it was not a time sensitive issue.
“My understanding is that they are supposed to assess vitals and condition of the patient with a brief history and then load and go,” he said.
Schneider was less than impressed when the attendants set his mom on the stretcher, but did not engage the locking pins and the stretcher dropped to the ground.
He was further distressed when they mentioned they had forgotten their laptop, which he and his friend retrieved for them, only to be asked to go back in and grab another bag they had forgotten.
He said when they finally got on their way it was one and a half hours from the time the call was made.
Carmele Schneider was taken to Rimbey Hospital, rushed to Red Deer for a CT scan, and then taken to Calgary Foothills Neuroscience.
“Ambulance time to transport from Red Deer to Calgary was another issue, as it appeared that multiple ambulances were assigned to her transport but yet they were sent away to get other patients before she was finally loaded for the Calgary trip, said Brian Schneider. “This was totally ridiculous,” he added. “We can’t stop this one, it’s done, but we need to get it out there.”