There is also no way to know without seeing run reports, initial rhythm strips and case data that it made any difference in the man's death. Neither the headline nor the article blames the man's death on the delay in getting to a hospital, but the implication is certainly there.

If the ambulance crew is unable to resuscitate a victim in "full cardiac arrest" as soon as they arrive on scene, it's unlikely that the emergency room will be able to either. We are fortunate in the US that we generally have extremely well trained paramedics, capable of life saving intervention when needed. Thanks to the USDOT.


Edited by AdventureBear 2007-10-25 1:42 AM

I haven't read the article but I can provide some first hand experience of what it was like there.  The guys from the ambulance that got me were from Mundelein, IL.   A suburb 40 miles north of the city.  They weren't even called to the spot for me, but the people in the area directed them to me.  After they realized I wasn't the pickup they called that in and when a different ambulance got to where that person was they were gone.  Were they picked up by a different ambulance?  Who knows?  It took them a while to get me from the underground parking garage up to street level where the ambulance was.  When we got there a city bus had tried to get around the ambulance and ended up getting itself stuck.  It was about an inch from the ambulance and couldn't move backwards or forwards without hitting it.  They had to jockey both vehicles a little at a time to get them away from each other.  They had plenty of time to do this because it took 15 minutes or so just to get a dispatch to a local hospital.  It was termed a "mass casualty" situation.  Then once we were on our way the guys asked someone at almost every intersection if they were going the right way to the hospital.  It's hard to blame those guys for not being sure where they were going - they had been called in at the last second and were just trying to help and the scene was very chaotic.  The ER where they ended up taking me handled over 50 patients just from the race.  They had to do an emergency call where they pulled in everyone who was off of work.  In terms of the medical community it was definitely an all hands on deck type of day.