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| Some folks are asking about the "why" an ambulance was not dispatched to a fainting episode at an area eaterie, where the patient, once sat up back in her chair, specifically requested transport to an Emergency Room... |
Late Saturday afternoon I received an email from a foodserver who works at a restaurant out on Perdido Key in District 1. The email came to my personal email account, with the heading "Piss-poor EMS."
In the email, this individual reported that a patient was literally on the ground, on the floor, in her restaurant with no response from EMS for two hours.
Obviously, I am going to look behind that. Which I did.
From her email:
"I work at Sunset Grille at Holiday Harbor. I also live on Innerarity Point. Tonight I had a guest faint at my restaurant. She needed medical attention.. She wanted to be transported by ambulance. After lying on our restaurant floor for almost TWO HOURS, her family opted to drive her to emergency care. This is absolutely unacceptable. It is not only embarrassing it is very worrisome. Escambia County HAS to do better! How can you expect repeat tourism when they experience zero aid in need? Our clientele is elderly and if not that then also not used to our climate. How do we prevent this embarrassment from happening again??? Unacceptable!!!!!"
In her follow-on email to me, she provided a little more context:
"The woman fainted at her table after dinner. As a mainly outdoor restaurant (XXXXXXXXXX) this does happen occasionally. Some require and some decline medical attention. This guest requested professional help. We called 911 immediately. My boss XXXXXXXXXXX spoke with the operator. 30-40 minutes later we called again and were told we were on a list for an ambulance. Another half our later we called 911 a third time and received the same update. We were on a list. At that point the family opted to drive her to the closest urgent care themselves. Five minutes after they left the fire department showed up. I am not in the medical field, I sling shrimp baskets. If one of my guests requests an ambulance I am going to get her one. And while I understand prioritizing emergencies, I
don't understand how not showing up to make sure it isn't one makes much sense. I saw a faster response to a hook in someone's foot at the beach memorial day weekend than I did last night. Can't blame traffic either.Appreciate your time. Feel free to contact me further if necessary. I've added my phone number below."I had the opportunity to speak with staff about this incident the next morning, on Sunday. Obviously we fell short on this situation and I believe everyone associated with this matter understands this. I am told it was a "perfect storm" of issues that led to the lack of a timely response, as well as some other extenuating circumstances. First of all, we were short on a truck due to one staff member becomming sick during her shift, necessitating this individual go home which pulled one truck off the road. At the same time as this fainting incident occurred, according to staff who are intimately familiar with the situation--there was also not one but two drug overdose calls and a gunshot wound call that were dispatched at around the same time. With a truck shortage due to staffing, and three delta level calls ahead of the fainting call (alpha level)--this was the setup for the perfect storm we saw.
I did ask why the fire station on Perdido Key, not far from this location, did not respond once it was determined the ambulance was going to be delayed--even knowing ECFR cannot transport a victim but can only render assistance on scene until an EMS unit arrives to provide transport---and I do believe that is a question that will be looked into. When I asked about the time delay--I did not get much push back, other than being told it was not two hours between the first call and the time the fire truck arrived on scene. I was told by staff it was less than two hours. I was also told that the family transported thier relative after about an hour and twenty-five minutes after she fainted and then was subsequently helped back to her chair by her family members on site and other patrons at the restaurant. The patient did, by all accounts, request to be transported to the hospital--and she eventually did go to the ER. The fire truck showed up on the scene about five minutes after the family, themselves, took their relative to a stand-alone ER about five minutes away from the restaurant.
I have asked staff to reach out to the family to 1.) check on their relative and 2.) provide an explanation as to why the ambulance do not show up. I believe this will happen today. I also believe there will be further discussion with ECFR about why they did not roll on this call sooner.
More to come on this.
10 comments:
You should t act surprised Commissioner. Happens all the time. Under funded and under staffed is the mantra at the BOCC. You keep attempting bqndaids that don’t work. Hopefully enough people will eventually tire of this BS
The crux of this issue is severe staffing shortages not able to keep up with adequate call volume or per capita population. Years ago there were 15-20 ALS trucks on the road during the day and only a few BLS 911 units. I highly doubt they are even staffing 12 units a day during peak call load times on average, which is nowhere close to what is needed to manage 80k calls for service a year. I would request all
of the dispatch records for when each call was placed to ensure you are being given all the correct information. This is a VERY COMMON occurrence in Escambia County currently. The difference is, someone just emailed you about it happening.
You know, Ambulances historically became a taxpayer funded "service" to clean up after those new fangled motor vehicles hit the road and they couldn't leave mangled bodies in the street.
People need to get a grip on reality.
To think we can hit 3 buttons on a phone and have superman show up to save us from ourselves is out of touch with reality.
If she needed personal medical help, and was sitting in a chair, it would make sense for her family to drive her there.
Was alcohol involved?
The crux of the issue is people calling for transport when they could transport themselves.
The big problem is administration, for some reason EMS seem to be bringing in admins from one specific area of the state. The area the new chief happened to come from. Why would the county hire a deputy chief with a criminal record, and action taken against his paramedic license. Why hire someone to help reform and agency who was released from another agency for time theft adding up to a substantial sum of money? I heard rumor now another supervisor was brought in from that same area. Were there no qualified local applicants to promote from within. I see a lot of "good ol boy" comments but it seems like a new club is being imported. I have also heard they plan on reducing the ambulance coverage to the far north end of the county. Why reduce services to an already under served area with no ALS fire coverage? I geuss it's ok though as long as they have 3 interfacility transfer trucks, which further reduce staffing of 911 trucks but I geuss the guaranteed revenue is too great to pass up.
Until the commission stops contenting itself with being gamed at the podium, this will continue to happen. This situation is not an anomaly. As I've said before, its a crying shame that having finally eradicated the edler et al management , its a crying shame that Gilley was still administrator and the toxic workforce problem that arose under Edker was never adequately addressed. I communicated in no uncertain terms the continuing bully stick problems and the resultant continuing moral crisis to both commissioners Nd administration a year ago, along with specifics. One of the primary problems is with the second in commander--what self respecting person would want to work under someone with that record? And again one has to question the judgment of a division lead whi would import this type of leadership in and let the horrible menacing? Playing favorites, and bullying tactics to continue. I said at the time I wasn't getting involved in consistent advocacy on the subject again, because on my side I'm sick to death of watching these contuing problems go unchecked with everybody pretending its not happening, and I've probably reached my limit of how much people are going to listen to anything that I bring on it. But mKe no mistake, if the leadership problem is not addressed, no other measures with be able to offset them. People still are gunshy of working for Escambia EMS because of it, and we will continue to bleed good people as welll.
Sorry not used to doing this by phone. The above comment is mine
I think you people are so used to being petty, miserable and combative that you are unable to accept that this Chief is acutally doing a good job.
The ppl who consistently complain on here and FB about Chief Torsell:
*EMS employees being forced to do their jobs, those discontent with change or those who've lost their jobs in the past year.
*The firefighters that hate anything EMS related and resent being torn away from reruns of 'Duck Dynasty' and the 'Food Network' to run EMS calls.
*J.Rogers who can only get attention and friends by propogating the agendas of nefarious ppl in town and the firefighters.
*And Mel Pino who's only claim to fame is being your Cledus Snow and spends endless days filling the comment section with 3-5 paragraphs of nonsensical ramlbings that contain too many prepositions.
There was no reason to blog about this emial other than to keep the drama going between all parties. It's mind baffling that a sitting commissioner(s) blogs and/or rants on Facebook with the intent to arouse and squabble.
Let this man do his job. It was broken when he arrived, he can't solve problems with the same level of thinking that created them.
There is a saying: Your mindset determines how you perceive and connect to the world around you.
Anonymous 8:43, is this Stephens or one of his minions?
Thanks for being willing to take this public and continue to try to get to the root of the issue, Commissioner Bergosh. The only ones who don't want you doing so are the people under the protection of the management heavies.
Here are a couple of questions that deserve answers: why did the EMS Chief hire a rat dumping wage thief as his deputy?
Why has that leadership style been allowed to continue to run amok?
Why is Eric Gilmore covering for the continued toxic workforce under this management?
Why, as their head boss, does he allow somebody who admitted to police that he stole wages at a previous position, and somebody who admitted to dumping dead rats from his "reptile" (read: exotics?) business in numerous locations, to lord it over a workforce stretched to the gills?
Why does he keep telling you guys in meetings they're adequately staffed, and then say they're not when something like this goes down?
If I were a competent first responder doing my best to provide the most optimal care possible under strained conditions, I wouldn't want the head of a Vermin Horde instead of a skilled and ethical Chief Deputy telling me what to do. But hey, maybe that's just me.
Mel Pinot, the Deputy Chief's past is exactly that, the past and happened over 14 years ago. He was vetted the same as all other potential employees but you know what he's not doing? He's not drunk texting, calling, blog ranting or karensplaining about issues that happened over a decade ago; ones that have nothing to do with his ability to perform his current position which he interviewed for and acquired fairly. Stephens is not spreading falsehoods and misrepresenting EMS operating issues, you are, because several ex-employees have been feeding you chaos cookies. Those past employees lost their jobs because they lacked the ability to perform their job or refused to. The same bitter ex-employees, some of which, are Dirky and responsible for the implementation of locking unused rooms/areas because they had been using their place of employment as a Tinder dating site to cheat on their spouses. Learn to tranistion, pick a better cause, because to be Crystal clear...those Shipps have sailed.
Move on, it's better to let readers think you're ignorant about the goings on at EMS than to continously open mouth-insert foot and prove us right. You and JR have way more in common than you'd like to admit. You're being used to misrepresent EMS by dysfunctional current and angry ex-employees and JRogers is being used to advance the agenda of her maladjusted man babies. You girls need to find inner peace and take up a new hobby.
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