Staffing, bad addresses delay ambulances
Staff writer
Confusing dispatches and short-staffed ambulances are causing delayed responses to people needing medical help.
Thursday evening, with Hillsboro ambulance still en route back from Wichita, where it had taken a 9-year-old with appendicitis, dispatchers sent it to the 100 block of N. Ash St. for an 87-year-old woman with trouble breathing.
The woman actually was in the 200 block of N. Washington St.
Hillsboro first responders provided care until Marion ambulance arrived 14 minutes later. Hillsboro ambulance eventually arrived and transferred the patient.
Saturday evening, Hillsboro firefighters with a drone and Marion ambulance were sent to near US-77 and 40th Rd. to look for a woman thought to have gone missing from a Jeep Wrangler parked there.
Although correctly dispatched, both the ambulance and the firefighters initially headed to 340th Rd. and US-56/77 instead of 340 US-77.
The woman eventually was located. Marion ambulance attendants checked her but did not take her to a hospital.
Sunday afternoon, Marion firefighters were sent to Marion Reservoir’s French Creek Cove at a deputy’s request for an unattended fire pit.
Another deputy on lake patrol checked the location and found it to be at Hillsboro Cove, not French Creek Cove.
After repeated paging, two Marion firefighters responded and quickly extinguished the fire.
Later, a missing final digit from an address resulted in ambulances and first responders being sent to an address 36 miles away from where an 82-year-old man with a history of quadruple bypass surgery was suffering chest pains and having trouble breathing.
Marion ambulance and Burns first responders were sent to 336 Wagon Wheel Rd., near Burns. The address quickly was questioned as nonexistent by first responders and citizens listening to dispatches, but Hillsboro ambulance also headed toward that address.
Fifteen minutes after the call came in, dispatchers continued to insist that the address was near Burns, but three minutes after that they changed to saying it was near Lost Springs.
Marion ambulance, already at US-50, returned to Marion. Tampa ambulance, which had been ordered to stand by in Hillsboro in case of additional calls, headed toward Lost Springs, and Hillsboro ambulance headed there from its location halfway to Burns.
Twenty-six minutes after the call initially came in, Lincolnville first responders were paged as well.
Tampa ambulance arrived 36 minutes after the initial call. Lincolnville first responders arrived two minutes after that, and Hillsboro ambulance arrived eight minutes later.
Hillsboro ambulance took the patient to St. Luke, arriving at 8:02 a.m. Marion ambulance joined Hillsboro ambulance there, and an EagleMed helicopter arrived 15 minutes after that to take the patient to Wesley.
Near noon Monday, with Marion ambulance not available for unspecified reasons, Hillsboro ambulance was dispatched to the 200 block of Adams St. in Lincolnville for a 71-year-old man who may have suffered a stroke.
An ambulance attendant asked that a Dickinson County ambulance and Lincolnville first responders also be dispatched.
Ten minutes after the call came in, a medic normally assigned to Tampa ambulance was first to arrive by private vehicle. The patient ended up being transported by the Dickinson County ambulance to an unspecified destination.
Eight minutes after the call came in, dispatchers attempted to divert Hillsboro ambulance from the Lincolnville call to a wreck involving a dump truck that had rolled onto its side and a pickup that had gone into a ditch on US-77 near 150th Rd.
Instead of Hillsboro ambulance responding, however, a lone supervisor aboard a backup ambulance based in Hillsboro responded, arriving 18 minutes after the initial call.
Dispatchers were told to ask Moundridge ambulance to go to Hillsboro to stand by in case of additional calls. It remained there until 12:32 p.m. but was never deployed.
The EMT who responded to the Lincolnville call was sent via private vehicle to the wreck to fully staff the backup ambulance. She arrived at 12:19 p.m.
Tampa ambulance also headed to the wreck to deal with a reported second patient.
When Hillsboro ambulance was released from the Lincolnville call at 12:12 p.m., Tampa ambulance still was nearly 20 minutes away, so Hillsboro ambulance was sent to the wreck instead.
However, calla to Tampa and Hillsboro ambulance were canceled after the lone medic in the backup ambulance reported, even before the EMT from the Lincolnville call arrived, that one of the two people involved had declined to be taken to a hospital.
Eventually, the second person also declined to be taken to a hospital.
Not yet back in Hillsboro, Hillsboro ambulance was sent at 12:18 p.m. to a farmhouse near 220th and Jade Rds. for a 90-year-old woman who may have suffered a stroke.
Tampa ambulance attendants, who thought they might be closer, volunteered to respond instead and asked that Hillsboro first responders also be dispatched, but the ambulance supervisor at the US-77 wreck reassigned the call back to Hillsboro ambulance and headed to the call himself in the backup ambulance.
Tampa ambulance was told to stand by along US-56 in case of additional calls. It remained there until 12:43 p.m.
Hillsboro ambulance arrived 16 minutes after the initial call and told the supervisor that he would not be needed. The patient declined to be taken by ambulance and instead went by private vehicle.
With Marion ambulance still not available, Hillsboro ambulance was sent at 2:41 p.m. to the Marion County Transfer Station in Marion to take a 60-year-old man who fell to St. Luke.
The backup ambulance then transferred a patient from HCH to NMC Health, returning to Hillsboro at 7:44 p.m.
Although a 10:17 p.m. call initially went to Marion ambulance, which did respond, Hillsboro ambulance ended up transferring a 71-year-old man from St. Luke to Wesley.
No patient care was delayed, but a medic announced the ambulance’s departure from Wesley in a jocular violation of radio protocol, saying “The rocket ship is leaving Wesley and launching back to station.” When the ambulance reached Hillsboro at 1:15 a.m., the medic told dispatchers: “A5 to base command. The starship is back in shuttle, ready for launch.”
Ambulance director Chuck Kenney was on vacation and is not expected to return June 16.
Dispatch director Chelsea Weber said she wasn’t aware why incorrect addresses were given by dispatchers. Those on duty over the weekend were not available to ask on Tuesday.
Weber did say that the misreported fire at Marion Reservoir was a deputy’s mistake.