By Daniel Betts
The B.C. Ambulance Service supplied The Valley Sentinel with a statement from their Quality Improvement Team in regard to the tragic accident 30 Km south of Valemount on July 12 that claimed the life of Jim Carroll of Edmonton, Alta. “Our deepest sympathies go out to the family of the patient, Jim Carroll. This was a very unfortunate incident,” said B.C. Ambulance Spokesperson, Christy Anderson.
B.C. Ambulance arrived on scene approximately 20 minutes after the original call came into the dispatcher. The entire round trip, from the time the call came in to their arrival at the Valemount Health Clinic was 55 minutes. “It is unlikely that a helicopter could have been launched, landed and have been transported in that amount of time,” said Anderson.
Most important to note is the assessment of the patient. “While the incident is very unfortunate, due to the nature of the patient’s injuries B.C. Ambulance believes there was not a possibility of changing the outcome,” said Anderson.
Update: July 22nd
In regard to why BC Ambulance had initially not proceeded to the scene with more haste, Christy Anderson, BCAS Spokesperson, had this to say, “BC Ambulance originally received the call as a routine call, which means we would not be going lights and sirens or breaking the speed limit. Approximately 15 min after the original call it was upgraded to code 3, which is where we drive with lights and sirens and break the speed limit. That is based on the information we receive from the person who makes the call, which goes through our dispatch system and the call gets dispatched. After the call was upgraded to code 3 we were on scene 5 minutes later. “
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Thanks to the BC Ambulance service for anwering the question so rapidly. That is certainly an understandable response based on the information that they were given from thier initial call.
As the Editor had stated, we know it would not have made a difference in this accident, however, we need to find out why and where the communication breakdown was with the road crew in getting the information out to the Ambulance dispatch. Why did it take so long for the initial call to be made, and now, why was incomplete information given to the Ambulance so they could have been given the correct code to proceed to the accident site? We need to ensure that there are proper procedures in place so this will not happen again, as we do not want another life to hang in the balance of miscommunication. Hopefully the road crew will be willing to answer these questions shortly.
This tragedy has touched so many people and it is understandable that many of them want answers. From my perspective I feel it is very important that people be made aware of circumstances which affect public safety and are aware of everything that can go wrong. Lives can change in mere seconds. How we react to overwhelming circumstances cannot be known until one is placed within those circumstances. Being in an overwhelming circumstance changes our perspectives and how we react.
As more information becomes available it would seem clear that many on the scene were doing everything they could to help Mr. Carroll. Timing questions are going to be hard to answer without knowing more about the circumstances. I must deal with facts. I know there is no cellular service in the area of the accident and my understanding from witnesses is that the road crew had to use a radio to call for help, but anything beyond that is speculation. Why a sense of urgency was not conveyed to the ambulance dispatcher won’t be known for sure. We do know that the Ambulance Dispatcher would have received the call from a third party that received a radio message from the scene. We don’t know what that conversation sounded like but I question whether a third party would be able to convey a sense of urgency if they did not see the scene for themselves. We also don’t know what the message from the scene sounded like over the radio. We can safely say that a failure in communication did occur.
We all perform to the best of our abilities under the circumstances we find ourselves in. The BC Ambulance Service is very clear that under the circumstances a faster response would not have changed the outcome. The lesson for anyone reading this is that communication is a key component in any emergency. It is very important that information be conveyed quickly and that the information is verified. Again, we don’t know what was happening. We only know what people are willing to tell us.
Daniel
Well, this news now brings up a couple more questions….
1. For the road crew, why did it take so long to call for the ambulance? We told the flagger immediately upon assessing Mr. Carroll to call for the ambulance, and to send the air ambulance if they had one, and he did in fact use his radio to send a message to someone, why did it take them approximately 25 minutes at least to actually get in touch with the ambulance service?
2. For the Ambulance service, why was the ambulance not travelling with its lights and sirens going, and why was it not travelling at a high rate of speed like the two police cruisers were? I passed the ambulance about 7-10 miles away from the accident scene (onto its way there), and I even remarked to my son, “Why are they not flying there like the police are?” At that point, they would not have known the condition of Mr. Carroll other than it was extremely serious, as we did not give updates on his condition to the flagger who had the radio.
I know we cannot bring Mr. Carroll back, and I know that even if the ambulance was only 5 minutes away it would not have changed the end result, but I feel that we need to have adequate answers to these questions to ensure something like this can and will be avoided in the future. I look forward to hearing a response from both parties on this shortly, and I am sure a lot of other people do as well.