Montreal's top head trauma doctor said Friday that the lack of medical helicopters in the province of Quebec may have played a role in Richardson's death.
"It's impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is ... driving to Mont Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a 2 1/2-hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city. Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre, which represents six of Montreal's hospitals.
Being driven by ambulance to two separate hospitals, rather than airlifted by helicopter directly to a trauma center, could have cost Richardson crucial moments, he said.
"A helicopter is obviously the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B," he said.
The other part you snipped, in which the trauma doc states "Our system isn't set up for traumas and doesn't match what's available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States," does not actually point to what was lacking in this case. Is he talking about the lack of a medicopter? Is he talking about a lack of specialists in small hospitals? Again--we have that here in the US. The reason why my middle sized city (pop roughly 115,000) has a helipad is because NONE of the neighboring counties have facilities equipped to handle specialized trauma. No counties neighboring mine are equipped with decent PICUs, just to name one specialty--when a high-risk pregnant woman approaches her due date around here, she is scheduled at Lansing's Sparrow Hospital or Ingham Regional, not any of the surrounding counties' facilities. My best friend had to drive past her county hospital and proceed 35 miles south to deliver at Sparrow. That's not unusual in Michigan, once you are away from Detroit and its burbs.