[malkee]

Maybe this was posted earlier. It was a big deal here.

[Persevero]

The poor man. What a terrible way to die.

[Jemian]

Please clarify, this emergency happened during a blizzard, didn’t it? Wasn’t there zero visibility and the roads impassable? I grew up in the south. I don’t deal with snowy weather so I’m having trouble understanding. Are ambulances somehow able to get through on impassable roads?

[John Valentine]

"I'm very angry, because I feel they didn't do their job like they supposed to," said Edge, 51. "My man would still be living if they'da did they job like they was supposed to ..."

What is this? I have never seen a newspaper report using dialect like this.

"...if they'da did they job..." Disgusting newspaper work, insulting, and maybe racist to boot.

[Lancey Howard]

"I'm very angry, because I feel they didn't do their job like they supposed to," said Edge, 51. "My man would still be living if they'da did they job like they was supposed to ... They took somebody that I love away."

I wonder if she'll sue?

[RegulatorCountry]

I’m in NC, and it’s very rare to get a large snowfall, but it does happen, maybe a once in a decade event. Without fail, there is a call for emergency volunteers with large, four wheel drive vehicles, to take people in for dialysis and such. There are announcements on all the radio stations and the local television news.

Too bad that wasn’t done in this instance.

[trisham]

Very sad. Contributing factors were that she is bi-polar and they did not have a car.

The reality is, though, that relying on the government is a mistake. Sometimes, as in this case, the mistake is fatal.

[dfwgator]

911 is a joke.

[fireman15]

I am sure that the EMS system was overwhelmed at the time. Part of the problem with today’s society is that large segments of the population seem to have lost the ability to do anything for themselves. When a challenging situation arrises they all start calling and overwhelm the system, so that people who really need help don’t get it.

For most of the medical calls that we respond to... most of the people would have been better off just driving themselves or having their family drive them to the hospital. Often they call for chronic conditions that they should have just made an appointment for. A very high percentage call only because they know that they will never personally pay for the ambulance and they think that they will be seen quicker going in by ambulance as a way to bypass the waiting room in the hospital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FLwIGJKv-0&feature=related

[Slings and Arrows]

This story has been all over the EMT blogs, and things ain’t what they seem. To summarize, evidence seems to indicate that the higher-ups fornicated the canine and are making the ambulance crew the fall guys. Good metalink:

http://ambulancedriverfiles.com/2010/02/as-usual-the-truth-is-somewhere-between-the-extremes/