Ambulance delay cause for concern

One hour and 52 minutes.

That’s how long Mike Olfert had to wait to arrive at a hospital after being stung by a hornet at his acreage south of Okotoks.

It was a scary situation for Olfert and his family as delays with ambulance dispatch nearly cost him his life.

Olfert was stung around 1 p.m and immediately went into anaphylactic shock, passing in and out of consciousness within a couple of minutes.

His family was arriving at the house for a get-together and his daughter and daughter-in-law – both nurses – tended to him and made the call to 911. It took about 25 minutes for help to arrive on-scene.

“On Google maps, if you put the farthest fire station and our address, it should be 16 minutes driving the speed limit,” said Olfert. “It just took so long for the ambulance to get there.”

In the meantime, his pulse was weakening. By the time the first of two ambulances arrived, his daughter had no pulse in his wrist but could feel a weak pulse in his neck.

He praised the paramedics who attended the scene as “miracle workers” who saved his life. By the time they arrived his blood pressure had dropped to 30/20 and his skin was ashen.

“They did an amazing job pumping fluids into me, and I think there were three epipens in my leg, plus all the other drugs and whatever else it took,” said Olfert. “They absolutely saved my life and did a great job.”

However, it would still be more than an hour before he would arrive at a hospital.

It was 1:35 p.m. when STARS Air Ambulance was dispatched to the scene. The helicopter arrived at 2:01 p.m., and by 2:30 p.m. Olfert was enroute to South Health Campus hospital.

He was kept overnight at the hospital but said the next morning it was as though nothing had ever happened. He’ll be taking shots to build his immunity to wasp and hornet stings for the next five years, but he is now otherwise unscathed.

It’s frightening to think of how close it was to being a bad ending, he said. His daughter was just a minute away from having to perform CPR, he said.

“I wasn’t far away,” said Olfert. “I could feel my left hand go to sleep and my right hand go to sleep. It was pretty close.”

He said he intends to speak with Alberta Health Services (AHS) about the incident. It shouldn’t have taken so long for help to reach him, and he wants to prevent others from suffering a worse outcome, he said.

Suzanne Oel, chair of Foothills Regional Emergency Services Commission (FRESC) said it appears there were a few reasons for the delay, and some are cause for concern.

First, she said the call originated from a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone. Due to the VoIP provider, the call was first connect to Northern 911 before being transferred to Foothills 911 at 1:06:26 p.m., she said.

To assist with timing, particularly for VoIP or rural residents, she said it’s important for callers to immediately state the municipality they are actually in. For those in the country, it’s important to name the municipal district or county rather than the nearest urban centre, she said.

“Because of the provider of the VoIP phone, the call was first sent to Northern 911 before it came to us, and we don’t know what time the initial call was received there,” said Oel. “It’s important to inform dispatch of your location right away.”

FRESC sounded the alarm about rural ambulance dispatch in May citing several incidents where dispatch problems were leading to potentially life-threatening delays. Alberta Health minister Sarah Hoffman said at the time she would monitor ambulance dispatch in rural areas.

Nick Thain, executive director of EMS operations for AHS, said it’s not unusual for a response to a rural community to take longer due to travel distance. Though it took upwards of four minutes for an ambulance to be dispatched from the time the call was first transferred from Northern 911, he said AHS EMS acted in a timely manner from the moment they took over the call.

“We verified the address and notified the closest ambulance in less than 90 seconds, which is the benchmark time,” said Thain in a written statement. “We also arrived on-scene in under 17 minutes, also well within our benchmark time for rural responses.”

According to an AHS timeline transcript of the event provided to the Western Wheel by Olfert, Foothills 911 forwarded the call to AHS emergency services dispatch at the South Calgary Centre (SCC) at 1:07:17 p.m. At 1:10:16 p.m. AHS EMS dispatch created an official event. At that time, the address still had not been verified, and it took at least two minutes to get the right location.

Oel said this could be partly due to the caller initially saying the address was on Clear Mountain Drive in Okotoks rather than specifying the MD of Foothills. However, she said the CAD system at Foothills 911 immediately pinpointed the address as being in the MD, so it’s unclear what the issue could have been at the SCC.

“Our computer verified right away, we knew right away it wasn’t in Okotoks,” said Oel. “That’s that local knowledge component. The addressing wouldn’t have been an issue for us, not at all.”

In fact, when FRESC picked up the call to have fire sent to the scene to assist with STARS landing, she said they were dispatched within 51 seconds.

In an emergency situation every second counts, she said.

“Just try holding your breath for a minute and a half and then see how long that time period of 20 minutes is,” said Oel.

Despite response issues, Thain said AHS is proud of how the emergency was handled. He said AHS continued to work with FRESC to review calls in the Foothills.

“Both AHS and FRESC have agreed to review how each dispatch centre hands calls off to one another and is examining the technical links that can be improved,” said Thain.