My dad could still be alive, but he's not

This is a very tragic story and my heart goes out to the family. It's one I've seen a few times now and hear about on a very regular basis from my coworkers.

I am a Canadian Paramedic (EMR soon to be PCP in a few months, roughly equivalent to EMT and AEMT respectively). Some things strike out at me:

- Here in BC our calltakers can advise patients on some treatments. I'm sure if that were to happen here, they would have advised the family to administer some ASA (Aspirin) to the patient which would have bought valuable time until professional care could be reached. Even if it was found to be contraindicated, the fact it was not mentioned in the blog post stands out to me.

- I'm not familiar with the geography of Toronto or its normal traffic patterns, but it's surprising that a single ambulance was not 30 minutes from the patient driving lights and sirens at that time of night (shortly after dinner).

- Fire crews here in BC are dispatched to severe medical incidents (like heart attacks) and most of the time can even beat ambulance crews to a scene. They would have been able to provide CPR if needed, possibly even ASA or Nitro depending on their scope. So again it's surprising that there's no mention of them. Perhaps they aren't dispatched to medical calls in Toronto?

- Lastly it's surprising that the calltaker had no visibility on where the dispatched crews were at. At the very least they could have radioed the crew to get an ETA. I guess I just take it for granted that over here we are tracked as soon as we sign in to our vehicle (it's a safety thing especially in some of our more rural/remote stations). If the ambulance was just about to reach the patient right before the family decided to go to the hospital on their own, things might have turned out differently.

Also since I'm assuming that a large percentage of HN readers are older males who are at risk of a heart attack (due to factors like working desk jobs and not keeping up with fitness as much), read up on the signs and symptoms of a heart attack and keep a bottle of aspirin at the ready. Bodies are complicated and weird and you never know.

>Fire crews here in BC are dispatched to severe medical incidents (like heart attacks) and most of the time can even beat ambulance crews to a scene

according to the blog post, the father was talking (said "be careful" about a left hand turn) and apparently ambulatory (collapsed on his way into the hospital), so perhaps it wasn't yet considered a severe medical incident yet.

in the post she was told by her mother that father was in the hospital and she could visit him in the morning. This was at 11:30pm, hours after the arrival at the hospital which was within an hour "after dinner"

seems to me the father's condition was not known to be that severe, and well after the "late" arrival at the hospital he was thought to be in good condition. (tho always possible the hospital staff was not keeping the mother informed)

So I don't know exactly how Toronto operates their ambulance service, but unless the family gave some bad details, the calltaker should have gleaned that they were likely dealing with a case of cardiac-related chest pain, and that's right at the top of the list of severe emergencies, regardless of how far along it has progressed, at least over here anyways.

I should add I feel a little queasy about dissecting this blog post for details. It seems more like a cathartic exercise for the author rather than some breakdown review of how the incident went, so it seems like some details were left out on purpose.

Yes they send fire here in Toronto too. They frequently beat the ambulance. And yes they prioritize heart issue above all else too.

you dissected the blog post to ascertain how bad you thought traffic would be at that hour. that's actually what made me notice the timeline she had established and the appearance that it seemed to get more severe later.

At least in my area, King County area, a call of severe chest pain would immediately get units rolling code (lights+sirens) for CHEST PAIN. Pulse point, which works in our area, would also start paging BLS certified people in the neighborhood who have the app.

When I've called 911, the dispatchers grilled me going right down the list of signs and symptoms and did an excellent triage job.

I'm a volunteer EMT / FF at a pretty rural station, and the thing that slows us down the most is traffic if we're coming from behind the accident, and distance. As the sibling / gp said, the dispatchers know where we are via gps at almost all times and usually tell the RP (Reporting Party) when we're close so someone can go out and flag us down.

I don't mean to be argumentative, just provide what I know working as a volly FF/EMT for a year. As others have said, this is tragic.

FWIW, Seattle is famously one of the top cities in which to have a serious medical emergency. Very fast response and state-of-the-art care.

what other cities are good?