Fort Worth Mother Waits 1 Hour For Ambulance

I just think they were lucky... This could have turned out so differently. Where no amount of I am sorry could have made a difference.

I also feel like the mother shouldn't had to keep calling 911 over and over again. The 911 operator should have kept in contact with her.

Alot of people just bickering back and forth. As a mother if I were to have called and then had to call back b/c no one was there yet I would have gotten my baby in the car and drive them MYSELF!! If I was that freaked out and worried my baby would have gotten there one way or another... I wouldn't wait an hour. It is unfortunate that this mother had to wait that long and I understand that to her it probably felt like 2 or 3 hours instead of just one. I get that and I get that people should have to wait an hour... but I've had to wait an hour before for the police in Dallas to show up...so I wouldn't say Dallas is better. But I told 911 I didn't need an ambulance but that that could change at any minute and it didn't get them there any quicker... I'm just saying... once 20-30 min max goes by and medical help isn't there take them yourself!!

Scott wrote:

They can apologize all they like would not have helped them if the baby had died. Being short staffed is not excuse there are fire fighters on hand and even police are trained in some kind of medical emergencies.
What are these priority and low priority, if someone is calling 911 generally it is an emergency. They need to haul a** to the locations.

Oh Scott, Scott Scott Scott. These dispatchers are trained to make split second decisions. The kid was breathing so the call was bumped down to a lower priority. She is fine. It is people like this woman, who are too stupid to get someone to drive her to the hospital that keep EMS running like chickens with their heads cut off.

Scott, you complained about how mean it is to make servers run ragged, but these people go from call to call not really knowing if it is going to be life or death and it is highly stressful to save lives. It's ok to make them run ragged when a human life is at stake? But not some stupid waitress when it's a hamburger?

To the mother, your not very smart are you? I am a dispatcher and I deal with people like you all the time tying up the 911 system for things you could have done yourself. Take the kid to the hospital. My 11 week old daughter DIED. She died. She was NOT breathing, yours is fine. Mine did not even make it to the hospital, they called the ME to come pick her up. The EMT's could not find our house because we lived far out in a new housing addition, but they did all they could and I thanked them. I did not alert the media for my 15 minutes.

You people call us on 911 about freakin drivers who cut you off. You call for the most insane reasons and you are the ones abusing 911. You call 911 to ask for the non emergency number. Your all pathetic.

You, mother, if you were so "concerned" for the safety of your child, should have gotten a ride to the hospital instead of sitting in your house, repeatedly tying up 911 for the real emergencies. You made the bad decision here by being dumb enough to sit and wait.

I am so tired of people like you who don't care what we go through and hear on a daily basis. You think we are just robots who can run indefinitly despite the intense stress. I can handle my job. I do it well, but it's people like you who don't think who make it a million times harder.

Thank you Miss Milliken, you did what any concerned mother would and should have done. You are right, the only time that we have ever been able to make changes at MedStar is after the fact, and most recently after the media has been involved. Our management and our board have been aware of our issues for years now, but as long as politicians are involved in deciding who gets what funding we will fail until enough citizens complain and place pressure on their local city leaders. Thank you for your kind words about our medic's and emt's, it really means a lot to hear that from you after your horrible experience. God Bless you and your family, i am glad your little one is okay!!

i would have driven the child instead of waiting an hour for an ambulance.

Well, add that to the lengthy time it takes just to get through to 911 - we normally get the recorded message "This is the Fort Worth Police Department - if you have an memrgency please do no thang up...please do not hang up" this can go on for several minutes before we even get through to 911 in Fort Worth.

We pay for these services but often times we have to wait on the phone - or forever to get help.

The services providers are just lucky so far but a critical incident will happen wheree there is this type of delay and then the City will wake up and say - gosh maybe we should imporve the capacity...

NO ONE CAN BE AT TWO PLACES AT ONCE! They are understaffed and that is not their own fault, people! The person across town bleeding to death from a gunshot wound is probably going to take priority over a child who although frail looking, is breathing and stable, that just how life works!

Our EMT's are trying as hard as they can, but they are not magicians!!!

Thank you to the MEDSTAR employees, EMTs and Paramedics who have posted on here. From the bottom of my heart I appreciate all you do! Some people may talk the talk, but you all definitely walk the walk! You are HEROES in my eyes...

Disgusted wrote:

<quoted text>
Did it ever cross your mind that the reason there is a shortage of ambulances is because of people like you who don't have the common sense to drive 2 BLOCKS to a hospital.

Drive? If it were my child, I would've scooped him/her into my arms and ran to the ER.

That should of never happened. They should of called the fire Department first.

OH MY G. Shut up for real. Its the media what do you expect. Mo cares if you save a man having a heart attack or got someone to the ER with seconds to spare that stuff happens every day. They woant your faults and errors. Its called rateings DUH!

Second of all, All you medics and dispatchers yall do a great job and are a great asset to any city. BUT!? When yall make an error don't give me all this bull **** that the job is so stressful and it was to busy... blah blah blah... their lots of people that have jobs just as stressful and busy. Point is you make a mistake be a man and fix it not give exuses!Rember its never the customers fult its the worker.

Christy Fort Worth TX wrote:

Let me also take a moment to say thank you the Fort Worth Star Telegram for always supporting MedStar, mentioning when they make spectacular saves, deliver children of our city, and work so hard! Oh wait, that's right... THAT NEVER HAPPENS!! The only time MedStar is mentioned in your paper is when it is negative! If there was a great outcome it was the Fire Department that was responsible not MedStar, some how the FD threw the patient on their truck (I guess on top of the hoses) and transported the patient to the hospital?!?!?! If there was a picture taken and a MedStar ambulance was in the shot, on a positive article the MedStar logo is cropped out! And we are merely mentioned as the local ambulance service. But if its negative it's front page!! MedStar logo everywhere can't miss it! THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!!!

you medic bashers are f'n MORONS! I know a few of the EMTs at this place, and i can tell you this, if YOU are having an emergency and need an ambulance, they are gonna come get you. if you got a cut on your finger, though, you should just drive your dumb ass to the hopspital. Does the mother in question just have more dollars than sense? did she really want to spend the money for the ambulance ride? if she was SO CONCERNED FOR HER CHILD, why did she not drive the 10 minutes to the hospital in her own car once he started breathing again?? Everything that people do for other people is going to have the human element attached to it, and that also gives way for human error, not that these people made an error. as far as i can tell, the ONLY ERROR BEING MADE HERE IS BASHING THE MEDICS! YOU IDIOTS NEED TO BE THANKING THEM FOR ***SAVING LIVES EVERYDAY***

Yes, I believe they did get very lucky because if anything happened to my child while I was waiting for their ignorant a**** I would have sued the h*** out of them. I hope I never need one or a cop for that matter.

pissed off firefighter wrote:

you medic bashers are f'n MORONS! I know a few of the EMTs at this place, and i can tell you this, if YOU are having an emergency and need an ambulance, they are gonna come get you. if you got a cut on your finger, though, you should just drive your dumb ass to the hopspital. Does the mother in question just have more dollars than sense? did she really want to spend the money for the ambulance ride? if she was SO CONCERNED FOR HER CHILD, why did she not drive the 10 minutes to the hospital in her own car once he started breathing again?? Everything that people do for other people is going to have the human element attached to it, and that also gives way for human error, not that these people made an error. as far as i can tell, the ONLY ERROR BEING MADE HERE IS BASHING THE MEDICS! YOU IDIOTS NEED TO BE THANKING THEM FOR ***SAVING LIVES EVERYDAY***

I understand what you're saying but the mother was probably so freaked out that the only thing she was thinking was to call them and not move the baby. Women are more emotional in time of crises than men are.

The MedStar system uses the EMD system for the prioritization of calls. The call taker cannot decide the priority of the call. The answers that are given by the caller determine the priority. There is no stalling or "bumping" calls to a lower priority by any call taker at MedStar. If the call is priority 3 call, then FD is not sent.

TxParamedic wrote:

In my opinion I find it very disturbing that the dispatcher did not believe this was an emergency situation. I am sure that 59 minutes seemed like a life time for that child and mother. It is common for the fire department to respond on all priority 1 and 2 calls dispatched by MedStar, Just an opinion but it seeme like the dispatcher did not have an ambulance available and was buying time by making this a low priority responce. The mother should make a complaint with the Texas Department of State Health Services EMS compliance for review.

The police spend most of their time chasing down false alarms, and paramedics waste their times with non-emergencies. I spoke to one of the drivers a few weeks ago about that in fact. He said they get called out for stubbed toes, minor scrapes, bee stings (with no allergic reaction), etc.

"FIX IT" That is easy to say when you are not having to go to city managers and tell them "We need monies to increase staffing and reduce response times." The answers you get are "We [Fort Worth] are having to cut budgets" and that there is no funding available and that the citizens will not support an additional tax increase to support EMS. If you want to send the needed funds send them down. This is an issue that is faced by all EMS systems, especially when the federal and state governments are decreasing the amount of funding that they are giving out in grants to support EMS and insurance companies offering to pay less each time. Maybed MedStar should receive more money from the city than the Fort Worth Zoo.

Cut your toe & you may wait awhile. Have a stroke & you can bet your LIFE Medstar will be there. These are well trained professionals. All the critics out there don't have a clue as to how this system is set up. Maybe we should let you give it a shot? I don't think so, there would be a lot of casualties. Like I said before, before you fire off insults, live a day in the life of a Medstar Medic. As understaffed as they are, it's amazing that they get to as many calls as they do. So... life threatening calls first.

Without a doubt, the fire based EMS services provide much higher quality and more qualified long-term paramedics . . . most people go to Medstar and stay until they get burned out or find another place to work . . . in the fire service, these folks are in it for the long haul . . . (speaking only of Fort Worth) they must meet MUCH higher requirements to be hired, and typically work for the city for say 30 years . . . Fort Worth citizens are gettin ripped off.

Proud Medstar Medic Mom wrote:

Cut your toe & you may wait awhile. Have a stroke & you can bet your LIFE Medstar will be there. These are well trained professionals. All the critics out there don't have a clue as to how this system is set up. Maybe we should let you give it a shot? I don't think so, there would be a lot of casualties. Like I said before, before you fire off insults, live a day in the life of a Medstar Medic. As understaffed as they are, it's amazing that they get to as many calls as they do. So... life threatening calls first.

Well I am sure you are a proud Medstar mom, however, don't be so confident in your claims that Medstar will show up quickly if you are having a stroke or a heart attack for that matter ... your best bet is to drive your family to the ER ... and/or make sure that Mestar decides to notify the FD so they can get a paramedic engine company at your house ... Medstar is being thrown under the bus because they SUCK ... nobody wants to work there that is able to move on to somewhere or something else ... is is a great place to get some experience, not a great place to retire from ... if you change that last part then the retention may improve, until then, get ready for shortages and long waits.

As a former Medstar employee, this does not surprise me at all. For years and years the population of the 14 cities that Medstar cover's has grown, but Medstar has not. People in Management positions at Medstar are into saving money. I think it is high time that the higher up's at Mestar ie. Jack, Dan, Chris C, and most of the worthless feild supervisor's (Medstar 80) are fired and the city of Fort Worth Takes over All EMS. This is not a first time thing and will continue until something is done. The field crews and dispatchers are doing all in their power but POOR Management hold them back.