Seven-minute delay in getting an ambulance to
an injured firefighter
FirefighterNation Staff
ROCHESTER, New York – The Rochester firefighters’ union told WROC they had to wait over seven minutes to get an ambulance for a firefighter suffering from a rapid pulse and heat exhaustion.
The City of Rochester said the firefighter was treated on-scene and the transport wasn’t an issue, ambulances were there.
The president of the Rochester Firefighters Association, Eddie Santiago, said the ambulance on the scene was treating someone else, “The minute they started working on that other person, another one should have been dispatched.”
Santiago said Rochester ambulance crews are overworked and overused.
Santiago says a solution here could be a fire-based EMS service, and help take the stress off the system.
