Almojera recounts patients who died or waited hours for ambulances
Almojera describes a Staten Island woman who waited two hours and 47 minutes, suffered heat stroke, and died, and a Long Island City woman with an open compound leg fracture who waited three hours on a hallway floor. He says these are not spreadsheets but resources New Yorkers cannot count on.
Now let me tell you what those numbers look like when they become human beings.
In late August, on Staten Island,
A woman suffering a medical emergency waited two hours and 47 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
Two hours and 47 minutes.
She was unable to walk.
While waiting, she suffered a heat stroke.
And she died.
In September, a woman in Long Island City suffered an open compound fracture of her tibia and fibula, her shin bones.
A devastating injury with broken bone exposed through the skin.
She lay on the hallway floor of her apartment building waiting for help.
Not 10 minutes, not 30 minutes, three hours.
Three hours lying on the floor with a broken leg, waiting for an ambulance in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country on earth.
And on October 8th, during an ICE-related shooting, as the councilwoman from the Bronx mentioned, a man was shot in the neck.
An ambulance was requested.
But ultimately, it was NYPD officers who transported the wounded man to the hospital.
Think about what that means.
Immigration enforcement and ICE operations have become a major public safety concern in this city.
Yet when an incident involving federal immigration agents results in someone being shot, we cannot even be certain that an ambulance will be available to provide timely emergency medical care.
Regardless of where anyone stands on immigration enforcement, when someone is shot, they need an ambulance.
In October, a woman in the South Bronx was suffering a heart attack.
She called 911 repeatedly.
She waited approximately two hours for an ambulance.
And when an ambulance...
Finally arrived, it was too late to save her.
She died on the way to the hospital.