Tyler Weaver testifies about son Nikos and falling survival rates

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tyler Weaver.

I wish to thank the council and chairpersons Areola and Narcisse for hosting this meeting.

As I said to this committee two years ago, you know, my 24 year old son, Nikos Costello, suffered a cardiac arrest in the Bronx in 2023.

Unfortunately, it took an ambulance 20 minutes to reach him, and due to severe brain damage from too many minutes without enough oxygen, he was declared dead in ICU the next day and taken off life support.

And the loss of Nick, of course, has been a heavy blow to my family.

Four years ago, the MMR reported a cardiac arrest revival rate of 20%.

Two years ago that dropped to 17% and then last year dropped down to 16%.

With the 20,000 or so cardiac arrests each year, that's a one-fifth relative drop in revival is significant and it means hundreds of less New Yorkers were revived.

Back in June 1981, the average response time to critical calls by EMS was 13 minutes.

And we just heard from Jim Carr, who was there at that time.

And under his leadership, they were able to lower that down, I think, all the way down to nine minutes.

So there's ways to solve this issue.

Even during 2020, when COVID hit,

The final average for that year was 10 minutes.

However, since 2017, response time to life-threatening calls has been increasing, and for the first time in 40 years, it just hit 13 minutes again.

So this milestone should be a major wake-up call to everyone that the city has now gone back to ambulance response times from the early 1980s.

Incredibly, the situation continues to get even worse.

Monthly averages recently reached 15 minutes and the Bronx even hit 18 minutes.

FDNY EMS workers get paid a lot less than other first responders, so it's no wonder why they keep leaving.

They haven't had a contract in four years and the downstream effect is that they're understaffed by 400 positions and numerous up to 100 ambulances are left sitting unstaffed daily.

I believe that increasing EMS pay, renewing their contract will be one important part of fixing the response time crisis.

And the mayor and the officer labor relations should re-examine their priorities and their overall approach to EMS labor issues.

In the meantime, all major EMS stats keep going in the wrong direction.

And New Yorkers in medical distress are suffering harm while waiting too long for ambulances.

And I want to thank you for having me here today.

Thank you.

Mr.

Weaver, we just want you to know that we will not give up until EMS.

brings their response times down, and a tragedy that you have suffered will never happen again to any other family.

Thank you so much for always showing up for the hearings.

Thank you.

Next, we have Cheryl Bernard.