Williams describes 25-minute cross-borough response times
Gerardney Williams, an Army veteran and paramedic, describes starting in East 86th Street and responding to East Houston Street and 121st Street with 25-minute ETAs. He says fire, police, and MTA workers all wait for ambulances, and hospitals are pulling ambulances out of the 911 system because they are not profitable.
How you doing?
My name is Gerardney Williams.
I'm a United States Army veteran, former New York City correction officer, and a current New York City paramedic.
I just want to start by giving a rundown on how severe response times are because of lack of staffing.
So I work on an ambulance on East 86th Street and Lexington Avenue.
And when I log on, my first caller tonight is on East Houston Street.
So to go from East 86 to East Houston Street is a 25-minute ETA.
25.
25 minutes for an unconscious patient on the bus.
So now the bus driver has to pull over, get rid of everybody on the bus, and wait for an ambulance to get there.
We get there, the patient's seizing, we stop it, we get them to the hospital.
After we clear the hospital, we get another call, 121st and 1st for domestic violence.
From East Houston to 121st and 1st, another 25-minute ETA.
The police department is there.
They can't clear the scene until the ambulance gets there.
So now the MTA workers waiting for us, the police officers waiting for us.
We assess that patient.
She refuses.
We get to the next call.
The next call.
Old lady fell down, hit her head.
The fire engine gets there.
fire engines waiting for us to clear the patient.
So all of these response times are, they all work together.
So a fire is waiting for us, PD is waiting for us, MTA is waiting for us.
If you ever had to exit a train because you have a sick passenger, they're waiting for an ambulance.
All of this makes the city less efficient.
We have 6,000, at least 6,000 calls a day.
That's the equivalent of what we had on 9-11, what we experienced during COVID.
We're receiving those calls every day.
We're in dire need of more ambulances on the street.
In the meantime, along with the staffing issues going on with FDNY EMS, you have hospitals who contribute to the 911 system who are pulling ambulances out of the system because it's not profitable for them.
Hospitals are pulling ambulances out of their EMS system because it's not profitable for them.
I happen to work for one who pulled three ambulances out last year, got rid of the staff, laid them off, lost three ambulances from the Upper West Side, very busy area.
This is the biggest city in the world, and we're asking for mutual aid for ambulances.
This is shameful.
This is extremely shameful.
While I appreciate the help, the mutual aid, I think that's so...
One, I think it's union busting also, but that's another topic.
But for us to ask for mutual aid, it's shameful.
The chief earlier mentioned the closure of hospital units, and I think it's a very important piece of this EMS thing we do here.
Like he said, we do one-third of the calls in the city, but with the staff decreasing, we're doing more and more and more and more and responding to more calls out of our area, which is increasing response times.
My ambulance sits on the Upper East Side.
I'm responding to calls in East Harlem, Washington Heights.
Soho, Chinatown, the Bronx.
The response times are ridiculous.
Today you heard two separate stories of two children being delayed care.
Children in our city being delayed care because there are no EMS, there are no ambulances, there are no paramedics, there are no EMTs to respond to these calls.
And I think it's just extremely important that we address the issues, FDNY pay issues, but also hospitals pulling ambulances out of the system, which is ridiculous.
Hospitals, billion-dollar hospitals who have money to build new buildings in these neighborhoods, but somehow don't have the money to continue EMS services.
I think we spoke a little bit about that, the hospital closure and all this pulling ambulance is not right to the, yeah, absolutely.
We hear you.
Thank you.