DX-300 said:
I caught it only as an ambulance on A3 saying they have 5 black and they need the ME ASAP, and thats when I started monitoring. I didn't catch it early enough to hear who were all dispatched. RCMP also got involved and then Sheriffs were later sent in to do traffic control. As far as I know it was just Calgary EMS sent in.
If they knew early enough that they were all fatals, they wouldn't have called in any other ambulances. I was just curious.. the way that EMS is chronically short on trucks these days, it would make much more sense to send perhaps 3 trucks from Calgary and 2 from Okotoks and High River if FREMS could afford it (but then again they only have those two, plus Black Diamond and Priddis, total).
Calgary went into yellow alert immediately after the carbon monoxide incident last night.. that's even with three firefighters and a medic driving themselves to hospital in a pumper. As we've discussed in the past, EMS has a real hard time keeping ambulances in service, mainly due to hospital waits. One thing they've done to try to alleviate the problem is some adjustments to the way EMS deploys or "flexes" units. Previously, each medic unit went back to their "own" hall as often as possible. Nowadays, an ambulance basically goes to the closest available station and stays there unless they get a call, or it's the end of shift. It's more complex than that, with four zones that divide up the city (basically NW/NE/SW/SE, with slight subtle differences), and certain halls that MUST be covered, but you get the idea. Already it's been noticeable that trucks are moving around less and getting to rest at the hall - whichever one they're at - instead of driving around covering stations all day (or night). So it's helping the crews get some more down time, but the fact of the matter is still that there are too many times that trucks spend over an hour (or several!) waiting for a bed for their patient in the hospital emerg.
