Lakeland Patients Waited More than 30 Minutes for Ambulance Service – Says Former Fire Chief
Prince George, B.C.- Injured workers at the Lakeland explosion site, “did not receive the timely care, appropriate treatment, or rapid transport to hospital that they required” wrote former Prince George Fire Rescue Chief John Lane in a letter to the Executive Director of the BC Ambulance Service in Prince George.
In the letter, entered as evidence at the Coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Alan Little and Glenn Roche, John Lane wrote that “despite repeated pleas by radio and face-to face, ambulance crews would not attend the patient collection and treatment area.” He said there were at least 5 critically injured patients, and Fire crews had to resort to “desperate measures” to get those five to an ambulance that was parked on River Road.
The two most critical, were loaded into what Lane described as “clam shell stretchers”. One ( Alan Little) was placed in the back of Lane’s pick up which Lane then slowly drove to the ambulance that was parked on River Road. According to Lane’s letter, the ambulance attendant at that site was reluctant to accept the patient, but Lane and another firefighter loaded the patient into the back of the ambulance.
Deputy Chief Iverson transported 4 other patients (including Glenn Roche) to the same ambulance location, but, according to Lane’s letter, ended up transporting those 4, plus one other, to the hospital.
Lane wrote that he had heard BCAS personnel involved in the Lakeland incident “have received notes of commendation for following procedures so well. While these procedures may fulfill the needs of BCAS as a organization, they clearly did not meet the needs of these patients.”
Lane said given the severity of injuries, the fatalities would not have been prevented “However, all of these patients, both fatalities and survivors, deserved better care.”
Comments
obviously, the character of the ambulance attendants was not what was required here. Not saying rules were meant to be broken, but under these circumstances, yes.
I know of a wonderful lady who broke the rules at a hockey game when she recognized the severity of an injury , she jumped the glass and onto he ice and saved the life of a child from certain death ! (choking)
Rules are written by pencil pushers. It still take real people making hard decisions to make the world go around.
Did Chief Lane and Deputy Chief Iverson receive letters of commendation for what they did in this emergency situation?
Wow. I’m speechless. How do some people sleep at night.
Wow, that must have been a heck of a letter that Mr John Lane had written to BCAS.
Again…..BCAS personnel are NOT….I repeat…NOT trained rescue personnel. History is full of would be rescuers who died because they figured they could get in and get people in trouble.
This isn’t the movies people…..
To bring BCAS into this inquest in this manner is uncalled for, what’s the purpose a deflection by the Fire cheif to devert the attention away from the subject as to what and why was the cause of this fire , as to who should be responsible for allowing this mill to explode into a ball of fire , there is negliance here somewhere, I would think there are at least several who were dirlict of duty, accidents don’t just happen , they are allowed to happen for various inexcuable reasons, what will the outcome be, that old bullshit cliche’ it was an act of God, there is no such thing as a God, but there are incompetent and lazy people out there not fulfilling their rolls to the best of their ability.
There is no excuse for the ambulance personnel holding back like that. It’s a bloody emergency and they are people we trust our lives with. There should be an inquest into how this could have happened… I think it’s as important as to why the explosion happened.
It could of been any one of us getting a bumpy ride in the box of a truck while dieing because the ambulance wouldn’t drive down a road closer to the scene as directed by other first responders.
No wonder John Lane left this town when he was left to work along side that kind of incompetence.
A lot of the people on here commenting have no idea how emergency operations, staging for an Mass Casualty Incident, or triage work.
But by all means, if you think you can do a better job in a disaster, BCAS is hiring.
I’m sure if any of you knew any ambulance attendants personally, you would know they are not disaster response crews. They are MEDICAL emergency attendants. The fire fighters on the other hand are trained in disaster/accident response…so don’t try to play the blame game.
The story said: “despite repeated pleas by radio and face-to face, ambulance crews would not attend the patient collection and treatment area.”
Obviously then the ambulance crew was not asked to go into the burning/exploded mill to extricate the injured, only to the above mentioned area to put them on stretchers and into the ambulance. Something sure does not add up!
PrinceGeorge
An earlier story here stated that there were protocols in place that said that the paramedics could not procede to triage area until advised to do so through proper channels which did not include face to face or calls from accident site. I would imagine this would be an assessment to ensure the triage area was safe and the risk of another explosion was minimal. It would do one any good if the ambulances rushed in and they too became victims of another explosion, expanded fire or a wall collapse.
An example of poor or improper procedure is what happened at a mine in southern BC a number of years ago. One worker went down in an oxygen deficient shed, a co-worker found him a bit later called 911 went in to try to help and also went down. First paramedic went in and was also overcome closely followed by second paramedic. So instead of one death there were four.
If there was a delay in getting approval to proceed then that is what should be put under the microscope to make sure it does not happen again.
@Sparrow.. The incident your talking about is tge Sullivan mine incident. And it was because there wasn’t an incident command protocol in place. The majority of the population doesn’t know that the priority of rescuers and responders is the safety of the responders. One of the biggest failures in command breakdown in recent history was September 11th where most of the casualties were firefighters and police officers.. Had there been an incident command structure in place like the Lakeland incident the outcome of 911 would have been a lot different..
Eagleone: You’re so completely out of touch with the real world. Keep your ridiculous comments to yourself and try to have some semblance of a reasonable thought in your head before you choose to spew such rhetoric next time.
If there is any fault to be laid at the feet of any BCAS personnel in this instance, it rests completely at the feet of the people in command. The fire department isn’t in charge of BCAS personnel and cannot direct or order any of them into a volatile situation such as this one was.
I guarantee that if those medics had entered that scene WITHOUT the clearance from their own command structure they would’ve been heavily disciplined and even fired. BCAS does not back their paramedics at all and they’re quite often left on their own.
Couldn’t have said it better myself Mercenary, thank you.
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