A Calgary mother is concerned about the emergency response system in her city, after a call to 911 seeking help for her toddler daughter went directly to a pre-recorded message.
Stacey Hamrlik says she was on hold for three minutes while three-year-old Nevada waited with her leg trapped in the rungs of a chair.
“That was scary, as a mother, knowing my kid needs help and I couldn’t get that for her,” Hamrlik told CTV Calgary on Tuesday. She said she was afraid to try to get the child out of the chair herself, for fear of moving her the wrong way and breaking one of her bones in the process. “I don’t know which way a leg can go in that situation, so I’m not risking it snapping,” she said.
Commander Richard Hince of the Calgary Police says emergency responders were swamped on Sunday, because of a road accident in a high-traffic area of town.
“We had one of those unexpected surge of calls. We had a pedestrian-versus-vehicle accident,” he said on Tuesday. “Lots of people saw the accident and immediately phoned us.”
Hince says most 911 calls are answered within 5.6 seconds.
But Hamrlik says people expect a human voice whenever they call 911 in an emergency, and a phone message simply is not good enough.
“Those two-to-three minutes being on hold could cause that person to die,” she said. “I think that’s every parents’ fear.”
City councillors and advocacy groups have raised concerns over Calgary’s emergency response times getting even slower, as the province moves to separate ambulance dispatchers from the rest of the 911 system. Starting next year, Alberta Health Services will take control of ambulance dispatch from Calgary’s first responders.
