An Ottawa mother who dialled 9-1-1 when her baby began having trouble breathing says it took 25 painstaking minutes for an ambulance to find her house.
Now, Rebekah Valliere is looking for answers.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through,” Valliere told CTV Ottawa.
According to Valliere, paramedics said that her home -- which was built four years ago in the suburb of Barrhaven -- wasn’t appearing on their mobile GPS system or a paper map.
The Ottawa Paramedic Service declined an interview with CTV but instead issued a statement saying a review will be launched.
"We have initiated a review of this call to determine the circumstances involved. In respecting privacy concerns, we will be communicating the outcomes of this review to the family directly,” wrote Brent Winchcombe, deputy chief for the Ottawa Paramedic Service, in the statement.
Valliere first noticed something was wrong early Wednesday afternoon as she put her 8-month-old son Max down for a nap. One of his ears seemed redder than usual, which she assumed was a symptom of teething.
But just thirty minutes later, his body was covered in hives and he was having trouble breathing.
“He had hives on his face and all the way down his neck. So I woke him up and he had them all over his body,” she said.
As Max’s lips turned blue, Valliere grabbed her cellphone, called an ambulance and rushed her baby to the front door. Then, she waited.
“So I went downstairs and waited by the front door, and I kept checking my phone and my husband … came home and they still hadn’t arrived.”
When paramedics finally showed up, Valliere says they said they couldn’t find the home on Simran Private because it wasn’t showing up in their GPS system.
It’s not the first time Valliere experienced the longer-than-usual wait time. She says paramedics were slow to respond when she was in medical distress shortly after Max’s birth. Eight months later, she’s shocked the problem hasn’t been fixed.
“They have (the address) at dispatch but not in the rigs. There’s something wrong there that needs to be addressed,” she said.
Along with the city’s investigation, a local city councillor for the area, Jan Harder, plans to look into the issue.
As for Max, he was quickly treated and his hives have almost completely disappeared.
