Toronto mom says son suffering life-threatening allergic reaction had to wait about 20 minutes for ambulance

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Riley is feeling better after a life-threatening allergic reaction at his school in midtown Toronto Tuesday morning.

“I ate something that had or touched peanuts,” the 10-year-old told CTV News. “I didn’t think it had because it was in a normal bag.”

It was shortly after 10 a.m., he told his teacher when he started feeling unwell and went to the school office.

“They gave me my EpiPen when my throat was kind of closing in,” he said.

The school, located near Bathurst Street and Glencairn Avenue, also called 911 at 10:17 a.m. It was answered very quickly and they waited for an ambulance to show up.

As they waited, Riley’s condition didn’t improve, and they had to give him a second shot of his EpiPen.

“It was pretty scary while I was waiting for the ambulance,” said Riley.

Toronto paramedics told CTV News, “While the crew was en route, the call priority was upgraded. The total response time was 19 minutes.”

“My son’s school is in midtown Toronto, and there’s no reason why this should take that long,” said Amanda Dale, Riley’s mom.

According to the 10-year-old, fortunately, Hatzoloh Toronto, an emergency service operating in Toronto’s Jewish community, arrived to help within three minutes of them being called. They were able to support him but they cannot transport patients to the hospital.

“I was told that when the ambulance did arrive, it was questioned why it took so long, and they responded by saying that they were having a very busy day,” said Dale. “That’s extremely upsetting and extremely frustrating to hear that.”

This is the third emergency call reported to CTV News in five days that a patient experienced a 911 call or ambulance response time delay.

On Friday, passersby told CTV News they called 911 after they found a staff member bleeding in the doorway of a store near Queen Street West and John Street following a robbery. Toronto paramedics confirmed the ambulance response time was 15 minutes.

On Saturday night, a 15-year-old was shot in the area of Weston Road and Jane Street. Neighbours rushed to help him and called 911 but the first call was not answered for nearly 7 minutes. The boy was pronounced dead in the hospital.

Mayor Olivia Chow called the delay in answering the call “not acceptable,” and the deputy chief of Toronto Paramedics confirmed a review was underway.

The Toronto Police Service told CTV News, “…reducing wait times is a top priority for the Toronto Police Service. We are actively hiring three classes of 30 new communications operators this year to strengthen our capacity and improve response times.”

For Dale, she wants to see the delays addressed urgently to prevent a different ending for another child.

“We shouldn’t be expected to have a separate, private ambulance service to address our children’s emergency needs,” she said.