When an 87-year-old man from Tudor Village fell and cracked his head on the floor at the end of July, his family immediately called 911 and expected emergency responders to be there within minutes.
Instead, they waited. Five minutes passed, then 10 minutes.
An elderly man in Tudor Village had to wait more than 20 minutes for an ambulance after he slipped, hit his head and was bleeding profusely. There have been a series of similar incidents throughout the city recently. Richard York/The Forum Newsgroup
Ten minutes after the 911 call, the neighbor of the elderly gentleman, Ralph Franzese, saw the longtime Tudor Village resident surrounded by paper towels covered with blood and immediately ran to help.
“They told me they had called an ambulance 10 minutes ago – 10 minutes is a long time,” said Frank Dardani, president of the Ozone Tudor Civic and Franzese’s neighbor. “If he was having a heart attack, he would be dead.”
Dardani waited five more minutes for an ambulance, to no avail. The civic leader then called 911, and eventually the FDNY appeared more than 20 minutes after the first phone call.
“The guy from the FDNY got out and said to me, ‘What’s the matter? You’re having a problem with ambulances around here? We had to come from Woodside,’” Dardani said. “I said, ‘Woodside? There’s a volunteer ambulance corps right around here.’”
About five minutes after the FDNY arrived an ambulance – from Corona – appeared at Franzese’s house, located on 133rd Avenue between 86th and 87th streets. Franzese was transported to and treated at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and is now recuperating at home.
Franzese’s story of having to wait for periods of time that could prove fatal to someone in a severe emergency is an increasingly common tale in New York City, which has a 911 system that has become plagued by problems. The city switched its 911 system in 2011 in an effort to streamline services, but emergency responders and elected officials have said that, since 2009, there has been a spike in the reports of missed and misdirected calls and system crashes that force 911 operators to use pen and paper. Recent deaths, such as those of 4-year-old Ariel Russo, a Middle Village girl struck by a car in Manhattan, to a woman from the Bronx who died in a fire, have been attributed, in part, to the system’s failure to deliver timely emergency responses.
“Whether it was Ralph or a younger resident, it’s scary to think in an emergency you have to wait 25 of the longest minutes of your life,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach). “And when help comes, it’s from Woodside and Corona? Something needs to be done about this, whether it’s in this administration or the next. In my opinion, we’re out of the fiscal horrors of 2009 – we’re better off fiscally and we need to invest in this 911 system.”
In response to Franzese’s situation, the state senator penned a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
If the NYPD confirms that emergency responders came from Woodside and Corona, Addabbo wrote in the Aug. 6 letter that he requests “an explanation as to know why an ambulance was delayed in responding to the 911 call and why one closer to our community was not dispatched.
“Within two miles of the incident we have a number of FDNY firehouses and two volunteer ambulance corps,” Addabbo continued.
Dardani and Addabbo said they were relieved that Franzese is recovering, but noted that a wait time such as the one he experienced is unacceptable.
“It’s becoming too prevalent and commonplace,” the senator said. “This is a life and death issue.”
By Anna Gustafson
