Widow blames EMS-jake feud for her husband's death

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Widow blames EMS-jake feud for her husband's death

By Marie Szaniszlo, Boston Herald

Sunday, December 12, 2004

How many deaths does it take to dispatch a Boston rescue crew?  

 

    Nearly a decade after a jogger died of a heart attack less than a block from a Charlestown firehouse, Frank Kodzis is still waiting for the punch line to what has become a grim riddle.  

 

    ``Wasn't one death enough?,'' said Kodzis, whose neighbor, Thomas Cook, died last month after an ambulance traveled 8 minutes to his Dorchester home while a fire truck idled less than a minute away. ``Why not send the cavalry? You can always call them back. One death is too many. More than one is unconscienable.''  

 

 

    Over the last decade alone, more than a half-dozen deaths have brought the city's emergency response system under public scrutiny. The problem first made headlines in 1995, when John Passalacqua of Charlestown suffered a heart attack roughly 300 yards from a firehouse, which, like the one in Dorchester, was never notified - even though it had life-saving equipment. Instead, a dispatcher sent first a police cruiser and, after a second 911 call, an ambulance, to the scene. But by the time it arrived - 19 minutes later - the 35-year-old construction worker was dead.  

 

    Passalacqua's widow sued the city, alleging that a turf war between Boston Emergency Medical Services and the Boston Fire Department had contributed to his death. City officials denied the claim. But in more than one instance, tension between the two departments has boiled over into fistfights at accident scenes.  

 

    Privately, some rescue workers attribute the strain between the two agencies to a sharp drop in the number of fires over the last decade, a decline that has freed up firefighters to respond to more medical calls and, some note, potentially made the fire department vulnerable to job cuts.  

 

     Today, all 911 calls go to police headquarters. From there, fire calls are transferred to the fire department's Fenway facility. Medical calls are transferred to an emergency medical technician at police headquarters who enters a code indicating the exact nature of the call into a computer system

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Emergency situation: City investigates EMS response time

By Marie Szaniszlo

Sunday, December 12, 2004

The death a 47-year-old diabetic has touched off a city probe into why an ambulance was sent on an 8-minute trip to his Dorchester home while trained firefighters with lifesaving equipment idled a minute away.  

 

    Thomas Cook was taken off life support and died at Boston Medical Center Nov. 18, 11 days after his wife's desperate 911 call reporting that he wouldn't wake up. The cause of death: ``ventricular fibrillation arrest,'' a heart condition that halted the flow of oxygen to his brain.  

 

     Cook's family alleges that his death might have been prevented, had emergency workers followed their own protocol for cases involving an unconscious person by dispatching both an ambulance and a firetruck, a truck parked two streets away.  

 

    ``Literally, it would have taken less than a minute,'' said Cook's brother-in-law, Bill Ryan, who lives in the same Walnut Street home as his sister.  

 

     Firefighters are trained first responders and many are EMTs. They carry lifesaving equipment on their trucks such as defibrillators and oxygen tanks.  

 

    This is not the first time the city's emergency response system has come under attack. In 1995 John Passalacqua of Charlestown had a heart attack roughly 300 yards from a firehouse, which, like the one in Dorchester, was never notified - even though it had life-saving equipment. Instead, a dispatcher sent first a police cruiser and, after a second 911 call, an ambulance, to the scene. But by the time it arrived - 19 minutes later - the 35-year-old construction worker was dead.  

 

    More than once, tension between the two departments has led to fistfights at accident scenes.  

 

    Last August, when the MBTA closed the Redfield Street Bridge for renovations, the Boston Fire Department set up a temporary station nearby on Conley Street to ensure emergency access to the 150 households that make up Dorchester's Port Norfolk neighborhood.  

 

     But on the night of Joanne Cook's anguished call for help, firefighters were unaware of the emergency unfolding less than a quarter-mile away.  

 

    ``We were never notified, unfortunately,'' said Scott Salman, a fire department spokesman.  

 

    Boston Emergency Medical Services Chief Richard Serino expressed his condolences for Cook's death, and said EMS is investigating the incident.  

 

    On the agency's tape of the 911 call, a frantic Joanne Cook can be heard telling a dispatcher: ``He's a diabetic. . . . He's just out of it. He won't wake up.''  

 

    The words ``just out of it'' might have led the dispatcher to believe Cook meant disoriented but still conscious, Serino said, a condition that wouldn't have required both an ambulance and a fire truck.  

 

    According to the tape of the call, however, Joanne Cook also told the dispatcher emergency workers had been to the house before, ``but he was never out like this.'' And in the EMS log, the subject of the call is listed as a 48-year-old unconscious diabetic and as a cardiac arrest, the types of calls that require both agencies to respond.  

 

    ``We always tell our dispatchers to err on the side of caution, and the more accurate information we get, the faster we can get people the proper help,'' Serino said. ``We're always looking to improve the system, but there's still a human element, and we look to improve that in any way we can.''  

 

    Less than a month before his death, Thomas Cook questioned the wisdom of closing the Redfield Street Bridge, one of the only ways into or out of Port Norfolk. But the temporary fire station eased his mind.  

 

    `` `If it saves one person's life, it's worth it,' '' Ryan remembers him saying. ``Whoever thought it would come down to his?''