Sources: DC ambulance response was delayed for dying baby
WASHINGTON - Police in D.C. are investigating the death of a baby on Thursday. Also under investigation is a delay in getting an ambulance to the scene.
The call for help came in at 3 p.m. Thursday in Southeast D.C. According to sources, responding firefighters performed CPR on a 5-month-old baby suffering from trauma. The nearest ambulance for transport was seven miles away. Dispatch called to Prince George's County for help, but no units were available.
Sources said after nearly ten minutes of waiting, the child was loaded onto a fire truck and was on the way to Children's National Medical Center. But that fire truck was intercepted by an ambulance 15 minutes following the original call.
This child is now the third child to die since March in an incident involving a delayed response by a D.C. Fire and EMS ambulance.
In just over a month, the men and women who work at Engine 30 in Southeast D.C. have responded to two different calls for dying children. In both of the calls, there were no ambulances to help transport those children to area hospitals.
This firehouse was noted as being the one that received the most calls for help in the country in 2014.
Four ambulances are assigned to this firehouse and the fire department said that for a few weeks, two of the ambulances have been out of service.
But firefighters that work inside this engine company said that those two ambulances have been out of service for three months since June 1.
Also since March, Prince George's County Fire and EMS has seen an unusual surge in calls to assist D.C. Fire and EMS. There were nine total calls for mutual aid in July followed by 58 calls for assistance to Prince George's County in August.
Even more staggering is that in a 24-hour span from the morning of September 1st to the morning of September 2nd, Prince George's County sent 14 ambulances to assist D.C. -- the highest number ever requested from Prince George's County.
There is now an investigation as to how that baby died.
As for the apparent ambulance crisis here in the District, we have reached out to the fire chief, the second in command as well as the mayor's office, but have not received a response.