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City Council Speaker Julie Menin is pressing the FDNY for answers after a 16-year-old was badly hurt during a basketball game on the Upper East Side earlier this month and no EMS unit reached him, despite five separate 911 calls and a firehouse right next door.
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The injury happened around 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 3, at Robert F. Wagner Middle School at 220 East 76th Street, according to a letter Menin sent to FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore dated October 16. The school sits directly next to FDNY Engine Company 44, which backs up to the property from East 75th Street. Menin wrote that the concerns were raised by the teen’s parent, a constituent.A bystander first called 911 at 4:10 p.m. while the teen lay on the court in extreme pain, according to the letter. His injuries later turned out to be fractures to his tibia and fibula. The bystander and a school safety officer went on to place four more 911 calls.
At 4:40 p.m., 30 minutes after the first call, the teen’s father contacted a private ambulance service because he couldn’t wait any longer for EMS, Menin wrote. NYPD officers were the first responders to arrive, at 4:46 p.m., and by then the teen had already been taken to a hospital.
Then, at 6:54 p.m., about two hours and 45 minutes after the first call, the FDNY phoned the bystander who’d reported the incident to ask whether an ambulance was still needed.
According to Menin, the FDNY’s own incident report pointed to a key delaying factor: the dispatcher’s assignment of a response unit was twice preempted by higher-priority calls. “I find it especially troubling that EMS’s capacity appears to be under such strain that, according to FDNY’s own incident report, the emergence of two urgent cases can significantly prolong response on a third,” Menin wrote.
In the letter, Menin asked whether a 30-minute wait with no EMS unit on scene is considered acceptable for a severe medical incident, why the NYPD was sent to a call that had been clearly and repeatedly described as needing EMS, and whether police officers have a comparable level of emergency medical training. She also asked why Engine Company 44 wasn’t dispatched while an ambulance was still being assigned, and how many EMS units are available in the area at a given time.
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Menin questioned why the FDNY was still following up at 6:54 p.m., more than two hours after police found the updated situation at the scene, and asked how closely the FDNY tracks the development of incidents requiring EMS. She also requested the initial medical priority classification and dispatch records for the call.The letter was copied to Council Member Joann Ariola, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Fire and Emergency Management.
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