I'm not usually one to write a diary out of anger, but this story (from the AP, via MSNBC) just riled me to no end:
PITTSBURGH - With her boyfriend in severe abdominal pain, Sharon Edge called 911 for an ambulance in the early morning hours of Feb. 6. Heavy snow was falling — so heavy it would all but bring the city to a standstill — and Curtis Mitchell needed to go to a hospital.
"Help is on the way," the operator said.
It never arrived.
Nearly 30 hours later — and 10 calls from the couple to 911, four 911 calls to them and at least a dozen calls between 911 and paramedics — Curtis Mitchell died at his home. His electricity knocked out, his heat long off, the 50-year-old former steelworker waited, huddled beneath blankets on his sofa.
This was, of course, during an historic snowfall in Pittsburgh, and the cities 911 system was receiving particularly high call volume, but that's not much of an excuse, given that later in the article it is stated that on at least three occasions paramedics were within 1/4 of a mile of Mr. Mitchell's residence, but apparently couldn't bring themselves to get out of their vehicle and walk those last few hundred yards.
In fact, they asked if Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Edge could walk to them.
Look, I know that in most instances first responders do great work. But I also know that the response time of first responders can sometimes be, well separate and unequal.
I'm reminded of Public Enemy's brilliant "911 is a Joke", the title of which I purloined for this diary. Flav tells it like it was - and clearly still often is - when a 911 call comes in from a predominantly minority neighborhood:
I call a cab 'cause a cab will come quicker
The doctors huddle up and call a flea flicker
The reason that I say that 'cause they
Flick you off like fleas
They be laughin' at ya while you're crawlin' on your knees
One wonders if perhaps Mr. Mitchell would be alive today were he living in a "better" neighborhood.
The paramedics in question - six in all who should have at one point or another over the course of thirty fucking hours attended to Mr. Mitchell - may be disciplined. May be. You gotta be fuckin' kidding me.
Sorry for this being somewhat disjointed. I'm going to end this before I go on a rant for the ages. As it stands I grieve for Mr. Mitchell, and Ms. Edge. and countless and others who have been similarly dis-served over the years.