I’ve been reading Influence by Robert Cialdini and just finished a disturbing section about how we are wired to obey an authority figure even when it causes harm. In this instance, the 911 dispatcher was the authority figure. Sad story.
My dad could still be alive, but he's not
11–20 of 328 posts
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#12This is horrible. What is going on in Toronto that ambulances take 30 minutes to respond?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-paramedic-sta...
> Last year, Toronto paramedics reported that in 2023 there were 1,200 occasions where no ambulances were available to respond to an emergency call. That was up from only 29 occasions in 2019.
> CUPE Local 416, the union representing 1,400 paramedics working in Toronto, has also reported high instances of burnout in recent years.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#13> my dad is dead, because his family members were too naive to know that the thing they were instructed to do by the state was a false thing.
Hindsight is 20/20. There are also cases where people died because they didn’t wait for the ambulance. So without proper statistics that‘s a dangerous conclusion.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#14This is horrible. What is going on in Toronto that ambulances take 30 minutes to respond?
TL;DR chronic underfunding of the system, here's one example article:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ambulance-response-ti...
The federal government shifts the responsibility to the provinces, the provinces in turn try to download as much as possible onto the cities. There's not enough money for everything on every level of the government.
This also reflects on 911/dispatch systems, where there indeed might not be easy visibility of when an ambulance might be available, and even then it could be preempted by a higher priority call -- although a heart attack has to be close to the top of the list.
There are also occasional weather events, like the storm two days ago, that cause a surge in demand (>300 crashes reported and many of them needed attending to).
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#15>my dad is dead, because his family members were too naive to know that the thing they were instructed to do by the state was a false thing. We're told a lot of things by "officials" not because it's correct, but because it holds the least legal liability for official parties involved, especially anything involving healthcare. These officials also sometimes include doctors, who work to protect themselves and the syst…
We're also told to do a lot of things by officials because it's correct most of the time, but with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, generally correct advice can turn out to be dead wrong for you.
Sometimes doing what you're told is the right thing. Sometimes, not doing what you're told is the right thing. Sometimes, you're told to do the intuitive thing, and it's wrong. Sometimes, you're told to do the unintuitive thing, and it's wrong. It's hard to tell the difference between those situations, even when you're not stressed.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#16My condolences, very sorry for your loss.
I work as an EMT (911) and resourcing is certainly a problem. In my small city, our response time is around 5 minutes, and if we need to upgrade to get paramedics, that’s maybe another 5-10.
However, if we are out on a call, out of service, or the neighboring city is on a call, now the next closest unit is 15+ minutes away.. sometimes there can just be bad luck in that nearby units are already out on multiple calls that came in around the same time, making the next closest response much further.
for a heart attack or unstable angina, the most an EMT will do (for our protocols) is recognize the likely heart attack, call for paramedics to perform an EKG to confirm the MI, administer 4 baby aspirin to be chewed and/or nitro (rx only), and monitor closely in case it becomes a cardiac arrest. If medics are far away we will probably head immediately to a hospital with a catheterization lab, or rendezvous with medics for them to takeover transport.
The few goals though:
- recognition (it could also be something equally bad/worse like an aortic aneurysm).
- aspirin to break any clots, assist administering nitro if prescribed.
- getting to a cath lab.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#17This is horrible. What is going on in Toronto that ambulances take 30 minutes to respond?
TL;DR chronic underfunding of the system, here's one example article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ambulance-response-ti... The federal government shifts the responsibility to the provinces, the provinces in turn try to download as much as possible onto the cities. There's not enough money for everything on every level of the government. This also reflects on 911/dispatch systems, where there indeed might n…
> The federal government shifts the responsibility to the provinces
It's not a 'shift'. Healthcare has always largely been in the hands of the provinces.
The federal government funds research, distributes money from have regions to have not regions, and sets federal standards, but the actual spending of money and provision of services is in the hands of provincial authorities.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#18If the author sees this, I'm sorry for your loss.
Losing family is hard, but losing them suddenly makes it harder. Losing them suddenly because of poor advice or (in)action of people who are supposed to help is yet more difficult. I know from experience.
It does get easier to deal with, in time.
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#19This is horrible. What is going on in Toronto that ambulances take 30 minutes to respond?
I’d assume it’s there’s X ambulances and Y calls and occasionally Y>X. The bigger issue is the dispatcher not being aware of overloaded status nor conveying that information to the caller.
There are also things like accidents or traffic jams
Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not
#20I’ve been reading Influence by Robert Cialdini and just finished a disturbing section about how we are wired to obey an authority figure even when it causes harm. In this instance, the 911 dispatcher was the authority figure. Sad story.
See also the Milgram Experiment.