Pittsburgh officials shift blame for steelworker’s death to paramedics

[cory777]

Source: wsws.org

By Phyllis Steele
10 March 2010

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Allegheny County officials have blamed paramedics and other emergency personnel for the death of 50-year-old Curtis Mitchell, the unemployed steelworker who passed away 30 hours after he first requested an ambulance during the worst winter storm to hit Pittsburgh in over 125 years.

Mitchell died in his home in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood of complications related to pancreatitis more than 30 hours after he and his wife, Sharon Edge, made the first of repeated calls to emergency 911 requesting an ambulance. With medical treatment, he would have lived.

On February 6 at 2:09 a.m., Mitchell called 911 to report that he was having severe abdominal pain. The call was graded E2, as his symptoms were deemed non-life threatening. By this time the city was under more than a foot of snow, and 911 was getting more than twice as many calls as usual. Calls that weren’t considered life threatening were being put on hold in a queue.

Mitchell, who had a history of pancreatic troubles, called 911 again about two hours later and was told the paramedics were on their way, but they were stuck in the snow and could not reach him. Mitchell lived on a narrow street cut off from the main roads by a set of railroad tracks. Paramedics were unable to drive up the overpass. An operator told Mitchell that he would have to walk to the ambulance. Because he could not do so, the call was cancelled at 3:57 a.m.

Read more: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/mitc-m10.shtml

[Hannah Bell]

1. kick

Though there can be little doubt that Mitchell’s residence was unreachable by ambulance, it is not clear why paramedics decided not to walk the short distance to reach Mitchell, rather than asking the gravely sick man to walk to them.

Meanwhile, an outdated computer database system prevented 911 personnel from realizing that Mitchell had made repeated requests for emergency assistance. Instead, each call was treated, evidently, as a new case, with Mitchell’s complaints of chest pain classified, again and again, as a non-life threatening emergency.

While city officials have cut funding for such necessary functions as snow removal, they have in recent years found hundreds of millions for spending on three new sports stadiums, a convention center, a casino, and a transit tunnel that will transport visitors back and forth from downtown hotels to the casino and stadiums.

[pundaint]

2. There will be an upgraded phone system - when a political crony can make some money on it.