D.C. fire and rescue workers swamped with calls during the season’s first heat wave used an ambulance that health officials had pulled from service 15 minutes earlier because the temperatures inside the vehicles posed a danger to patients.
D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Service spokesman Lon Walls said the department was inundated with calls and keeping the ambulance out of service may have put patients in harm’s way. This came as more than a quarter of the vehicles were out of service for various repairs Tuesday, Walls said.
“We had no choice. All hell had broke loose,” Walls said. “At no point in time will any D.C. resident be put at risk because of any mechanical problems we may encounter temporarily or otherwise.”
Emergency crews responded to about 1,000 calls and transported about 600 patients during the height of the record-breaking temperatures Tuesday and Wednesday, officials said.
Around noon on Wednesday, D.C. Department of Health Inspector David Herring used a heat gun to determine that the inside of the patients’ compartment in Ambulance 27 was 107 degrees, fire officials said. He ordered the unit to be pulled out of service.
Fifteen minutes later, a deputy chief ordered the unit to disregard the inspector’s order and remain in service, firefighters said.
Four minutes later, the unit responded to a senior citizens home for a medical emergency.
Ed Smith, head of the D.C. fire and emergency medical services labor union, said the elderly are at the highest risk during extreme heat emergencies.
“It’s a blatant disregard to the citizens, and then you have to question superseding the Department of Health authority,” Smith said.
A spokeswoman for the health department did not respond to messages for comment.
Walls said the patient that was taken from the senior citizens facility home was successfully transported and the patient was fine.
At one point 10 vehicles of the 39 units were out of service, but those have been fixed or replaced, Walls said.
Smith said eight more were already down Thursday.
“Things are going to break down and we’re going to fix them,” Walls said.
Smith said that the city no longer has a healthy reserve of transport units to use when a front-line vehicle goes down, and now the city is playing catch-up.
Fire officials expect to have 10 new ambulances by the end of the summer and with plans to purchase about 10 new units each year over the next few years, Walls said.
On Monday, the department’s teams transported 25 heat-affected individuals to hospitals who attended the District’s annual Memorial Day parade in addition to treating dozens who attended the Washington Nationals baseball game.
