The day after a task force delivered its recommendations to improve the District of Columbia’s emergency medical care, D.C. Fire and EMS crews failed to properly assess at least two patients, according to complaints by two hospitals.
Howard University Hospital and Providence Hospital doctors both lodged complaints that protocol wasn’t followed by firefighters inincidents that occurred Friday.
Battalion Chief Kenneth Crosswhite, a spokesman for new Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin, said the department has looked into both incidents and was satisfied that the emergency crews took the proper action.
But emergency medical services union head Kenneth Lyon said that the two incidents demonstrate the need for separate firefighter and EMS services. “This is David Rosenbaum revisited,” Lyons said.
The complaints came as the fire officials are beginning to implement reforms recommended last week by a task force formed out of the settlement by the District and the family of slain New York Times journalist David Rosenbaum. The recently retired newsman died after he was savagely beaten in a robbery, but fire crews thought he was drunk.
The task force recommended that firefighters and emergency medical services remain as one unit.
The two episodes unfolded Friday.
At 4:46 p.m. emergency crews responded to the 1400 block of Monroe Street NW for a call of sick man, possibly intoxicated.
The ambulance, which carries firefighters who are trained as EMTs, transported a male in his 50s to Howard University Hospital. Firefighters failed to follow protocol and warn the hospital that they were coming with a patient who was unresponsive and unconscious, Lyons said. Instead, firefighters told the hospital staff that the man was intoxicated. The staff performed a cursory examination and left the man in the emergency room.
Moments later, when the staff went to check on the patient he was unconscious, foaming at the mouth with an accelerated pulse rate of more than 200 beats per minute, a source said.
Howard University Hospital filed a verbal complaint to the District and is expected to file a formal notice this week, a source said. Howard remains in legal battle in the Rosenbaum’s $20 million lawsuit.
EarlierFriday, at 11:01 a.m., emergency crews responded to a call of an 80-year-old man who fainted and fell in the 1100 block of 19th Street NE.
The firefighters transported the man to Providence Hospital without bracing the patient on a long board and a neck collar, Lyons said.
“When an 80-year-old falls because of dizzying spells,” Lyons said, “you always expect a head and neck and back injury.”
