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Man's Death Sparks Ambulance Tug-Of-War

Tribune photo by ROBERT BURKE

The county fire department's new advanced life service ambulance sits at Station 1 located off 78th Street near Progress Village.

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By MIKE SALINERO msalinero@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

TAMPA - A man's death from a stroke in May has sparked a tug-of-war over whether to keep an advanced life support ambulance in upscale Lutz or transfer it to Progress Village, a much poorer community with many more calls for ambulance service.

The ambulance has been splitting time between the two communities for the past year, but the fire department wants to transfer the vehicle to Progress Village. The reason: Progress Village had triple the calls Lutz had for an advanced life support, or ALS, ambulance in that time.

The seemingly simple transfer of an ambulance from one station to another has become complicated, though. Hillsborough County commissioners recently overruled the transfer after Commissioner Ken Hagan told fellow board members about a call he got from a woman whose husband died of a stroke in May.

The woman told Hagan her husband didn't get timely treatment because the two advanced life support ambulances in Lutz were elsewhere. As the name implies, an ALS ambulance carries advanced lifesaving equipment such as defibrillators.

"Ultimately, an ambulance from Pasco County responded an hour later, and unfortunately the husband passed away," Hagan told commissioners at an Oct. 1 meeting. "And the doctor said if the person would have arrived earlier, in all likelihood it would have saved his life."

How It Actually Happened

The story was only half true: It only took 25 minutes for the Pasco paramedics to respond to the call, and there were other circumstances that could have contributed to the man's death.

But the story resonated with commissioners, who voted to spend up to $178,000 in overtime to keep full-time ambulance service at Lutz and Progress Village until the end of the year. During that time, the fire department would analyze the calls for advanced life support service to see whether a full-time ambulance was warranted at the Lutz volunteer fire station on Lutz-Lake Fern Road.

Commissioner Kevin White, who represents Progress Village, objected, noting the fire department has already documented that Progress Village generated three times the number of calls for ALS service as Lutz over the past year.

"What my theory came from was that they already studied it for a year. ... When you have 3-to-1 the number of calls, I think the numbers speak for themselves," White said.

Fire department officials agreed, saying the transfer to Progress Village was a matter of prioritizing needs in a tough budget year. They noted that the Lutz station had 24 days without a call for advanced life support service in the year before the ambulance started splitting time between the two communities.

"To me that was poor utilization of that unit," said David Travis, chief of the fire department's Rescue Division.

'I Still Have Nightmares About It'

Hagan said he doesn't want to deny Progress Village advanced emergency service, but he is sensitive to the pleas from Lutz residents who feel unsafe without the ambulance nearby. It goes back to his childhood, when his father carried him out of the family's burning home before sunrise, he said.

"I still have nightmares about it," he said.

Hagan, backed by Commissioners Rose Ferlita and Jim Norman, said he would like the fire department to find a way to have both stations staffed with advanced life support service.

But adding a full-time advanced life support unit to Progress Village would cost the county about $1.2 million the first year and $800,000 a year in personnel costs after that, Travis said.

He pointed out that the Lutz volunteer station has a full-time county paramedic who can ride the fire engine to stabilize seriously ill or injured patients until an ambulance arrives.

Fire officials say they'll never know whether the man who died of a stroke would have survived if Rescue 24 had been at the Lutz fire station that morning instead of Progress Village. There were extenuating circumstances: The original 911 call said the man was hurt falling off a bike, so only basic life support was dispatched.

And the Pasco paramedics transported the man to University Community Hospital because it was closer. But UCH has no trauma center, so the man was transferred again to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died.

Fire officials say there always will be times when the ambulance nearest an accident or injury is unavailable. In those cases, dispatchers call different units until they find one that can respond.

"How often does that occur? Our position is it occurs every day, and if we tried to close all those gaps it would cost millions of dollars," said Fire Rescue Chief Bill Nesmith.

Lutz residents have been calling and e-mailing Hagan's office about the issue. They say they pay taxes and deserve to have the peace of mind an advanced life support unit provides.

"My concern was what happened when, God forbid, an emergency happened here in Lutz," said Jean Jones, who called Hagan. "How long is the response time and how long before somebody is transported to the hospital if need be?"

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

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