Elderly man suffering suspected heart attack dies outside Vancouver Fire Hall

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A tragic death outside a Vancouver fire hall is just one of many examples showcasing the strain first responders and patients have experienced over the past year and a half, a fire captain says.

On Monday, after crews at the No. 5 Fire Hall near East 54 Avenue and Kerr Street were dispatched to other calls around 10 p.m., a panicked driver pulled up on the ramp just when one battalion chief had arrived at the hall according to Vancouver Fire Rescue Services Captain Jonathan Gormick.

Gormick says the driver indicated an elderly passenger seemed to be suffering from a cardiac emergency.

The passenger was removed from the vehicle, but despite the battalion chief’s efforts, the patient did not survive.

One tragedy among many during this heat wave, yesterday around 10 p.m.

A woman brought a man in his 70s dealing with a cardiac emergency to No. 5 Fire Hall on Vancouver's east side. Battalion chief & another chief used defibrillator & CPR but man did not survive. More @NEWS1130

— Martin MacMahon (@martinmacmahon) June 29, 2021

Over the weekend and into Monday, the heatwave pushed B.C. paramedics to new limits with back-to-back records set for call volume.

Troy Clifford with the Ambulance Paramedics of BC told NEWS 1130 Monday, the influx of calls meant some were waiting as long as two hours for a response this weekend.

“It’s extremely impactful. We obviously deal with medical emergencies day-in and day-out, and we’re trained to do so. But anytime, even when it’s not a strange circumstance like this, anytime that someone doesn’t survive an incident — even when we’re there with the family members that have to see their loved ones last moments — it’s extremely stressful and taxing,” Gormick says.

Gormick says Monday’s incident shows that the current strain on first responders is “just not tenable for emergency responders in the city, for the paramedics, on the frontline, for dispatchers, and most importantly, for the patients who need us.”

He says frontline workers are now working through three ongoing crises: extreme heat, the COVID-19 pandemic, and deaths related to the toxic drug supply.

“We’re seeing call volumes, triple in the matter of a week. It is absolutely running our crews, ragged. Patients are seeing extreme wait times in the past couple of days, up to 11 hours wait. In the end, that doesn’t do anything good for patient care, and that is our highest priority.”

Gormick says that while he can’t suggest any short-term fixes, he says Monday’s incident is “a tragic situation” and calls it a “symptom” of the pressures on emergency services.

“There’s other examples across the city of people not getting care fast enough, not being transported fast enough to acute care and needlessly suffering and some occasions dying,” he says.

“We certainly will not leave any patients uncared for, but ambulances are dealing with staffing issues. The staff that they do have are tied up at the hospital for longer because the acute care system is under strain. Just every point in the patient care system is under extreme pressure right now.”

From speaking with a number of first responders today, the word on everyone's lips is "untenable" about this current situation.

— Martin MacMahon (@martinmacmahon) June 29, 2021

Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services has hired extra crews to increase staffing levels within the city and are looking to other ways to allocate resources to maintain service levels, according to Gormick.

E-Comm confirms it was a record-breaking weekend for 911 calls.

“The emergency communications centre responsible for 99% of 911 call-answer in B.C. received close to 8,000 calls on Saturday and more than 7,300 calls on the Sunday. This is a historic increase of approximately 55 per cent compared to a normal weekend in June,” said Jasmine Bradley with E-Comm.

– With files from Marcella Bernardo