A two-year-old girl died of cardiac arrest after an overwhelmed ambulance service sent firefighters instead of trained doctors to save her.
Little Yuna Feeley, from Massachusetts, was suffering from a respiratory illness when she suddenly went limp and stopped breathing on the morning of January 26.
His mother, Andrea Feeley, frantically called 911, but the local ambulance service sent a fire crew.
When firefighters arrived, it was immediately clear that Yuna needed advanced life support that trained paramedics could provide, so they radioed for an ambulance.
But Action Ambulance Service, the private company that provides ambulance service to Winthrop, Greater Boston, did not have enough ambulances available to respond to the call.
TOAfter about 15 minutes, well beyond the eight-minute time limit it takes for ambulances to respond to a cardiac arrest, there was still no ambulance in sight.
In an attempt to rescue Yuna, one of the firefighters took her to Massachusetts General Hospital in his car with two colleagues who performed CPR, but it was too late and she was pronounced dead on arrival.
The incident comes amid a chronic shortage of ambulance operators and emergency medical services workers in the Boston area, which experts say is putting public safety at risk.
An autopsy report confirmed that Yuna’s official cause of death was a rare but serious lung infection called “necrotizing pneumonia” that proved fatal in addition to her respiratory virus.
An Action Ambulance spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘Our hearts go out to Yuna Feeley’s family. This was a devastating incident for everyone involved and our team went above and beyond to help on the day.
‘The EMS system in Massachusetts and across the country is under pressure due to an increase in calls, staffing challenges and backlogs in our hospitals’ emergency rooms.
“These are challenges we work to overcome every day and we look forward to working with our partners and local and state governments to find meaningful solutions.”
An autopsy report confirmed that Yuna’s official cause of death was a rare but serious lung infection called “necrotizing pneumonia” that proved fatal in addition to her respiratory virus.
The girl deserved “an ambulance and paramedics who possibly could have done more,” her mother told NBC10 Boston.
An investigation launched by the Boston Globe attributes the boy’s death in part to a severe shortage of ambulances in the Boston area, with overworked paramedics adding to the problem.
He explains: ‘There is no central or regionalized system to track the location of ambulances in real time, and no one assesses whether the number of ambulances on the road is sufficient.
‘For ambulances that are in operation, chronic staff shortages mean that urgently needed ambulances that are supposed to be in the field sometimes remain parked in garages, unused.
“And when ambulances are staffed, in some cases the same overworked EMTs and paramedics are deployed over and over again for long shifts that can lead to serious errors.”
Many Massachusetts ambulance workers revealed that they regularly worked double and triple shifts.
During the investigation, which involved interviewing more than 50 industry experts, current and former paramedics and others, The Globe identified three other deaths in the state, including two in Winthrop, that occurred in the period before the death of Yuna.
In these cases, the paramedics were later investigated by the state for negligence.
In Yuna’s case, firefighters arrived on the scene seven minutes after the 911 call was made and she arrived at the hospital 23 minutes later.
Andrea Feeley frantically called 911 when her daughter Yuna went into cardiac arrest one January morning. However, no ambulance arrived and the baby later died in hospital.
As her daughter fought for her life, Feeley only remembers repeating, “Where are they?” where are they?’ before realizing that the ambulance service was not going to arrive in time.
She said everything seemed fine and she had just encouraged Yuna to take a drink of Pedialyte to help her stay hydrated while dealing with a mild fever she’d had for a couple of days.
However, when Yuna was in her mother’s arms, she suddenly went limp and stopped breathing.
Feeley’s son called 911 and within minutes local firefighters arrived at the family home in Winthrop to administer CPR to Yuna.
When Ms. Feeley’s son contacted 911, the call was passed to Action Ambulance Service, a private company that provides ambulance services to Winthrop.
Both company ambulances were responding to other calls.
In this scenario, the community relies on help from neighboring cities, but its ambulance services were also affected.
In an attempt to rescue Yuna, one of the firefighters took her to Massachusetts General Hospital in his car, but it was too late and she was pronounced dead on arrival.
“The 911 systems in and around Winthrop were affected and, unfortunately, the outcome for patients was poor,” an Action Ambulance executive later wrote.
In a statement submitted to the Department of Public Health during its own investigation, the executive added that Action Ambulance followed “all appropriate policies and procedures.”
The investigation had no repercussions and was approved without comment by the Department of Public Health.
Experts told the Globe that “if paramedics had been with the girl, they could have given her more advanced emergency care” and “could have given her medications like epinephrine or used more advanced defibrillators with a better chance of getting her heart back on track.” work”. ‘
It was also suggested that intravenous fluids could have been used to “ensure his blood continued to reach his vital organs and supply them with enough nutrients and oxygen to prevent them from failing.”
Winthrop’s fire chief also says the situation could have been avoided.
He reflected: ‘Maybe having an ambulance wouldn’t have made a difference, but it would have given him a better chance.
‘We are all parents. Some of us are grandparents. It’s devastating. It’s not supposed to happen. It’s something horrible, horrible.”