Ambulance delays: his father lies dying for 45 minutes on a grocery store floor

Our Bureau of Investigation compiled and analyzed the average delays between an urgent 9-1-1 call and the arrival of ambulances in the 112 municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants in Quebec, over a period of one year. Result: nearly 85% of them are unable to provide an ambulance in the required time to a person whose life is threatened.

A man suffering from a heart attack died after waiting for the ambulance for 45 minutes in a Drummondville grocery store, a “deplorable” tragedy, according to his daughter, who witnessed the entire scene helplessly.

“I remember saying to myself: but it’s a long time!”, relates Céline Janelle with incomprehension, about her father Edmond.

On December 18, M^me Janelle accompanied her 85-year-old father, with whom she lives in a multi-generational home, to the grocery store. After walking away momentarily, she noticed a commotion in the business, a few meters from her.

“When I got closer, I realized it was my father on the ground,” reports M^me Janelle.

Edmond Janelle was then lying unconscious. Clients had already undertaken cardiac massage and the emergency services had been alerted. The police arrived shortly after and used the portable defibrillator they have in their vehicle, but without success.

• Listen to the interview with Jean Gagnon, primary care paramedic at Urgences-santé and representative of the prehospital sector at the federal office of the FSSS-CSN, via QUB :

Then 10 minutes pass… then 20, then 30, without the paramedics reaching the bedside of the patient in cardiorespiratory arrest. A state which nevertheless commands the highest transport priorities.

“I had time to call my brother and he arrived on the scene before the paramedics,” remembers Céline Janelle.

Too late

It was finally after 45 minutes – according to Céline Janelle’s estimates – that the paramedics arrived. But it’s too little, too late.

“I witnessed everything that happened. It is certain that we remain marked by it. I see his face again, his expression, the electric shocks… You can see that in a film, but when it’s our father, it’s different,” recalls M^me Janelle, still shaken.

With hindsight, she considers it “inconceivable” that we would wait so long for the ambulance, in a context of absolute emergency and in an urban environment.

“I don’t think this is a normal delay, especially in such a critical situation. This is not a simple fracture; my father was in cardiac arrest! »

– Celine Janelle, daughter of the deceased, Edmond, who waited for ambulance services for more than 45 minutes

Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal / Agence QMI

The coroner investigates

A coroner’s inquest is underway to determine the circumstances of this death. The CISSS refused to comment on this intervention, citing confidentiality.

But according to local media and information obtained by M^me Janelle, it was an ambulance located in Pierreville, 35 km away, which had to intervene, because none was available in Drummondville.

“When it’s our father, we don’t care if the ambulance is busy elsewhere; we want to have the service!”, concludes the Drummondvilloise.