New York Post
By Aneeta Bhole and Matt Troutman | November 1, 2024
A dying Vietnam vet’s last thought before he died was why his New York City ambulance took nearly an hour to arrive, his grieving daughter told lawmakers Friday.
The horror story, recounted by an emotional Maisha Morales, was one of several told by New Yorkers during a City Council hearing over FDNY EMS’ soaring response times to life-threatening medical emergencies, which are nearly a minute longer than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we waited for emergency services to arrive, each minute felt agonizing, filled with mounting fear,” she said about her father Antonio Morales’ last moments in August, when her mother found him lying on the floor in a “pool of blood and bloody diarrhea.”
Antonio Morales died of cardiac arrest after medics finally got him to a hospital, his daughter said.
“Am I going crazy, or did it take the ambulance almost an hour to come?” his daughter recalled him saying just before he died.
The hearing by the Council’s fire and emergency management committee delved into the concerning rise in ambulance response times, and how to fix the possibly lethal problem.
FDNY ambulance and firefighter response times to life-threatening emergencies have spiked to an average of 7 minutes and 23 seconds this fiscal year, the mayor’s annual management report shows.