Patient Endured 107-Degree Heat inside D.C. Ambulance

D.C. fire and rescue workers swamped with calls during the seasons first heat wave used an ambulance that health officials had pulled from service 15 minutes earlier because the temperatures inside the vehicles posed a danger to patients.

D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Service spokesman Lon Walls said the department was inundated with calls and keeping the ambulance out of service may have put patients in harms way. This came as more than a quarter of the vehicles were out of service for various repairs Tuesday, Walls said.

We had no choice. All hell had broke loose, Walls said. At no point in time will any D.C. resident be put at risk because of any mechanical problems we may encounter temporarily or otherwise.

Emergency crews responded to about 1,000 calls and transported about 600 patients during the height of the record-breaking temperatures Tuesday and Wednesday, officials said.

Around noon on Wednesday, D.C. Department of Health Inspector David Herring determined that the inside of the patients compartment in Ambulance 27 was 107 degrees, fire officials said. He ordered the unit to be pulled out of service.

Fifteen minutes later, a deputy chief ordered the unit to disregard the inspectors order and remain in service, firefighters said.

Four minutes later, the unit responded to a senior citizens home for a medical emergency.

Ed Smith, head of the D.C. fire and emergency medical services labor union, said the elderly are at the highest risk during extreme heat emergencies.

Its a blatant disregard to the citizens, and then you have to question superseding the Department of Health authority, Smith said.

A spokeswoman for the health department did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Walls said the patient that was taken from the senior citizens facility was successfully transported and the patient was fine.

At one point 10 of the 39 units were out of service, but those have been fixed or replaced, Walls said.

Smith said eight more were already down Thursday.

Things are going to break down and were going to fix them, Walls said.

Smith said that the city no longer has a healthy reserve of transport units to use when a front-line vehicle goes down, and now the city is playing catch-up.

Fire officials expect to have 10 new ambulances by the end of the summer and plan to purchase about 10 new units each year over the next few years, Walls said.

On Monday, the departments teams transported 25 people who succumbed to the heat while attending the National Memorial Day Parade in addition to treating dozens who attended the Washington Nationals baseball game.

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