Colorado Suit Over EMS Failure Prompts Questions

A recent headline about a wrongful death lawsuit in Colorado caught my eye in part because it appeared to involve an EMS incident gone wrong and in part because it appeared to involve a hospital accused of callously closing its ER after hours without warning area residents. The truth appears to be neither.

Watch this video:

KOAA.com | Continuous News | Colorado Springs and Pueblo

A grieving widow is certainly entitled to seek answers to her questions. That is natural and in the aftermath of an ordeal like this there are no doubt important questions to ask, such as: Should a community of 4,000 people that is 50 miles from definitive care have two or more EMS units in service at all times? Should there be definitive care 24/7 in a town like this?

I too am left with a number of questions, troubling questions. My questions are a little bit different than Mrs. Lang’s questions and while I certainly do not want to rub salt in her wounds – my questions also deserve to be contemplated:

• Why do people like Mrs. Lang wait until after an incident like this to consider the importance of fire and EMS funding? Does she even realize there is a connection between the taxes she pays and the services we are able to provide, or does she buy into the rhetoric of doing more with less??? Doing more with less… Like instead of ensuring a second ambulance is available to respond we can have a dispatcher teach someone to perform effective CPR over the telephone??? For an hour until the ambulance can return from a distant hospital??? Yes… someone in the emotional state that Mrs. Lang was in could surely be taught to perform CPR on her husband dying of a heart attack… training delivered over the telephone by a dispatcher… Where do people with such nonsensical ideas come from??? And then there is the pipe dream that a helicopter should simply have flown to her house to save her husband???
• Why do questions like Mrs. Lang’s all too often get asked in a courtroom AFTER THE FACT instead of in council chambers and at town financial meetings at budget time? What is the impact when such questions are asked in a courtroom? Do fire, EMS and community leaders get so defensive in a courtroom circling the wagons that they convince themselves that system improvements are not feasible??? In a courtroom improvements have to be non-feasible… because otherwise the fire, EMS and community leaders might be liable??? Is that kind of thinking leading to more tragedies rather than less tragedies?
• How do we connect the dots between the name-less face-less bean-counters who make the financial decisions that cost the Mr. Lang’s of the world their lives??? How about the anti-tax folks who protest at budget hearings and convince elected officials that we can do more with less? Like having a dispatcher teach CPR to someone who never took the time to learn CPR previously??? And what if the dispatcher gets a second phone call and we only have one dispatcher because we are “doing more with less”?
• What do we have to do to mobilize the Mrs. Langs in our communities to take RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES BEFORE THEY NEED US? How can we engage Mrs. Lang so she understands the services we provide and the impact of something as obvious as our lone EMS unit being tied up an hour away on another run? Why can’t we partner with Mrs. Lang BEFOREHAND at budget time instead of battle with her afterwards in court?
• How does a news organization covering a story like this allow a rural health center to be confused with a 24-hour a day emergency room? For the sake of pimping a headline??? To add some drama to a non-story???
• Why do reporters who have no problem asking tough questions of fire chiefs, union officials and others in our field – give the Mrs. Lang’s of the world a free-pass? Why wasn’t she asked:
  • “You do understand that it was a rural health clinic that was closed, not a hospital”?
  • “You do understand the costs of defending the suit you filed had to be paid for by your neighbors?”
  • “And if you won your suit the damages would not have come out of some magical pot of gold, it would have come out of the pockets of your neighbors?”

Incidentally, Delwin Lester, the executive director for the Custer County Medical Center, provided the following to KOAA via email:

“In regards to Ms Lang’s allegations, due to various reasons not explained by her, her law suit was dismissed- TWICE. Her case has been investigated by several entities, and on separate occasions, dismissed. However, we understand Ms Lang’s deep felt hurt from the loss of a loved one, and we extend our deepest sympathies to her and her family. The District does not operate a hospital but a Rural Health “Clinic”, and under the guidelines for a CMS certified RHC, we operate an outpatient clinic on a limited bases and not 24 hours with ER as a hospital does. Also, one of Ms Lang’s concerns was the slow response of our EMS to her 911 call. However, our EMS was already in route with a patient to another hospital, and given the time frames involved from call, dispatch to death, it was doubtful even Flight for Life could have arrived prior to Mr Lang’s expiration. Again, our deepest sympathies for Ms Lang’s loss, but in a frontier community with extremely limited resources, we strive to serve knowing we have chosen to live in very secluded surroundings.”

It didn’t make it into the news coverage but was posted on the KOAA web site.