Edmonton man drives injured stranger to hospital, told ambulance may take hours

Edmontonian Richard Gendron’s recent experience calling emergency services has changed how he sees healthcare in Alberta, after he was outside his advertising shop in southeast Edmonton on 75th Street on Sunday, when he found an injured man and called 911 for help.

Gendron says the man’s hand was blue, fearing hypothermia or frostbite, noting the man told him he was attacked and couldn’t walk.

“I came out of that door with a snowblower, and he was right here. And he was crawling on his hands,” Gendron explained. “And I said, ‘What happened?’ He says, ‘I think my legs are broken.’”

Police arrived after about 20 minutes, but Gendron said no ambulance came.

“I don’t know how bad this guy is. I say, ‘I can see the bone. I can see his foot going in the wrong direction here.’ So I say, ‘I don’t know if he’s bleeding, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m not a paramedic.’ And they say ‘Neither are we.’ And I say, ‘Well, when’s EMS coming?’ and so the police make a phone call, and they say we don’t have an exact time for you. It could be an hour, it could be two hours, and I say, ‘What do you mean?’ and he says, ‘They’re not available. Period.’”

That’s when he decided to take the man to the hospital himself, but says police officers wouldn’t help the man get into his van.

“To get no help from the police, none? Not even help to push this guy into the truck? I’m sorry. I have no trust in the police either anymore,” said Gendron.

Edmonton police confirmed they did respond to a call about an assault around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday.

They told CityNews in a statement that the person who called declined to wait for an ambulance and would drive the person instead, saying, “Both the complainant and reporter indicated they were comfortable with this arrangement. The reporter indicated that he could not lift the complainant, but the complainant confirmed that he was able to get into the vehicle on his own.”

Before adding that police verbally confirmed that the man was declining to wait for EMS.

Alberta Health Services also confirmed to CityNews in a statement that EHS-Alberta was dispatched to the scene, after Edmonton police arrived and completed an initial assessment of scene safety.

“While responding to the event, the unit was tasked to a higher acuity call. The patient chose their own transport prior to the arrival of the next available unit, and EHS was stood down. When dealing with high volume, we balance the safety of our crews and the acuity of other patients needing the health system to prioritize our responses to events,” read the statement.

In the meantime, Gendron says he will be looking to other people for help in the future.

“There’s no trust in the system at all. None whatsoever,” said Gendron. “If there’s an accident, we can’t count on EMS, I’m sorry. We have to count on the people around us, just like we do on farms.”