It’s a sobering message from a father in northeast Baltimore City.
“Have a backup plan when you call 911,” said Will Green. “Have a backup plan because [an ambulance] may not show up.”
Green told FOX45 News he was informed by first responders that no ambulance was available to respond last Tuesday night after his 7-year-old son had a medical emergency.
“My son -- he went unresponsive into a seizure and we had to call 911,” said Green.
More than a week later, Green shared his frustration about the “frantic” incident.
According to this father, it took about half an hour for first responders to arrive after he called 911.
When they arrived, Green told FOX45 News it was a fire truck instead of an ambulance.
“And when they showed up they had no ETA on the EMT that we needed to take my son to the hospital,” he said Wednesday afternoon.
Green said their family has four children under the age of 10.
“We had to load all of our children into the minivan and result to self-help,” he said. “Which was rushing him to the hospital.”
The young boy is doing better a week later, though, Green said they are keeping a close eye on him after the incident.
Meanwhile the President of IAFF Local 734, the Baltimore City Firefighters Union, said Baltimore’s EMS system is one of the busiest per-capita in the U.S.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” said IAFF Local 734 President Rich Langford. “It's frustrating to our members who gotta respond to these calls because they want to get people to the hospital to get the help they need.”
Langford told FOX45 News the department’s first responders are strapped and oftentimes do not have the resources or manpower to meet the high 911 demands across Baltimore.
“Unfortunately we live in a society now where 911 is often use for non-emergencies so our units are always busy,” he said.
Baltimore City Fire crews also get stuck lingering at area hospitals while they wait to unload patients, Langford said.
“We only have 28 units to respond to emergencies in Baltimore City on any given day,” said Langford. “And sometimes that’s even less with [the] staffing crisis that we have.”
As a Baltimore City taxpayer, Will Green called his family’s ordeal last week, “unacceptable.”
“We live in an age where we have access to multiple uses of technology and we don’t have emergency vehicles?” he said.
Green told FOX45 News he received a call from a Baltimore City Fire Department representative after raising concerns with his City Councilperson.
Still, he said he feels failed by the system.
“The emergency services that every taxpayer in Baltimore has the right to -- and we were let down by our city,” he said.
The Baltimore City Fire Department did not respond to questions on Wednesday about this incident.