The young man hit by a driver on Sunday evening while crossing Main Street is in critical condition in a Halifax hospital, according to an update to Mount Allison students sent Wednesday by university president Jean Paul Boudreau.
Boudreau said the university had “received an update from the student’s family, which they have also made public. We understand that the student is in critical condition in a Halifax hospital. The family has asked for privacy at this time, and we invite you to join us in respecting their wishes.”
RCMP Sergeant Eric Hanson said the investigation is ongoing and no charges have been laid yet.
Emergency response time concerns
There were two 911 calls from the Sackville area on Sunday night, both with very different response times, according to a spokesperson from Medavie Health Services New Brunswick, the company that operates Ambulance NB.
In an emailed statement to CHMA, Eric Robichaud says the first call came in at 7:47pm, before the Main Street collision, and paramedics arrived at that scene nine minutes later, at 7:56pm.
According to witnesses, that was right around the time the young man crossing Main Street in a marked crosswalk with lights flashing was struck by a driver who failed to yield at the crossing. Robichaud says the second call, which fits the timeline of the pedestrian collision, was received at 8:01pm, and paramedics arrived at that scene 27 minutes later at 8:28pm.
Robichaud didn’t share further information about the difference in the two response times, saying he could not provide comment on specific calls.
A citizen tracker of police radio says that the closest ambulance dispatched for the Main Street collision was on Highway 15 near Highway 2 at the time, and that no rapid response unit was available. Robichaud did not confirm either point, but did say a rapid response unit continues to be deployed to Sackville, to help make up for the cutbacks in service hours at the hospital’s emergency department.
A rapid response unit consists of a smaller vehicle, equipped like an ambulance but with no stretcher, and staffed with one paramedic. Since it does not transfer patients, the rapid response unit is often available to provide care on the scene when ambulances might be busy.
“Every effort is made to adjust our services to changes in operating hours at nearby Emergency Departments,” wrote Robichaud. “Ambulance New Brunswick uses a dynamic deployment system that moves ambulances strategically around the province and relocates units depending on the need. As ambulances are assigned to calls, other nearby units are moved strategically to cover areas as required, and some ambulances may be re-assigned to higher priority calls as needed.”
Sackville ER closed, but doesn’t take severe trauma victims
Both ambulances dispatched on Sunday night took patients to the Moncton Hospital. The Sackville emergency department had closed to new patients at 4pm, as it has daily since last November when Horizon announced temporary cutbacks in service hours.
Some Sackville residents expressed concern over the closed ER, fearing it added precious minutes to the travel time for the victim of Sunday’s collision. But according to normal protocol, it is likely that any ambulance carrying the victim of a motor vehicle collision would by-pass the Sackville ER and head straight for Moncton.
It all depends on the severity of the injuries, explains former Sackville ER doctor Allison Dysart. If a trauma is relatively small and straightforward, it would be taken to the Sackville ER. But for more serious traumas and injuries, smaller hospitals like Sackville are bypassed, and ambulances will head to regional hospitals like Moncton. In the rare case that an injury is so severe that paramedics are concerned over making the trip to Moncton, then they may make the call to bring a patient to Sackville to be stabilized.
It’s not clear why Ambulance NB would not have taken the young man, who sustained serious injuries in the crash, to the ER in Amherst, which is about half the distance as the Moncton ER. Medavie says that question is for the department of health, and the department of health is still working on a response.
