nothin AMR: What Ambulance Emergency? | New Haven Independent

AMR: What Ambulance Emergency?

EINO SIERPE PHOTO

Demonstrators at Saturday’s protest.

It turns out that protesters blocking a state highway may not have prevented an ambulance crew from getting a critically ill” patient to the hospital, after all — at least as the ambulance company tells it.

The state police are sticking by the allegation that such an incident occurred.

That allegation has emerged as a central talking point amid debate over protest tactics and police response to a demonstration staged Saturday in downtown New Haven by people opposed to President Donald Trump’s executive orders limiting immigration and travel to the U.S.

At one point protesters blocked the Route 34 Connector, in the path to Yale-New Haven Hospital. State police, after arresting a protest organizer on charges including incitement to riot, stated that the Route 34 demonstrators had obstructed an ambulance carrying a critically ill patient. Due to this delay ambulance personnel were required to perform an emergency medical procedure in the ambulance instead of at the hospital.” (The above video shows scenes from the protest and includes the headline repeating the ambulance allegation.)

Asked at the time by the Independent for more details on the matter and whether the patient in the ambulance was OK, a state police spokeswoman responded, Contact the hospital.” A hospital spokesman said he did not have information.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for American Medical Response said the company knew of no such emergency procedure being undertaken in one of its ambulances at the scene Saturday.

Nothing happened. Really, nothing happened,” said the spokesman, Jim McManus.

Asked where the story may have originated, he responded, I don’t know.”

He issued this written statement on behalf of AMR: On Saturday, during the protest in New Haven, we worked closely with law enforcement officials who kept us well informed of the protest and specific areas that were congested. With police assistance, we were able to route our ambulances away from difficult intersections and did not experience any AMR ambulances being blocked as a result. We are unsure if other ambulance companies had difficulty with the protest.”

Told of the AMR response, Christine Plourde of the state police legal affairs unit stuck by the original story.

She said a charge nurse at Yale-New Haven — a front-line care manager — contacted the state police at some point after demonstrators assembled on Route 34 around 4:30 and formed a line blocking traffic toward the hospital. She told the state police about the critically ill patient stuck there. She said she can’t reveal the nature of the critical illness because of privacy rules.

Plourde said the incident did involve an AMR ambulance. Asked why the company is saying otherwise, she responded, Maybe they don’t want to be involved. I don’t know.”

EINO SIERPE PHOTO

State police on Chapel Street Saturday.

That was one of several controversial moments at Saturday’s demonstration.

State police are investigating what happened after that blocking of the the highway. After protesters moved off state property up to Chapel Street, state police pursued the organizer and arrested him with the help of pepper spray and police canines. One of the dogs ended up attacking three cops.

City officials, including the police chief and the mayor, have since questioned whether state police made people less safe, rather than safer, by using pepper spray and police canines in a chaotic crowd to pursue the arrest of a nonviolent person on a nonviolent charge. An attorney present to represent protesters called it a police riot.”

The state police are also reviewing why one of their canines attacked three cops, biting two of them and ripping the clothing of a third.

Click here to read more about that.

EINO SIERPE PHOTO

John Lugo, foreground, leading Saturday’s march.

EINO SIERPE PHOTO

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