Ambulance crew failed to see man in crashed vehicle, Flint police say | MLive.com:
"FLINT, MI – Flint police said the ambulance crew that responded first to a weekend car crash failed to notice a man in the vehicle when police didn't go there because they were too busy on other calls.
UPDATE: Ambulance company issues statement, says crew unable to locate body in wreckage
Flint police Chief James Tolbert and a spokeswoman for the ambulance company said the matter is under review after a second ambulance that responded over an hour later reported a dead body was actually in the car.
"Why the first crew didn't find a patient, I don't know," said Lynn Schuter, director of community relations for the ambulance company, Mobile Medical Response. "It is under investigation."
Emergency calls began at 4:12 a.m. Saturday, July 18, when residents in the area of Chevrolet and Jackson avenues reported a white Chevrolet Impala left the road and hit a tree.
Tolbert said the police department couldn't send anyone because officers were tied up at two priority scenes: a homicide investigation and a separate shooting.
Instead, dispatch sent a Mobile Medical Response ambulance following the initial 911 calls, city officials said.
But when the first ambulance arrived at 4:26 a.m. — just one minute after it was dispatched — the crew reported there was no one in the vehicle, and the report was downgraded to a less-serious call of a single-car property damage accident, abandoned vehicle, Tolbert said.
"EMS reported back to us that there was nobody in the car and it was just an abandoned car," Tolbert said. "That's way-low priority."
..."My understanding is that it's a resource issue," she said about why the ambulances were the first responders to the crash scene. "We are there for the patients.""
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