MAPLEWOOD, NJ — Following a “glitch,” Maplewood Township has clarified with dispatch who should be contacted when during an emergency. Going forward, should the Maplewood ambulance service be unavailable, REMCS, the Regional Emergency Medical Communications System, will contact MONOC as the first backup during times when the South Orange Rescue Squad is not working.
This change in procedure comes after a March 23 incident in which an 8-year-old boy stepped off his school bus at the corner of Ridgewood Road and Ridgewood Terrace at approximately 3:30 p.m. and suffered a seizure. His mother lay him down on the curb and several bystanders called 9-1-1, reporting the details of the emergency and the location. Approximately eight to 10 minutes later, a Maplewood police officer arrived; he immediately began administering oxygen and requested an ambulance.
And yet, it wasn’t until much later that an ambulance actually arrived, while no support from the Maplewood Fire Department was ever requested by dispatch, according to Maplewood Fire Chief Michael Dingelstedt. While parents on the scene say it took 22 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, Dingelstedt previously told the News-Record the actual elapsed time was 19 minutes, which township officials believe is still too long.
According to Mayor Vic DeLuca, the child is doing well.
Part of the long response time is due to the fact that, after learning that the Maplewood ambulance service was unavailable, REMCS tried to hail SORS, which is not on duty during weekdays. Following protocol, REMCS attempted to enlist SORS’ help as SORS is Maplewood’s first backup. After failing to connect with SORS, REMCS waited two minutes and tried SORS again. Since SORS did not answer, REMCS moved on to MONOC.
“We did see that there may have been a glitch in the process that our dispatch called the South Orange Rescue Squad,” Mayor Vic DeLuca said at the April 19 Township Committee meeting. “We’ve now made it clear to our dispatcher that from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, our secondary ambulance will be from MONOC, not SORS. It could have been upward of five or six minutes we ended up being delayed because of that.”
DeLuca added that he has heard from two other people in town about similar waits for ambulances, likely for the same reason.
DeLuca also wanted to clarify that when one calls 9-1-1, one should stay on the line, as dispatch requires someone on scene to give information and to take instructions. According to DeLuca, the first person who called 9-1-1 when the child had the seizure hung up shortly afterward.
As for why the Maplewood Fire Department didn’t respond, Dinglestedt has said that they were never called. At the April 19 meeting, Deputy Mayor Nancy Adams asked if individuals should resort to calling the fire department on their own during an emergency, but DeLuca replied in the negative.
“Our first aid squad, our fire officers, they are there for basic life service,” DeLuca said. “What ultimately happened was they called the advanced life service. What we were told was that the police officer, when he got to the scene, he administered oxygen, which is what the fire department would have done anyway.”
Committeewoman India Larrier also said that the current system is meant to keep as many first responders on call as possible. Once a police officer or firefighter arrives on scene, they are required to stay until the individual is transported to the hospital. Had the fire department been called separately or been called by the police, the fire response team would have been forced to remain on scene, unavailable to respond to someone elsewhere in Maplewood having a heart attack, for example. Larrier explained that having just one caller, one dispatch, keeps the process streamlined and more efficient.
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