Calling for an Ambulance? Read This

We've got to link to John Pekkanen's disturbing investigative piece in this month's Washingtonian magazine revealing utter dysfunction inside the District's emergency medical services agency. It's a very long story, but worth reading all the way through as it really rams home the point that fatal breakdowns within the fire department-led FEMS have resulted in undertrained and demoralized EMTs. The circumstances that led to the death of David Rosenbaum, it seems, were hardly aberrations. The report is also especially disturbing in light of the recent allegations reported by blogger Carlos in DC that the recent death of Jose Sanchez in Columbia Heights was not the result of indifferent neighbors but a failure of EMS response. Photo by yonas