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Something’s very wrong in the nation’s capital when it takes almost 15 minutes for police to arrive after a man assaulted a DC Fire & EMS Department paramedic in the back of an ambulance and then apparently went after the public. The medics called a 10-33 for 4th and Massachusetts NW this (Thursday) morning (listen to radio traffic, above). This means they are in danger and need police right away. This was followed by the medics calling again for police, along with calls by a battalion chief and an EMS supervisor. It also appears the fire department operations center assisted in trying to get a police response. It was an EMS supervisor who reported the public was also being attacked more than 10 minutes after the 10-33 call.

We can’t just say this one was necessarily a DC911/OUC problem. In fact, radio traffic showed dispatchers handled the initial call from Medic 2 expertly and followed long-standing procedures that OUC once struggled with. What we don’t know is what went on behind the scenes at both OUC and the DC Police Department that brought such a slow response. The only clue is a dispatcher saying at one point that there were no police units available. Eventually, both MPD and U.S. Capitol Police arrived to handle the situation, and the banged-up medic was taken to the hospital.

To illustrate how serious a call like this can be, just 11 days ago, Firefighter/Paramedic Graham Hoffman (pictured above) was stabbed in his heart by a woman inside an ambulance in Kansas City, MO. Hoffman died.

I can assure you if a police officer called a 10-33, it wouldn’t take almost 15 minutes for other officers to arrive. This isn’t the first time this has occurred. Some procedures were supposedly tightened and improved after previous slow responses to fire and EMS 10-33s. That needs to happen again and those in charge need to make sure that this time it sticks.