Northwest Calgary deadly dog attack was initially deemed ‘non-life-threatening’: AHS

At a time when EMS response times in Alberta are under a microscope, Alberta Health Services (AHS) revealed that Sunday’s deadly dog attack was initially treated as a non-life threatening incident.

An 86-year-old woman was mauled by three dogs in an alleyway in the community of Capitol Hill, she waited 30 minutes for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, where she later died of her injuries.

AHS says the initial 911 call was “categorized for police response” and officers let EMS know they were heading to the scene, but “based on information provided to EMS, the call was triaged as non-life-threatening.”

AHS adds when police got there they told EMS that the woman’s injuries were serious, EMS were then dispatched and arrived at the Capitol Hill home nine minutes later.

EMS said there was an extremely high call volume on the Sunday afternoon when the dog attack happened, but they came as soon as they could when it was deemed serious.

There is heightened sensitivity around ambulance response times in Alberta.

The UCP committed to funding 19 new ambulances and five support vehicles to be put on Calgary and Edmonton streets by September as part of the $587 million operating budget for EMS in Budget 2022.

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• Alberta hospitals face numerous factors creating lengthy wait times

• Calgary getting new operations centre to address long ambulance wait times

• Alberta EMS crisis to receive funding from province

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In another incident three weeks ago, a woman who CityNews has agreed not to name says she called for an ambulance after experiencing symptoms of a potential heart attack.

She says while she called 911 between 12:10 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. an ambulance did not arrive until 12:50 a.m.