JOHN ROBBINS/Bullet News
WELLAND – Bad weather, emergency department closures and rules governing patient transfers left paramedics with no choice but to transport a critically injured Fort Erie teen to hospital in Welland, an inquest jury was told Wednesday.
“It was our only option,” said Niagara Emergency Medical Services paramedic Brandon Mackay, who spent the day on the stand recounting in painstaking detail his recollection of the efforts to save the life of Reilly Anzovino late on the night of Dec. 26, 2009 and into the early morning hours of Dec. 27 when she was pronounced dead in hospital.
Arriving at the scene of the accident on Highway 3 near Nigh Road, in Ridgeway, around 11:39 p.m., Mackay was the first paramedic to tend to the 18-year-old Anzovino, who had been in a passenger in a red, 1998 Chevy Calavier that had just minutes before spun out of control after hitting an icy patch on the road and was struck by an oncoming vehicle.
After struggling through fog to get to the scene from an ambulance station on nearby Gorham Road, first responders were immediately confronted with the difficulty of moving around on the icy pavement, which was sloped due to the curvature of the road along that portion of Highway 3 known as the S-bend.
Even Mackay’s non-slip shoes “weren’t effective” in preventing from slipping and sliding as he took “slow, deliberate” steps in the dark toward the mangled vehicles strung out across thr road.
After perform a quick triage of the other vehicle, Mackay came to the car where Anzovino lay unconscious inside.
The passenger side of the car, which took the brunt of impact, couldn’t be opened so he went to the driver’s side where he encountered the driver, Molly Fargrieve, who pleaded with Mackay to help her friend.
It didn’t take long for Mackay to determine that he was dealing with a critically-injured trauma patient, who had to be taken to hospital as quickly as possible.
Anzovino had a pulse, but she was unresponsive even to painful stimuli and her breathing was laboured.
“She was breathing on her own,” said Mackay. “It was a gasping respiration, which alarmed me.”
Mackay deemed Anzovino to be in serious enough shape to be considered what paramedics call a “load-and-go” patient, meaning a hospital emergency department rather than paramedics is needed to provide “definitive care” for the patient.
Worried about the possibility of a head injury, Mackay used one hand to push against Anzovino’s jaw to hold her head firmly against the back seat of the car. He then placed an airway into her mouth, put a breathing mask on her face and gently placed a cervical collar around her neck.
The crushed passenger-side door meant Anzovino had to be lifted over the centre console and onto the driver’s seat so a backboard (also known as a fracture board) could be used as a “bridge” between the car and the ambulance stretcher.
Even with the help of several firefighters, it took a one and a half to two minutes just to push the stretcher up the icy embankment to the ambulance, which was parked 75 to 100 feet away.
Inside the vehicle, Mackay and his partner began working on Anzovino, while a Fort Erie firefighter, identified through previous inquest testimony as Kevin Cudmore, comforted the teen, who was by this time beginning to regain consciousness.
Anzovino was hooked up to a heart monitor and an intravenous drip was started.
Further time had to be spent restraining Anzovino, who was moving about on the stretcher, risking further injury to herself.
“It took three of us to do it,” said Mackay, who was eager to get the ambulance rolling.
Meanwhile, Mackay estimated there were six times when he or his partner were distracted by well-intentioned people who approached the ambulance, including Fairgrieve, who was desperate to find out how her friend was doing.
“She had good intentions,” said Mackay. “She wanted to know the condition of her friend.”
Each interruption added seconds to the response and delayed the ambulance’s departure.
After ruling out a trip to trauma departments at hospitals in Buffalo and Hamilton, which would have required obtaining permission at a base hospital, it was determined Anzovino would have to be taken to the nearest Canadian emergency department, which at that time was located at Welland County General hospital.
Months prior to the accident, emergency departments at Port Colborne General and Fort Erie’s Douglas Memorial hospital had been converted into urgent-care centres.
With lights and sirens activated, the ambulance departed the scene with Mackay behind the wheel, his partner and the firefighter in the back tending to Anzovino.
He made radio contact with the hospital to provide information about the teen’s condition even as he struggled west and then north through the fog toward Welland.
“I was nervous driving,” Mackay recalls of the journey, which saw him reach a peak speed of 108 kilometres an hour.
“It was very nerve-racking.”
Just before arriving the hospital, Mackay made a second radio transmission to say Anzovino was “crashing,” meaning there was a sudden deterioration in her condition. The girl was now unconscious and her heart rate had slowed considerably.
Arriving at the hospital at 12:28 a.m., Anzovino still had a pulse when she was removed from the ambulance and wheeled into the ER at Welland County General.
There they were met by a “single nurse,” who again checked for a pulse but this time couldn’t find one.
CPR was started, with other paramedics who had arrived at the hospital helping with the frantic efforts to revive Anzovino.
Hospital staff worked on Anzovino for about 50 minutes before the teen was pronounced dead.
Mackay was still on the stand when the inquest was adjourned for the day.
He has yet to be cross examined by lawyers representing some of the other parties which have been granted standing at the hearing.
Day 4 of the inquest is scheduled to get underway Thursday at 9:30 a.m.
