Injured football player waits hours for ambulance to arrive

Jennifer Lee-Parsons sat on the field, consoling her son Isiah after he injured his leg during the first game of his high school football season last Sunday.

“He just kept saying ‘my leg, my leg,’” Parsons says. “With him asking continually ‘can somebody help me? Can somebody take me to hospital?’” his mother says.

They immediately called 911, as the team’s physiotherapists put Isiah’s leg in a splint.

However, he stayed, lying on the field for more than two and a half hours, waiting for an ambulance.

“I’ve always assumed that help was close, that help was nearby. And if something happens, we can call an ambulance and they’ll come up and handle it for us,” says Evan Brown, head coach of the Bayview High School football team.

Some might say it is a logical assumption, given the Emergency Health Services base is just three minutes away.

As it started to get dark and cold, the team’s medical staff decided to get Isiah to the hospital on their own.

“We have a coach who works as a funeral director and he went to get their van to transport bodies and we were thinking about using their stretcher and that van to try to get him to the hospital,” says Brown.

That funeral van turned into the school’s driveway just behind the ambulance.

Isiah’s injuries were significant. The 15-year-old, 6-foot-two-inch, 240-pound defensive lineman broke his tibia and fibula.

In a statement to CTV News, the paramedics’ union apologized for the delay.

“Our paramedics feel the pain of an overtaxed system and they suffer due to a feeling that they can’t respond quickly enough and worry constantly about the results of these delays,” the statement read.

After arriving at the hospital, Lee-Parsons says her son received top-notch treatment from the paramedics and the IWK staff.

Isiah underwent surgery on Tuesday and was released the next day.

No one from the province responded to a request for comment by CTV News.