(Photo credit: CKPG Today)

By Nathan Jordan/CKPG Today

scary incident

Staff shortage leads to 50 minute wait for ambulance for injured Vernon Viper

Oct 6, 2022 | 9:45 AM

The game between the Vernon Vipers and Prince George Spruce Kings last Saturday night (Oct. 1) had just entered the final three minutes of play, when Vipers forward Will Blackburn took a nasty face-first hit into the boards.

With the injured Blackburn being attended to by rink first aid attendants and both hockey team’s physicians, 911 was immediatly called, the score clock time was allowed to run out… but half an hour later, and with no sign of an ambulance, Ron Gallo decided to take matters into his own hands.

Gallo is the PA announcer at the Kopar Memorial Arena in Prince George.

“We’ve seen players get injured, sometimes they’re clean hits, sometimes they’re dirty hits, sometimes people are left you know, stretchered off, neck brace, the whole nine yards… But what I’ve never seen before, is an ambulance take that long” -Ron Gallo

Gallo saids, while he’d never condone his actions to someone else, after 30 minutes of waiting and seeing the growing distress in the crowd, he took it on himself to visit the local emergency room and track down Emergency Health Services himself

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“The ambulance station is just at the top of the hill, so I actually got in my truck and decided to go for a drive. There was no activity around the ambulance depot so I drove around to the emergency side of the hospital, there was an ambulance there and one ambulance attendant in the driver seat, so I parked my vehicle and went and had a conversation with her, asked if she knew what was happening down at the rink” -Ron Gallo

The Vipers said Sunday the results from CT scans came back negative and injured forward Will Blackburn rejoined the team for the trip back to Vernon.

“We are extremely grateful to our athletic therapist Yasmine Jutt and the medical professionals for taking such great care of Will,” said Vipers Head Coach and GM Jason McKee. “We’d also like to thank the Spruce Kings organization for their help in a very tough situation.”

These types of delays are all too common these day due to staff shortages, said Troy Clifford, President of the BC Ambulance Paramedic’s Union.

“Really we just don’t have enough ambulances that are staffed on a daily basis. We’re seeing upwards of 30 per cent of ambulances in the Prince George and surrounding areas that are not staffed fully. A lot of communities in the outlying areas that only have two ambulances, are down to only one. What that means is we don’t have staff to physically staff the ambulances… largely because of our inability to recruit and retain staff.” – Troy Clifford

Unacceptable as these delays may be, Clifford says, until more staff is hired and a solution is found to retain them, these types of delays and backlogs will keep happening.