PHOENIX — The ABC15 Investigators have obtained a video showing how Phoenix firefighters tried to dissuade a sick grandma from taking an ambulance to the hospital, even though fire department policy requires them to take anyone who asks.
Haydee Pate, 62, was getting sicker by the day in August 2021.
“I remember I have a hard time to breathe,” Pate said. “The kids convinced me, and they called for help.”
They told the 911 operator Pate had COVID and was having difficulty breathing. She wanted to go to the hospital. She was instructed to meet the firefighters in front of her south Phoenix home.
Within minutes, a fire engine arrived.
Phoenix firefighters, who are also trained paramedics or emergency medical technicians, arrived, but they did not bring an ambulance. Both fire engines and ambulances in Phoenix are operated by the city’s fire department.
Pate’s Ring doorbell camera captured video clips of their interaction.
"Let me see where your stats are,” one firefighter said. “If your stats are good, they are not really going to want you at the hospital."
Three firefighters are with Pate, and one noticed her son arrive and walk up to the house.
"Are you related, sir?" a firefighter asked.
"Yes, that's my mom," the man responded.
"Do you just want to take her to the hospital?" a second firefighter said,
"She wants to go to the hospital," the man replied.
"Do you want to take her?” one of the firefighters asked again.
After Haydee's son explains why he’d prefer the ambulance take his mom, the fire captain on the scene starts talking about cost.
"That ambulance is $1,500 bucks,” the captain said. “I mean we'll take her. But if you have $1500 bucks, I know what I'd like to do with $1,500 bucks.”
Another firefighter went as far as saying “the hospitals are shutting down.”
“My feelings got hurt,” Pate told ABC15. “They make me feel like I'm wasting my time with you. “
While she felt disrespected, Pate said her son was angry at the firefighter's behavior. After they left, he drove Pate to the emergency room.
At the hospital, Pate was diagnosed with COVID pneumonia, and she spent nearly a week in inpatient care.
Pate is the first person who’s shown ABC15 video evidence, but she’s one of dozens to tell ABC15 they felt like Valley firefighters either refused them an ambulance or tried to convince them they didn't need one.
“I can tell them right there in their face, they deny [sic] to help me when I needed it the most,” Pate said.
Donna’s Call
Donna Dominguez’s hospital records show she was in sepsis and had a ruptured colon when she arrived in the emergency room in 2021.
After days of increasing abdominal pain, she also called 911 to ask for a Phoenix ambulance. Donna describes the pain as worse than childbirth and said she could not get out of bed.
The firefighters also came to her home, without an ambulance, to assess her. The firefighters concluded in their report that Dominguez had experienced abdomincal pain before and she refused to have an ambulance transport her.
Dominguez said the signature next to patient refusal is not hers, and her story of the firefighters’ questionable behavior is very similar to Pate’s
“I do remember them saying it's expensive to transport you,” Dominguez remembered. “[They said] we really don't need to transport you because your EKG looks fine, and your vitals are fine.”
Dominguez said she remembers “almost begging” for the ambulance. At the time, she was home alone with her teen daughter, who was too young to drive.
“It makes me, honestly, lose faith,” Dominguez said. “These people are supposed to be here to help us.”
Minutes later, one of Dominguez’s older children arrived at the house, saw her condition, and loaded her into her personal car for the hospital. Dominguez was admitted for emergency surgery.
Francesca’s Death
Our ABC15 investigation started with Bruce Sandberg. On December 31, 2021, he called 911 asking for an ambulance for his wife, Francesca. He reported she was having heart palpitations and trouble breathing.
An internal investigation later indicated Phoenix firefighter-paramedics arrived at the home and determined Francesca was "like any other Covid patient and didn't need to go to the hospital."
Sandberg insisted firefighters, at least, help her into his truck. The firefighters did, then they wrote in their incident report that the Sandbergs refused ambulance transport.
Francesca lost consciousness before reaching the emergency room. She died from a heart attack.
"The last thing she said to me was, 'Are we there yet? Honey? Are we there yet?'" Sandberg told ABC15.
Sandberg has filed a notice of claim, the precursor to a lawsuit, against the City of Phoenix alleging wrongful death and negligence.
Fire Chief’s Response
The ABC15 Investigators made multiple requests for records and interviews with Phoenix Fire Department officials to discuss residents' complaints about ambulance denials.
Last week, we asked Fire Chief Michael Duran to watch Pate’s video. After our request was denied, ABC15 Investigator Melissa Blasius caught up to the chief at a public event.
“Our policies are to take people to the hospital when it's appropriate and deemed necessary,” Chief Duran said. “If a patient asks to go to the hospital, we are to transport them to the hospital.”
Duran also said Phoenix firefighters are being trained on this information and a new state law, which bars paramedics from diagnosing patients and bans them from counseling a patient to decline ambulance transportation.
A fire department spokesman followed up with an email saying:
Phoenix Fire hospital transport rates are currently at 50% (49.89%). This clearly indicates that our policies are being followed and ambulances are being provided to those that need or request an ambulance to the hospital.
A Phoenix Fire Department memo obtained by ABC15 showed the transport rate was much lower, at about 33%, in 2020. The memo compared Phoenix’s rate to five other Valley cities, showing those cities transported people by ambulance 48-60% of the time.
Phoenix did not further explain the ambulance transport statistics nor how they were able to grow from a 33% to 50% ambulance transportation rate in the last two years.
Did an EMS provider refuse to take you or a loved one to the hospital in an ambulance? Email Melissa at Melissa.Blasius@abc15.com, call her at 602-685-6362, or connect on Twitter and Facebook.
