"Medical Emergency" @ Lake Merritt

I was on THE train where this happened, although I was too far to see what was really going on. I mainly watched a bunch of people looking over my head.

I have no clue what the problem was, and I was right there. Somebody was passed out and they had medical/bart people running all over. Wish I could tell you more. I came here to see if anyone knew! I thought it would be on the news, the commute must've been terrible behind us.

Why can't they just take the person off of the train? I heard someone mention a stretcher, so maybe the person fell over and they were worried about their neck. Seems like such overkill. Just pull them onto the platform and get the trains running. We were stopped for a good 30-40 minutes. I was just happy I had a seat.

Oh, and like 30 seconds before the conductor said we would be leaving, the train accross the platform turned into a dublin/pleasanton (not sure what it was originally, probably headed towards downtown oakland)! It was great watching everyone run over to that train and back because they couldn't decide. Of course that train left before ours. Ugh, it reminded me of MUNI, where I could expect this sort of thing pretty regularly. At least it's no too common on BART.

The medical emergency was a lady who just recently had back surgery, fell on the train and couldn't get up. Medics arrived on the scene, and after realizing the problem, also realized they needed a back brace/board to carry her...and they didn't bring one . A board had to be brought out to them. Then they had to consult an actual doctor before they could move her off the train. Thats why it took so long. While this lady was in sever pain, nobody cared and blamed the operator and bart for the delay.

This incident happened about 6 feet in front of me. I had a view of the whole thing. The bulk of the time was spent waiting for the medics to arrive. The woman fell at 4:41, and the medics didn't arrive until 5:05-5:10. I heard the whole conversation between the medics and the nurse bystander who had been assisting the woman (she was the true hero in all this, really amazing). This wasn't the fault of the individual medics but the fault of whatever algorithm they use to determine the level of urgency of each individual emergency. Apparently the dispatcher asks a series of questions to the caller (e.g. "is she breathing?" "Is she conscious?") and the answers determine the level of emergency. The medics explained that they received the call from dispatch as a priority 2, which is like a "get there when you get there" thing - that is a quote from the medic who appeared to be the more senior of the two. I was an EMT in New England and what I know about the system is that there are three levels used to classify the urgency of an emergency. Priority 3 is usually a non-emergency call that would be something like driving a dialysis patient back to their nursing home after treatment - people that need medical transportation but aren't experiencing an acute medical condition; whereas a priority 1 is the type of call requiring lights and sirens in response to a "real" emergency (e.g. cardiac arrest, unconscious patient, not breathing, etc.). Both the nurse and the medics seemed surprised that this incident hadn't been classified as a priority 1. If it had been, commuters would have gotten home at least 20 minutes earlier. I'm not sure if the algorithm used is a national protocol or locally developed and implemented, but if it's local perhaps the public should encourage the city to re-evaluate the means used to determine the priority level of an emergency.

Also, mapezaid is correct, the medics did not consult a doctor. Certain criteria (e.g. did the patient have a fall, did the patient hit her head, etc.) determine whether a patient should be backboarded. Accordingly, EMT's and medics are trained to use their discretion in deciding whether to backboard a patient, based on these criteria. Often it is done as a precautionary measure even if the patient appears to be "fine." After assessing the patient and listening to the nurse bystander, the medics determined that the woman should be boarded. They did not want to risk breaking the woman's back in light of her spinal issues. Upon committing to this decision, one of the medics had to return to the truck to get the backboard, and call the fire department for assitance in lifting the patient. If the call had be assessed correctly by emergency dispatch, the medics could have arrived much earlier, brought their backboard into the station from the get-go, and had the fire department automatically dispatched to and already present on the scene. What we have here is what looks like a major failure in the dispatching system leading to multiple problems in the response time and on site treatment.

Why do medical emergencies affect trains in both directions?

I was heading toward San Francisco and it was a train heading toward Fremont or Dublin/Pleasanton with the problem at Lake Merrit. No trains were heading toward Fremont. I can understand that. But they turned around trains heading toward San Francisco, even though that track was not affected by a stuck train. Eventually, they started "single tracking" around the stuck train, further delaying the train I eventually boarded, but they didn't do that right away.

It seems to me that BART really needs to develop better procedures. They need better trained staff to deal with medical situations; they need better operational responses to stuck trains; they need better communication. When a train stuck on one track delays countless trains in both directions, they only affect countless number of commuters, which only increases the cost of the entire event (in terms of the delay time that each person has to pay).