Winthrop officials analyze ambulance service following two-year-old's death
WINTHROP – Winthrop's fire chief, police chief, town manager, and leaders from Action Ambulance met Monday to analyze the town's current ambulance service and structure.
On Friday, a 2-year-old girl died after a flu-like illness took a turn for the worse, sending her into cardiac arrest. At the time, both of Winthrop's two ambulances - run by Action Ambulance - were on other calls, and mutual aid was 25 minutes away.
Fire Chief Scott Wiley stepped into action, taking the little girl in the backseat of his SUV and driving her to Mass General himself while two other firefighters attempted life saving medical care in the backseat. Sadly, she did not survive.
"They meet at standard 99% of the time, and the one percent that they don't is out of their control," Fire Chief Scott Wiley explained. He said it would be irresponsible to suggest the lack of an ambulance caused the little girl's death.
Still, the tragedy sparked a conversation about ambulance services, specifically mutual aid services where Winthrop is required by state law to share with other communities when they need an ambulance.
Winthrop Town Manager Tony Marino said the town is "deeply concerned about the impact of the mutual aid system and ambulance availability in the town of Winthrop."
The little girl who died was at a home on Pleasant Street, the home of former Winthrop Police officer James Feeley, who is currently facing child rape charges. The two incidents seem completely unconnected, and the Department of Children and Families tells WBZ-TV it received a report about the death and is investigating.
Dennis Cataldo, who heads Cataldo Ambulance and also is a part of the Massachusetts Ambulance Association, said a staffing problem with ambulances started in roughly 2019 but was exacerbated by the pandemic. "All the hospitals were locked down," Cataldo said. "So the amount of paramedics and entities that were graduated over a two-plus year period of time was a fraction of what normally was being done. And so, you know, it's a catch-up, you know. Right now we're in a we're in kind of a catch-up mode when it comes to staffing."
As for the situation in Winthrop, the two firefighters who administered CPR have been out of work and receiving support services. They will return Thursday. Chief Wiley is still reeling from the event – the first experience like this in decades of service. "It's one of the most difficult calls I've been on in 33 years… the death of a two-year-old child is difficult," he said.