While Christine Quinn was outraged when an intern passed out in the 93-degree heat on Tuesday and had to wait half an hour for an ambulance, Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday that New Yorkers may have to wait a bit if they’re suffering from non-life threatening injuries. “Ambulance dispatching is about prioritizing,” said Bloomberg, explaining at a press conference that “a choking child, cardiac arrest or chest pains” are going to take precedence over “a patient who’s breathing, alert and communicating, which is exactly what was reported yesterday.” Contrary to earlier reports, Bloomberg said the intern didn’t hit her head on the pavement.
The mayor said the average response time yesterday was 9:44 for life-threatening injuries and 15:17 for other calls, about two and a half minutes longer than usual, and called out Quinn for dialing Ray Kelly. “Everybody should get the same service whether or not you happen to have somebody who knows the police commissioner on a first name basis and has his cell phone number,” said Bloomberg.
Even if Quinn’s ire was misplaced, it did have the benefit of landing her on the cover of both the Daily News and this Post, even though she’s not attempting a sex-scandal comeback. But since there’s no guarantee that Quinn will happen upon another dramatic incident that highlights an ongoing issue in the city, she’s trying another strategy. On Thursday she’ll become the first Democrat in the mayoral race to launch a major TV ad campaign, with spots running on stations including NY1, MSNBC, and CNN for one week.
