Ambulance crew moves to Two Mile Hill, after toddler dies in Takhini

Wednesday August 4, 2010

By Larissa Robyn Johnston

Ian Stewart/Yukon News

Ambulance
Shandell McCarthy and Marco Paquet with a photo of their late son Brennan, who choked to death in July. The family supports a proposed ambulance station in the Two Mile Hill area.

On July 18th, Brennan Richard McCarthy-Paquet choked to death on a piece of macaroni.

He was 17 months old.

“I turned around for two seconds,” said his mom Shandell McCarthy.

“It took two seconds for him to swallow that piece of macaroni, and I never thought in my whole life that a child could die from a small piece of macaroni.”

The little boy’s parents immediately called 911.

“It took eight minutes for the ambulance to get here, which was extremely quick, according to (emergency medical services), but to us it seemed like an eternity,” said Marco Paquet, the baby’s father.

The family lives at the top of Two Mile Hill, in Takhini, and the ambulance had to come all the way from Riverdale.

Last month, plans to build a temporary ambulance station on Range Road were turfed after an overwhelming outcry from Takhini residents, who feared the proposed station would bring excess noise and traffic to their area.

“Enough already! This area has already been hard hit with new development,” wrote Heather Dundas on the “Takhini Says No to More Sirens” Facebook group.

“We have the highway, Range Road, Two Mile Hill, the new fire station. EMS needs to back away from a bad plan.”

“We’re just concerned that this would be another set of sirens for the community,” said Takhini West Community Association president Dan Cable, in a previous interview with the News.

Emergency Medical Services estimated there would be, on average, three calls per day requiring a siren.

Paquet and McCarthy also fought the ambulance station.

“We were opposed to the station to begin with because we were just being selfish, like the siren is going to wake our baby,” said Paquet.

“We were thinking about our little boy and the noise waking him up,” added McCarthy.

“But I would have much sooner put up with that and I would much rather have him here with me today and put up with a little bit of noise.”

Now, she’s started a Facebook group of her own, “We support an ambulance station on Range Road.”

McCarthy also plans to meet with city councillors to try to convince them to reconsider the Range Road location as a permanent site for an ambulance station.

And they want the neighbours’ support.

“Right now, if we have to go door to door and have people sign a petition and if we have to tell our story to the thousands of people who live in the area, then so be it,” said Paquet.

“We’re going to do everything it takes.”

The couple want some good to come out of their tragedy.

“It’s going to make a huge difference in someone else’s life,” he said.

“And if I can bring something positive and some meaning out of this then I hope that’s what we can do.”

On Monday, an ambulance crew moved into the Protective Services building at the top of Two Mile Hill. And a temporary emergency medical services station, located in a trailer in the Protective Services parking lot, will begin operation in early fall.

The new crew will help Whitehorse reach the national standard for response times, which is nine minutes.

Yukon Emergency Medical Services hopes to have paramedics to the scene within nine minutes, said Two Mile Hill station manager Terry Klassen.

“Why are we doing this?” he said. “It’s so that we can enhance our response times to the citizens of Whitehorse and the area.

“Why do response times matter? Well, they affect the outcomes of events such as cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis (food allergies) . . . severe bleeding, stroke and choking victims.”

The move to the top of Two Mile Hill before the temporary station opens in the fall had nothing to do with the death of the child, added Klassen.

“To be honest, I can’t speak to that incident,” he said.

“We’re moving because it’s the right thing to do.”

But McCarthy believes otherwise.

After her tragedy, she attended several meetings with emergency medical services, she said.

“And I think this location was a result of that - of what happened.”

Only 10 per cent of emergency calls actually come from Riverdale, while 40 per cent are in the downtown area. The remaining 50 per cent of calls come from what EMS labels, “the rest of Whitehorse.”

Stretching along the Alaska Highway past Crestview and almost to McCrae, this region includes Takhini, Copper Ridge, Granger and Porter Creek.

And emergency calls to these neighbourhoods often far exceed the nine-minute standard response time.

To reach the top of Two Mile Hill alone, it usually takes 10 minutes from the Riverdale station, said Klassen.

“And it’s in our best interest to get to calls as soon as possible,” he said.

The new, permanent station is to be completed by 2012 beside the Protective Services building. Site assessment work is underway and the construction is set to begin in the fall.

The cost of the new building, located across the street from the recently built $10-million fire station, is so far unknown, he said.

The Riverdale EMS station will remain operational, while the temporary one in Takhini runs Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Two staff will work from this location, reducing response times in surrounding neighbourhoods.

It’s still too early to know if their story has made complaining neighbours quiet down about sirens, said McCarthy.

But one member on the opposing Facebook group wrote, “By the way, that ‘50 per cent elsewhere’ includes neighbours and children you want to protect from the noisy sirens. (But) one of those annoying sirens you heard last week was trying to save the life of a child in Takhini North. Maybe you can use this site to come together as a community to support the family.”

The sound of sirens has also changed for the little boy’s parents.

“Every time an ambulance goes by, it’s just heartbreaking because it brings you back to that day,” said Paquet.

Contact Larissa Robyn Johnston at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Bookmark and Share 11 Comments

1:32pm 08/13/10  |  Don McKenzie wrote:

I wish to express my condolances to Brennan’s parents.  I appreciate that they are now fighting the NIMBY attitude that runs deep in their neighbourhood, I’m just sorry that it took the death of their son, to do it.  I doubt if Brennen is the first death that was caused by the EMS being so far away, but I hope he is the last.  I can appreciate a NIMBY attitude when it comes to keeping something bad, like child molestors, out of one’s neighbourhood, but an ambulance?  I say FOR SHAME, to those so full of their own self importance, for fighting against having an emergency service located in their neighbourhood.

10:13am 08/10/10  |  Shandell wrote:

Marco & I would like to sincerely thank-you all for your kind words and support for our cause and I would also like to thank the Yukon News for covering our story and bringing much needed attention to this issue. Marco and I are actively working to get the Manager of EMS to resubmit his application for the temporary site on Range Road, we have assured him that he will have community support. If you have not joined our cause on facebook, we encourage you to do so…it is called “we support an ambulance station on Range Road” after only one week, we are up to 280 members.

9:22pm 08/09/10  |  northerncanucks wrote:

my heart goes out to the parents, i too have suffered the loss of an infant and have been forever touched by the sounds of sirens, rushing to assist or save lives.  i come from a small town and every time i travel to whitehorse or any city i hear the inevitable sirens.  really people, is your personal peace more important than the intervention and care of professionals in a human beings most dire circumstances?

4:52pm 08/06/10  |  Yukon Gurl #1 wrote:

Shandel and Marco My Heart and Prayers are with you….. Words can’t even describe how Feel for you…. Brennan will always be in my heart forever. XO

7:25pm 08/05/10  |  klondiker79 wrote:

As a father of two kids myself, my heart sincerely goes out to these two. When I heard about the new ambulance station I was excited and thought it was a tremendous idea but was taken aback by the critics and the “NIMBY” responce. I was disgusted by the responce but it’s not really my thing to write into the paper so I thought that was that….however because of this horrible tragedy I felt compelled to say something….and not to villify those that spoke against the ambulance but think again long and hard….this could have been my children or someone you loved…I am on the side that says we NEED to have a station close to the other side of town…I originally come from a much larger City but chose to live here for the beauty…but as an original outsider I see that this town is spoiled with the lack of noise, crime and other issues. In my previous City it’s the norm to hear an ambulance at 3 am, but that’s okay because someone’s life is counting on it, I’d rather that then a moment of hearing a siren….I plead to the City….build this damn station before someone else dies!!!

6:02pm 08/05/10  |  yukonjack wrote:

I have to agree that public safety and health comes before someone’s “peace and quiet”. If silence is of such importance to you, then move out of the city limits, say, 2.5 hours on the North Klondike highway. There, you will have your peace and quiet, along with no medical services.

I might also mention something that many Yukoners forget: If you live in Whitehorse, you live INSIDE a CITY. Imagine living in Vancouver, or Toronto. You could have 4 EMS stations a block away from you, and you still won’t have a fifth of the noise level you would have in ANY other city in Canada. People need to get a grip on reality.

12:31pm 08/05/10  |  Yukon Hootch wrote:

It is understandable that no one wants to hear anything aside from the noise of their own household especially in the middle of the night but there is a flip side no one has addressed: Minister Glenn Hart has voiced on multiple occasions that in 2030 the Yukon’s senior population is going to double.  Possibly the future seniors might find the Takhini area appealing because it would be close to an emergency medical station.  Even with an expansion not everyone can or wants to fit into Riverdale so living near an ambulance station might be the next best thing for those individuals who regard their family’s health and safety as a priority.

12:31pm 08/05/10  |  Yukon Hootch wrote:

If anyone’s concerns should be listened to it’s the concerns of these parents who lost their child as it seems they know first hand what the downfall is to not have a more centralized ambulance station.  There are a lot of families in Takhini; anyone willing to volunteer their child to be the next victim?  I think not.

I frequent the hospital three to four times per week so am in the vicinity of the current ambulance station often.  In the times I have been in the area there have been many ambulance call outs.  It has been my experience that once the ambulance exits the station it makes a brief one second siren noise then goes silently on it’s way and actually doesn’t turn on its siren fully until it has reached Lewis Blvd.  Meaning, it likely would be safe to assume that if a station ever was located in Takhini the noise possibly wouldn’t be any or much worse than what the residents are used to hearing now when ambulances are ripping up the Two Mile Hill either heading to Takhini or past up to McIntyre, Copper Ridge, etc.

9:26am 08/05/10  |  Miskitta wrote:

I live in Takhini West, right near Range Road, 2 Mile Hill, Alaska Highway, Takhini Arena, the new emergency station and the proposed ambulance station. I like the idea of having an ambulance station nearby-for selfish reasons. Also, for selfish reasons, I am disappointed that what was a too-noisy-but-still-nice residential area when I first purchased a few years ago continues to gather sound more fitting to industrial zoning.

The location for the ambulance station and emergency station have sound reasoning. Can we seek ways to mitigate impact? Can emergency vehicles just use lights, but no sirens, until they get out of the Takhini area (which includes Two-Mile Hill near the Range Road intersection and Alaska Hwy)? Can governments find ways to fund sound buffer improvement between Two-Mile, Alaska Hwy and the Takhini area? Earth berms? Trees?

Don’t be too quick to slam people who’s properties are awash with noise—it’s tiring to go home and have no peace. Or to get awakened through the night. Their needs are fair. But the stations have good reasons for being there, so lets start seeing some ideas for a balanced solution.

10:13pm 08/04/10  |  riptide wrote:

I made it less than a quarter of the way through that before I had to stop.

I hope all those that are bitching about more sirens read this, and realize that this could be their friend, family or neighbor. And that their quest for quiet could easily cost someone their life.

I for one would (as I’m sure many others now) would trade this peace and quite for Brennan’s life back. Getting an ambulance there would have saved him.

Now stop being so selfish and think of others who this will help.

My heart goes out to Shandell McCarthy and Marco Paquet. RIP Brennan.

7:08pm 08/04/10  |  Jack Malone wrote:

I have complete sympathy for these parents.  But others should be ashamed of their selfish approaches to the proposed EMS station.  C’mon where is Dan Cable, Jennifer Ellis, Heather Dunda and others - you look like very selfish fools now.  I am not arguing that an EMS station would have saved this boy but it does emphasize the need for a centralized EMS station to be able to respond quickly to a life or death situation - it is closer to a majority of Whse residents, closer to the Alaska Highway, etc.  I absolutely hate NIMBYism and it seems Takhini is full of NIMBYers.

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