To the editor:
My name is Ashley Luneau and I am a resident of Walden. I grew up in Walden and my family has been around the area since I’ve been born and prior to that and even employed in the area.
I am a Doctor of Nursing Practice of cardiology for Dartmouth and have been in the medical community for most of my life. I have a four year-old daughter and a six week old son and have been proud of the medical community in this area up to this point.
I write today with severe and critical concern for not only my family, but for other families in the area as well. This past week, my daughter went into a febrile seizure at our home at around 4 a.m. in the morning and we called 911.
We were on the line for 20 minutes while our daughter seized and were being told by 911 that the ambulance was in an unknown status. After that amount of time I asked for an update as to where the ambulance was and when the 911 dispatcher called the team, they were not even out of their homes or to the station yet.
I worked in the operating room for many years and had to be on-call and knew that it was a dire response timing so this concerned me greatly that a pediatric call could not conjure up some support.
We had to cancel the ambulance call and drive our own daughter to Northern Vermont Regional Hospital (NVRH) with no phone service for about 15 minutes until we got to the service in Danville for cell phone service if something had occurred on the road.
My daughter ended up having another seizure in the emergency room at NVRH and had to be transported to Dartmouth within an hour, which makes me even more upset that the ambulance did not respond appropriately in my area.
Every year at town meeting, we are asked to contribute to the ambulance squad of Danville and Hardwick, and this makes me not want to contribute appropriately given the lack of response we experienced.
I understand that this is a voluntary service, but that does come with protocols for response time, especially if they were told it was a pediatric case with seizing.
My household was lucky that I do have medical training, but another household may not be as lucky next time. I urge the community to have some response to this whether it is stricter protocols and awareness and training. I feel like we were thrown to the wayside and this is not satisfactory care.
Ashley Luneau
Walden
