Augusta Technical College president Terry Elam said today he had determined from student interviews that there was no delayed response to a teacher who collapsed in class six weeks ago.
Mr. Elam spoke with students today who witnessed the collapse of GED teacher Paul Whitehead on Oct. 6 at an off-campus class in the Bon Air Hotel. He said several students told him Mr. Whitehead had been late for the 10 a.m. class that day and that they immediately called for medical help when he fell to the ground and began having seizures.
“Another student verifies he came to class 15 minutes late, and he was still standing,” Mr. Elam said, adding that it seems Mr. Whitehead collapsed sometime around 10:20 a.m.
Initially, there had been a question about when the first call came in from students to 911 and Gold Cross EMS officials. Mr. Whitehead’s wife, Martinez resident Nancy Whitehead, said last week she had heard there might have been a more than 20-minute delay from when her husband collapsed to when he received treatment.
The first call registered with 911 was at 10:24 a.m., yet according to a Gold Cross report “staff state he (Mr. Whitehead) was seizing for like 25 minutes before EMS (was) called.”
Soon after the collapse, students had told Augusta Tech officials Mr. Whitehead collapsed at the start of the class, but campus officials didn’t know then if the class started on time.
Mr. Elam said he’s not sure why the Gold Cross report references a 25 minute delay to their being called. He also has said that Mr. Whitehead was the only Augusta Tech teacher there at the time and that six “instructors” mentioned in the Gold Cross report as being at the site were Bon Air officials.
As a result of the case, Mr. Elam said Augusta Tech would be reminding students at the college’s 25 off-campus locations to notify the school of such cases soon after calling 911.
In the case of Mr. Whitehead, he said students acted properly in immediately notifying 911, but Augusta Tech officials didn’t learn of the incident until an hour later through a call from a Bon Air worker.
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I'd believe there was a delay, even that close to the hospital, after seeing that poor woman laid out on the sidewalk at walgreens for well over 30 minutes in Martinez. Fire dept was about 2 blocks away and they got there at the same times as the ambulance. We had to keep calling 911 over and over and over. Then when they show up, there was no sense of urgency what so ever. We could have drove her to the hospital our selves 3 times before anyone showed up, ridiculous! If this is how bad it is living in the middle of town, I feel sorry for those living in the country, you have no chance of being saved!
The Walgreens incident might have something to do with the fact that there are only 5 ambulances in Columbia County to serve well over 120,000 people, which most of the time are tied up with nonemergent nursing home calls and police evaluations. Its not uncommon for there to be only one truck or zero trucks available in the county and to have Richmond County ambulances running calls in Columbia County. I wonder how this meets the contract obligations? They never call Capital City Ambulance or any of the other services in the area to back them up when they're out of ambulances.
That's nice to know. They are so greedy and want the money, instead of calling for back up to save a life, they make you wait around until they can get to you. That's just wrong.