Individuals suffering cardiac arrest in Squamish waited for an ambulance for an average of 11 minutes and 22 seconds, according to information in a freedom of information request released to The Chief by the Provincial Health Services Authority.
The median response in the nine cases of cardiac arrest that called for an ambulance in 2016 in Squamish was nine minutes and 37 seconds.
Cardiac arrests are delta/echo calls, meaning they are the most urgent calls. Ambulances are dispatched with lights and sirens on.
It should take about nine minutes for the ambulance to arrive in 75 per cent of cases if a person is in cardiac arrest, according to targets set in a 2015 British Columbia Emergency Health Services report.
Ninety-five per cent of cardiac arrests should be answered within 15 minutes, according to the targets.
An ambulance arrived to patients in cardiac arrest within nine minutes 67 per cent of the time in Vancouver and on the North Shore and within 15 minutes 92 per cent of the time, according to the report.
