8 July 2010

Ambulance Delay Prompts Call for Webcams at Railway Crossings

Cambridge Ontario - Webcams might soon keep watch over bottleneck railway crossings in Cambridge, helping paramedics save critical minutes when rushing people to hospital.
 
The live video feeds could be posted to a public website, giving long-suffering Cambridge motorists some advance warning of slow, kilometre-long trains blocking their way to shopping or work.
 
But don't expect blocked in ambulances to sit at railway crossings with sirens wailing trying to attract a train crew's attention, as Canadian Pacific Railway officials suggested Tuesday.
 
The idea dumbfounded John Prno, director of Waterloo Region emergency medical services.
 
"Instead of trying to blame someone else, why aren't we just sitting down and looking for a solution?" he asked, as he works to set up meetings with the railway after an eight-minute ambulance delay over the weekend.
 
Train engineers do their best to get out of the way if they see an ambulance approaching, Prno said.
 
"If you can't see the engineer there's no use to sitting there with your siren on."
 
Paramedics revived a two-year-old boy Saturday morning after police pulled him from a backyard pool on Concession Road. The three-minute trip to Cambridge Memorial Hospital stalled at the tracks across Concession near Coronation Boulevard, where a long freight train was shunting back and forth.
 
The same train was also blocking Hespeler Road, the only other useful detour, a three-kilometer drive away.
 
The train crew noticed the ambulance before railway police radioed the engineer to get out of the way. Railway officials said there was nothing unusual about taking upwards of eight minutes to clear a long train from a crossing.
 
The boy remained in critical condition in a Hamilton hospital on Wednesday.
 
Prno doubts the train delay caused any medical complications, because rescuers restarted the boy's breathing and heartbeat before heading to hospital. But it was a close call.
 
"This case could have been the total opposite... we could have had a terrible outcome from the delay," he said.
 
That's why he and Waterloo Region roads officials are looking at installing webcams on stoplight poles at major road-railway crossings, giving emergency dispatchers advance warning of roadblocks.
 
"Anywhere that you're sort of limited in crossings and it's a main route, we'd certainly be interested."
 
It wouldn't be much different than provincial traffic cameras giving motorists an online peek at road conditions on major highways in the Toronto-Hamilton area.
 
Prno has had contact with railway officials to arrange a meeting, but no date has been set. Railway officials say they're open to talk about their operations in Cambridge.
 
A solution can't come too soon for Bruce Cornfield, who lives in Preston and has endured seven years of trains blocking streets near his home and in Galt where he works.
 
"If the train is too long, I just pull over and sit in the shade of a tree and wait," he said.
 
"That amount of time is forever when you are trying to get to a store, but for an ambulance, it could mean life or death for the individual. CP needs to rethink their priorities and put the life of the people first."
 
Kevin Swayze.