BROOKHAVEN, Ga. — Claudia Colichón couldn't imagine losing her mother until she came minutes away from the unimaginable.
"My mom is everything to me," Colichón said. "She's my best friend, she's everything. She got attacked by a dog a couple of weeks ago. We went to the doctor to follow up. He's the one who operated on my mother, and he said if you would have waited 20 minutes, my mother wouldn't be here with us."
Colichón, along with several other Brookhaven residents, spoke before the Brookhaven city council Thursday night about slow ambulance response times and their impact. Like several residents, Brookhaven city officials said they're tired of waiting.
Now, they're taking matters into their own hands to make change.
Brookhaven Mayor John Park said the city is currently subject to DeKalb County's contract with American Medical Response to operate ambulances. DeKalb County signed a five-year contract with AMR that runs through the end of the year. However, the city of Brookhaven blames the deal for delayed ambulance response times.
"In order to improve ambulance service in Brookhaven, we're declaring that Brookhaven is asking the state of Georgia's Department of Public Health for our own ambulance zone," Park said. “Right now, residents in their greatest moment of need are the ones who are paying the price.”
City leaders said the AMR contract promised wait times of 12 minutes or less. Instead, city manager Christian Sigman said ambulance wait times are running closer to 20 minutes or more.
“EMS services are the bedrock of local government," Sigman said. "It’s probably the most important service they provide along with police and fire. We as a city can’t control EMS under state law. That’s a state function regulated by the department of health. They decide that DeKalb gets the sole ability to provide EMS services. DeKalb decides who they do that with, whether internal staff or contractors.”
DeKalb County said it is investing nearly $4 million to add more EMS staff and more ambulances. The county also hired a consulting company to review the current system. A spokesperson told 11Alive the county was in the process of installing a $5 million, state-of-the-art E-911 phone system.
A county spokesperson recommended that Brookhaven could look to the city of Dunwoody as an example of how to work within the county's EMS system. Dunwoody spent more than $500,000 to receive supplemental ambulance service from AMR, which reportedly improved response times by over four-and-a-half minutes.
However, Park said the city of Brookhaven had explored similar options and didn't think they fit what the city needed. He also said the city previously asked DeKalb for solutions, but he didn't think they were adequate.
"The data isn’t clear, and they only have one, and it costs a lot of money," Park said. "We feel like we could do it more efficiently and better if we took over the entire operation. If we get the opportunity, if we get the power, we’re going to put it out to bid just like DeKalb did.”
After making its petition known to the Regional EMS Advisory Council for Zoning, the council would then recommend to the state Department of Public Health Commissioner the licensed ambulance provider and method for distributing emergency calls for that zone. The DPH Commissioner would then review the recommendation and review process to confirm that all procedures were followed, the process was free from conflict of interest and meet certain criteria.
While Brookhaven seems set to operate its own ambulance service (with state approval), Colichón just wants quicker results because lives depend on it.
"I cannot believe ambulances are taking this long to get to people in a life-or-death situation," Colichón said.