Oregon: Man Dies

Yards From

Emergency Room

Door

A man died early Friday in a Portland hospital’s parking garage, just 100 feet from the emergency room’s entrance, and the police said no one from the staff of Portland Adventist Medical Center helped as officers tried to revive him. 

The man, Birgilio Marin-Fuentes, 61, suffered a heart attack in his car. Mr. Marin-Fuentes had driven to the hospital, then crashed into a pillar and wall of the parking garage. Sgt. Pete Simpson, a police spokesman, said that the only medical help the officers received was from an ambulance crew after hospital staff members told an officer to call 911. Hospital officials say they dispatched security officers trained in first aid and a paramedic.

Though it was obvious that the man could have died outside the ER, the charge nurse stuck to the long-held hospital policy of requiring on-premises emergencies to be handled through 911. She did, however, send a paramedic and defibrillator with the officers, notes The Oregonian.

Thirty-five minutes after initial contact with the police, the man who could have died outside the ER, did die outside the ER. The hospital maintains that it followed protocol, notes Reuters, stating that only ambulances are equipped with the proper tools to respond to automobile crashes.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 11, 2011