Thread: Heart patient stopped at U.S. border

Heart patient stopped at U.S. border
Officials slam customs agents for sending ambulance to secondary inspection
By Dave Battagello, Windsor Star
Published: Friday, November 16, 2007
U.S. Customs has sparked an outcry after a Windsor ambulance rushing a critically ill heart attack victim to a Detroit hospital was stopped by border guards.

CAW executive member Rick Laporte, 49, had already been revived twice and was being sped to Henry Ford Hospital when a U.S. border guard ignored protocol at the tunnel and forced the ambulance with sirens and flashing lights to pull over.

"If I'm that person in the booth and there is an ambulance coming with a critically injured person, I'm not stopping the damn thing," said Kat Lauzon, Laporte's girlfriend.


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Kat Lauzon can't believe how her friend Rick Laporte was treated at the U.S. border after suffering a massive heart attack
Star photo: Nick Brancaccio

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Font:****"I'm irate. I can't figure it out. I want their rationalization behind this. He could have died and I would have blamed that person for murder."

Larry Amlin, supervisor of special operations and investigations for Windsor Essex EMS, said the ambulance driver was told by U.S. Customs officers at secondary inspection to get out and go inside the office to produce identification.

Other border guards requested the paramedic crew open the back doors of the ambulance and asked Laporte to verbally confirm his identify despite his condition, according to Lauzon.

Laporte later underwent emergency angioplasty surgery at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, where he was in serious condition in the cardiac care unit Friday.

The union official had to be brought back to life twice with defibrillators at Windsor Regional Hospital before he was sent to Detroit.

Lauzon said the incident needlessly put her boyfriend at risk.

"This was not normal circumstances. How many drug dealers do you know that get a police escort in the back of an ambulance to go across the border? What is their damn reason for pulling it in?"

Chief Ron Smith of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Detroit could not be reached Friday despite several attempts.

Amlin said the ambulance received a police escort through Windsor to the tunnel entrance, with several intersections blocked off to speed the trip.

Tunnel traffic was shut down and after the ambulance arrived at the border crossing it was led by a tunnel company pickup truck with flashing lights to a designated U.S. Customs lane, where it was supposed to be waved through.

"We have a system set up. We are to be precleared and no problems," Amlin said. "I don't know what happened Monday. There shouldn't be any hold up. When we use sirens it's for a reason - to get them over quickly to provide treatment.

"If they've got a problem, follow us and we will do what they need at the hospital. The point is to get the patient over."

Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj said the nurse who accompanied Laporte told him the ambulance driver was inside the customs inspection office for about three minutes.

"Our senior administration is investigating this particular case," Musyj said. "We will be meeting with U.S. Customs to find out why they were pulled them over."

Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D - Miss.) of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security in Washington, reacted angrily Friday when told of the Detroit border incident.

It follows a similar incident last weekend when a Quebec fire truck responding to an emergency request for assistance in upstate New York was delayed at the U.S. border despite having lights and sirens activated.

"This is the second time that emergency personnel responding to life- threatening situations have been stopped on our northern border," Thompson said. "Current policies and procedures must be immediately reviewed to ensure that first responders on both sides of the border can continue to save lives."

The chairman plans to issue a letter Monday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection asking for full explanation of the Detroit and New York incidents.

Canada's Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day also expressed concern Friday, noting in a statement that Canada and the U.S. "have a long-standing tradition of helping one another in times of emergency."

Mayor Eddie Francis said the incident reinforces the need to have written agreements "that are well-defined and well understood" by both Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection "so everybody from the front line to the back of the house knows what is expected."

"When there is an emergency like this, there is no border. Minutes can mean a lot, seconds are vital - that's why written arrangements need to be in place."

Lauzon said Laporte's troubles began early Monday morning when he started complaining of pain in the right arm and sholder. It became so bad that by 6 a.m. she drove him to emergency at Windsor Regional.

Just as medical staff was hooking him up to an EKG, Laporte suffered a massive heart attack. Lauzon said medical staff told her later that they twice had to use defibrillators to bring him back to life.

Hospital tests showed one of Laporte's ventricals was almost fully blocked and that he needed emergency angioplasty.

Windsor Regional Hospital is not equipped to do the emergency procedure.

Lauzon said hospital staff told her that London was too far away and that Laporte had to be rushed by ambulance to Detroit.
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story ... 5f&k=82041

The hospitals should have a private phone number to the border stations so they can call ahead and inform them who is coming through and why.
This would also allow the border agents time to get a lane open for them.