Atlanta

City leaders to meet with Grady EMS after no ambulance responded to woman’s serious injury

ATLANTA — A woman was seriously injured after falling off a scooter. She says she then waited more than an hour for an ambulance that never showed up.

Summer Turner says she was on a scooter, riding along the beltline, when someone cut in front of her, causing her to fall off and hit her head.

She needed to go to hospital, but an ambulance never showed, so now she is speaking out ahead of a crucial meeting between city leaders and Grady EMS.

It’s taken some time.

“I was knocked unconscious for about four or five minutes,” Turner said.

She told Channel 2′s Michael Seiden that she is finally starting to feel like herself again.

“I’m finally back to working, working out and moving around like I was,” Turner said.

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It was in August when Atlanta police body camera video showed an officer responding to the Atlanta BeltLine where Turner had just regained consciousness after falling off a scooter and smacking her head on the concrete.

“She’s alert, conscious, breathing, but she is bleeding pretty profusely from it looks like the back of her head. Start the Grady fire rescue,” the responding officer said on the video.

According to the video, it took nearly 40 minutes for help to arrive. After Atlanta Fire Rescue got on the scene, there was still no sign of Grady EMS.

A spokesperson blamed it on a staffing shortage and also classified Turner’s incident as a low-priority call.

“I think it’s atrocious. People injure themselves all the time but if they can’t rely on the medical professionals to be there in a timely manner, that’s something that should really never happen,” Turner said.

Turner was eventually forced to take herself to hospital.

On Monday, city leaders are scheduled to meet with Grady EMS officials, hoping to address the staffing shortages and slow response times.

Turner told Seiden she won’t be in town, but she’s hoping city leaders use her story as an example of why it’s so crucial to make changes.

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