PITTSBURGH, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Pittsburgh officials have apologized to the longtime girlfriend of a man who died after waiting 30 hours and making 10 calls for an ambulance.
Curtis Mitchell, 50, made his first call on Feb. 6, when the city was buried under snow, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Ambulances were unable to get to his home, on a narrow street, and Mitchell said he was in too much pain to walk a few blocks.
"I sat up here with him, watching him die," Sharon Edge said Tuesday. "They didn't do their jobs like they were supposed to."
It was a sobbing Edge who made the last call on Sunday, Feb. 7.
Officials point to a number of problems, including the snow and a high number of calls during the storm. But they say that is no excuse.
"We should have gotten there," said Public Safety Director Michael Huss.
Ron Roth, medical director for the Public Safety Department, said information from earlier calls was not passed on so each one was treated individually. At one point, a doctor canceled an ambulance, believing Mitchell had simply gone to sleep, when Edge told him she could not rouse her boyfriend after he took sleeping pills and pain medication.
