Seattle Man Dies After Medics Delay Response Based on Police "Blacklist"

 

According to an article in today's [October 2, 2023) Seattle Times, the city of Seattle has paid 1.8 million dollars after medics failed to respond to a 911 call about a man having a heart attack. While the medics arrived on scene in time to have saved (or at least provided life-saving treatment) to the patient, "medics waited 13 minutes for law enforcement due to an address "blacklist" while William Yurek was dying from a heart attack".

William Yurek, 48, died in his Crown Hill townhouse two years ago, after his son called 911. Seattle Fire Department medics waited 13 minutes to enter his home and provide treatment because Yurek was wrongly included on a "blacklist" of people who were reportedly hostile to police and fire crews, the family alleged.

Yurek lived in the complex for a decade but had moved into a different unit a couple of years before his death. The previous tenant of the unit was on the outdated list.

Medics were instructed to wait for a law enforcement escort, according to the lawsuit filed last year. As Yurek's condition worsened, his then 13-year-old son called 911 a second time and was told help was on the way, even though medics were already outside at the time, the complaint said. The dispatcher allegedly didn't tell the boy to begin chest compressions.

Medics decided to enter the home without a police escort after the second call. Despite their treatment, Yurek died in front of his son. 

* It’s not the first time the city has settled a case related to Yurek’s death. In August, Seattle agreed to pay $162,500 to settle a lawsuit by a former 911 call center manager who said he was wrongly punished for speaking up about problems at work, including the dispatch practice of the “blacklist.”

* According the zine "Somebody's Watching You Government Spying In The Pacific Northwest" - available in our Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/somebodys-watching-you-government-spying-in-the-pacific-northwest-2023) - the Joint Base Lewis-McChord DES Protection Division maintains similar "blacklists", and shares information from these lists with their "law enforcement partners" through Washington, Oregon, and California.

While scene safety is paramount for any medic, that determination must be made by the medics on scene at the time, and not be based on some "blacklist" maintained by police and military agencies - that as we saw in the death of Mr. Yurek - may not be accurate, up-to-date, or may even contain politically motivated reports lacking any basis in fact.

The Seattle Times article is republished on EMS1 (https://www.ems1.com/lawsuit/articles/seattle-pays-18m-to-settle-medics-delay-patient-death-lawsuit-23vYalZWAw85sDxQ/).