COLUMBUS, Ohio — According to reports, it took paramedics 15 minutes to get to Andre’ Hill who was on the ground dying outside a garage on Oberlin Drive on Dec. 22.
Talking with Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Steve Martin, the first call received from Columbus police for a medic was at 1:57 a.m., six minutes after police records say Hill had been shot by Columbus Police Officer Adam Coy.
Martin says the first EMS unit was marked as en-route two minutes later.
Martin says this timeline, from 'call received' to 'dispatched unit,' is typical.
“We would like to see it a little bit less than that, but it’s not out of the ordinary, no,” Chief Martin said.
A second medic was also en-route to Oberlin Drive at 1:59 a.m., Martin says.
It was that medic, Unit 72 from Upper Arlington, that was first on the scene, which was a nine-minute response just after 2:06 a.m. This was 15 minutes after Hill had been shot.
Martin says a response time of nine minutes and 30 seconds is an average run time for that area.
“It’s why we’re here,” Martin said. “It’s our whole mission is to serve our community and we want to serve them efficiently and we try everything we can to make sure we prevent things from happening.”
Unit 13, which was dispatched first, arrived two minutes later. Martin says the reason for this might be because the GPS distance for this unit was 4.9 miles away.
Martin says this area of Oberlin Drive is a mutual aid area meaning dispatch will always go with the closest medical vehicle to respond.
Aside from the shooting, which Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan said violated police policy and led to Officer Coy’s termination, Quinlan is also calling out Coy for not helping Hill.
An incident report signed by Quinlin states: "there was a protracted delay for the medic to arrive and no officers at [the] scene administered first aid or provided reassurance to Mr. Hill until several minutes later.”
Body camera footage released by Columbus police does not show Coy or any other officer at the scene attempting to give Hill aid while he was on the ground dying.
Hill was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m., which was 15 minutes after medics arrived and 34 minutes after being shot.
Martin says right now it’s premature to discuss this case and how it was handled saying investigators are still discovering new details.
An order from the Internal Affairs Unit with the Columbus Police Department Investigations, he says, has been asked to investigate response times.
The main message Chief Martin wants to get out is that he and his team are concerned with response times for every emergency call to be able to provide the best EMS care possible.
Now that this has been brought to his attention, matters will be looked into and, rest assured, if anything needs to be fixed Martin says those adjustments will be made.
“We take this very seriously and we want to look into it and find out whatever we can do to improve,” Chief Martin said. “We’re going to be working to make those improvements.”
