Ban on police escorts surprises drivers

[Note: this story has been modified since its original posting.]

Forget what you’ve seen on TV: If you stomp on the gas pedal to rush a loved one to the hospital, you won’t get a police escort. And you might just get a ticket.

Two recent incidents in Columbia have highlighted a gap between public perception and police policy on escorts in medical emergencies. In both incidents, the people involved say they were surprised and angered by the Columbia Police Department’s policy that prohibits emergency escorts.

Mary Wilson, 62, and her husband, Don Wilson, 64, learned about that policy the hard way two Sundays ago when he started to feel as if he was having a heart attack.

“I asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘I don’t know,’” Mary Wilson said. “I told him we were going to the hospital.”

The Wilsons live outside Columbia on North Brown Station Road off Route B. Less than a year ago, Don Wilson found their son, who lives down the road from them, on the floor of his home in severe back pain and called an ambulance. Don Wilson saw the ambulance drive by several times without stopping. Finally, he ran outside to flag it down.

That’s why Mary Wilson decided it would be quicker to drive her husband to Boone County Hospital. She admits she was speeding when she saw a Columbia police car coming toward her on Route B, make a U-turn and speed up to catch her.

She was relieved, thinking the police would provide an escort. But the officer turned on his lights and pulled her over.

Mary Wilson pulled over and waited “what felt like forever” and then jumped out of her car, anxious to tell the policeman that her husband was having a heart attack. Columbia police Officer James Blaska ordered Mary Wilson to get back in her car — normal police procedure in a traffic stop — and then came to the driver’s side window.

As soon as Blaska learned that Don Wilson was having a heart attack, he called the Columbia Fire Department and an ambulance.

Mary Wilson said she told Blaska it would take too long to wait for an ambulance. She estimates that they were five minutes from the hospital where they were stopped. He explained that police policy prohibited him from providing an escort. At some point during the wait, he issued her a warning ticket for driving 19 mph over the 55 mph speed limit,

When Columbia Fire EMTs arrived six minutes and 35 seconds after the Wilsons were stopped by the police, according to police records, Don Wilson refused treatment, saying he “felt more comfortable” being treated at the hospital.

The Wilsons were outraged by the hold-up.

“It just would’ve been a whole lot nicer if he turned on his lights and said, ‘Follow me,’” Don Wilson said. “I always assumed they would do that.”

The Wilsons drove off at 1:24 p.m., three minutes after the fire truck arrived. The ambulance didn’t arrive until about two minutes after they left, according to Columbia police records.

Blaska followed a Columbia police policy that is by no means new. For about 20 years, Columbia police Capt. Zim Schwartze said, escorts have been the exception to the rule.

“General orders says we can provide escorts under emergency conditions, but usually they can’t be granted; I can’t even think of what situation would be severe enough,” she said. “Members of the fire department are trained as first-responders to help and assist in situations more quickly than we are.”

Schwartze said that if a police officer does provide an escort, he or she must follow strict guidelines. Officers can’t drive more than 10 mph over the speed limit and they have to stop at lights, signs and intersections.

“But it’s just quicker by ambulance and safer to get the medics dispatched to the scene,” Schwartze said.

Last Friday, the situation began about 1:30 p.m. at Red Lobster restaurant on I-70 Drive. Earl McPike and Paulette Brown, an engaged couple from Bowling Green were eating a shrimp appetizer when McPike felt a bump on his lip. He’d never had an allergic reaction to shrimp before, but within seconds his face was so swollen, he couldn’t open his eyes. Then he began to have trouble breathing.

As they headed out the door, they bumped into a Columbia police officer and asked him to escort them to the nearest drug store. With his siren and lights on, he drove the speed limit as the couple followed him to D&H Prescription Drug Store on Broadway. After getting one look at Earl McPike, a pharmacist gave the couple an over-the-counter antihistamine and told them to go directly to the hospital.

“The policeman made the call for an ambulance at the drugstore, but the man working there said we had no time for that,” Brown said. “They said he could’ve died if we didn’t get there when wedid.”

The doctor who treated McPike said there was a strong chance he would have died if he had arrived three to five minutes later.

The officer, whose name the couple didn’t get, again escorted them toward University Hospital with lights and siren on. At some point along the way, Brown said, the officer pulled over and told them his supervisor had informed him it was against police policy to provide escorts. The officer turned off his lights and siren until they came to red lights, which he guided them through to University Hospital.

McPike spent the night in the hospital, recovering from the reaction.

Brown is still angry about the police policy.

“There should not be a policy against escorts,” she said. “In our situation, the traffic was way too heavy to get through and we needed one. I was angry when I found out they couldn’t do that.”

Capt. Steve Monticelli said he did not know the details of the incident and would not disclose the name of the officer involved. But he confirmed that a police sergeant did order the officer not to provide an escort. He added that the sergeant planned to speak to the officer today about the incident.

Providing emergency escorts to passengers of unmarked vehicles creates more risks than benefits in medical emergencies, Chief Randy Boehm said. One problem, he said, is that usually drivers lack the training to drive at excessive speeds, so they pose a risk to themselves and other drivers. And while other drivers may yield to police sirens and lights, they may not yield to an unmarked car.

Boehm said he sympathizes with people in emergency situations. “We know it’s urgent and you’re trying to get help to your loved one, but it’s just not safe driving great speeds over the speed limit,” he said.

Don Wilson is recovering nicely from what did turn out to be a heart attack. He and Mary Wilson just want Columbia police to make the policy known. They say people they’ve talked to about the incident “had no idea (police) wouldn’t escort,” she said.

“I’d really like the see the policy changed,” Don Wilson said. “But whether it’s right or wrong, they should at least publish it so the community knows what will happen in a situation like that.”