ATLANTA — A welfare check-turned-SWAT situation in Atlanta is now raising another issue: ambulance response times.
Police were called to a home where a woman was stabbed to death and a man had barricaded himself inside along North Avenue in northwest Atlanta. Officers originally called the incident a hostage situation, learning the woman was killed after they were able to get into the home.
Firefighters told dispatch shots were fired and they needed medical support. Radio traffic shows that despite calling for an ambulance four times, one didn't arrive at the scene until more than an hour later.
The recording alarmed public safety expert, Dr. Alex Del Carmen.
"We have to have the presence of medical services -- what may actually save somebody's life is that split of a second that that ambulance responder can show up," he said.
Del Carmen says the firefighters shouldn't have had to ask repeatedly to get support.
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"It is poor planning. It is simply just giving an about-face to law enforcement and to firefighters to not give them the medical care that they require when they're doing something to save the lives of other people," he said.
In a statement, Grady Memorial Hospital told 11Alive:
"Atlanta Fire requested a Grady EMS unit to be on standby for this hostage situation with no known injuries. Grady EMS was then in touch with APD SWAT, who agreed to notify Grady EMS once the SWAT team was ready to make entry. A Grady unit and Grady EMS leadership responded immediately as SWAT made entry and coordinated the response from that point.
Grady does not respond to active shooting scenes with no known patients, as that is a police matter."
But Del Carmen said that could have been too late.
"At stake is somebody's life, especially those that have the ability of a job to save somebody else," he said.
The Atlanta SWAT Team eventually had to break down the door to take the suspect into custody.
No first responders were hurt.
Curtis Lilly, 70, is accused of murdering the woman he allegedly took hostage.