Seattle 13-yr-old watches father die as police funding cuts delay emergency response

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Staff shortages in Seattle, partly due to the city’s first-aid vaccine mandate, resulted in a 13-year-old boy watching his father die after a medical emergency.

Last week the 13-year-old called 911 to report that his father had a medical emergency, but when the Seattle Fire arrived, they were told to wait for the police to enter and the Seattle police force took 15 minutes to arrive, delaying medics who were unable to save the father, according to MyNorthwest.com.

Seattle, Washington (iStock)

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The police station reportedly insisted on two officers and relied on volunteers who did not patrol to meet the minimum staffing requirements.

Two veteran paramedics told radio host Jason Rantz that death would likely be avoidable if rescue workers had been on the scene faster, and one paramedic said, “Had it been tackled early, his chance of survival would have been 60%.”

In addition, the warning notice instructing first responders to wait for the police as the location posed a threat to them was out of date and assigned to a previous tenant.

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Lurie Children’s Hospital nurse Carolyn Ruyle prepares a dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago on Friday, November 5, 2021. Health officials hailed shots for children ages 5-11 as a major breakthrough after more than 18 months of illness, hospitalizations, deaths and interrupted education. (AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh)

“Unfortunately, during the last emergency response, we learned that the warning was for a previous tenant,” a Seattle Fire spokesman wrote via email to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “We are carefully reviewing this incident from many angles in our department (operations, shipping, etc.) and in our premise notes policy.”

Seattle has seen severe police staffing shortages since the George Floyd riots in 2020, and the North Precinct where the teen lived is the slowest district to respond to emergency calls. An August 2021 report shows that the average response time for ongoing emergencies in the second quarter of this year was nearly 13 minutes and the average response time for “Priority 2” calls was 61 minutes.

SEATTLE, WA – JANUARY 22: Police overlook the scene of a gunfight on 3rd Avenue and Pine Street on January 22, 2020 in the central business district of Seattle, Washington. Police say one woman was killed and seven people injured, including a 9-year-old boy, by “several” shooters but did not want to elaborate. (Photo by Karen Ducey / Getty Imag
(Photo by Karen Ducey / Getty Images)

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Seattle’s first-aid vaccination mandate has exacerbated staffing problems, which took 100 officers off the streets in October and left the police force with fewer than 1,000 officers ready.

“One call could destroy an entire turf and wipe us out completely,” an official on the Jason Rantz Show said on KTTH.

In the 2022 budget, the Seattle City Council proposed cutting the police budget by $ 11 million, which includes a cut in hiring incentives.

The Seattle Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.