First responders defend response to woman's hypothermia death at Milwaukee bus stop

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- After a woman died of probable hypothermia at a Milwaukee bus stop, first responders are explaining what happened and are defending the way they handled her call for help. 

When 49-year-old Jolene Waldref fell at 76th and Congress on Jan. 15, she called 911, hoping someone would help her, but she lay on the ground in cold temperatures until she was pronounced dead almost an hour later. 

Waldref was waiting to catch the bus when she took a tumble. 

She called the dispatch center at 5:23 p.m., and Curtis Ambulance arrived a few minutes later but said they could not find Waldref. 

They claim they checked the four bus stops in the area with no luck. 

"They were driving around. We have them GPS-tracked, doing a couple of loops around the intersection trying to find somebody, anybody standing up that would flag me down. Something like that. Then they did the second most important part, which was to let our dispatch center know and attempt to call the 911 caller back," Curtis Ambulance Vice President of Operations Dan Robakowski said. "Our best guess is that the crew was unable to see anybody that was in that sidewalk or fence area."

After dispatch tried calling Waldref two times with no answer, they left. 

It was not until 22 minutes after Waldref's call that two bystanders called 911. The Milwaukee Fire Department was then dispatched. 

MFD found Waldref on the ground between two snowbanks and a trash can, and after life-saving efforts failed, Waldref was pronounced dead.

Curtis Ambulance defended its response, saying paramedics did not get out of their vehicle to look for Waldref because it was not protocol, so they only drove around the area.

"They would’ve had to get out of their car and would've had to check each of the four bus stops. When you've got pretty good visibility, you should see the patient. In this case, the patient was down, behind objects. They didn't see the patient. You can't check behind every snowbank," Curtis Ambulance CEO James Baker said.

There will be no disciplinary action taken on the two Curtis employees as the CEO says the system worked as intended. 

"The first ambulance, which was for a low-priority call, was there within four minutes when the patient is not there, and you've looked as best as you can see this is bad lighting condition. You have to understand that false alarms are a common thing in the EMS system, particularly at bus stops," Baker said.

"We felt that they did their due diligence. Nobody feels good about this. We've looked at the situation, we feel our people acted appropriately, and the EMS system worked as designed."