Abdo Nahmod, EMS Chief, Won't Release EMS Statistics

Call New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at : (212) 564-7757 and ask her to demand that NYC EMS Chief Abdo Nahmod publicly release ambulance response and transit times for the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Ever since Speaker Quinn approved the Rudin family's billion dollar luxury condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital, the community has feared that it would take more time for ambulances to respond to 911 emergency calls and to transport sick or dying people to the nearest hospital. We need to know what the EMS statistics are now that St. Vincent's has been closed.

St. Vincent's Trauma Exercise

A Mass Civilian Trauma Exercise was held outside St. Vincent’s Hospital.

One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"

As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.

Jason Mansfield #OccupyCB2

You are invited to participate in the enactment of a mass civilian trauma exercise on the sidewalk outside St. Vincent's Hospital.

Watch this YouTube documentary for background information about the controversial Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital :

Join community members as they plan to organise a field hospital on the sidewalks, form into make-shift blood donation lines, visualise what it would look like to set up alternative decontamination showers, help each other to tie on surgical masks to protect each other from air-bourne particles, and finally to think through what steps would need to be taken to request provisional mass casualty tents.

Some of the participants will ''not make it,'' because there is no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street. And it probably takes ambulances over 30 minutes to respond to the Lower West Side of Manhattan, and then it would probably take another 30 minutes for ambulances to drive through busy cross-town traffic to any of the hospitals on the East Side. The ''survivors'' will have to figure out what to do with the “injured” participants.

Then, a team of survivors will walk over to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Ave., Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's Environment, Public Safety & Public Health Committee. Community Board 2 is about to approve the rezoning of St. Vincent's to allow the billionaire Rudin Family to convert the hospital into luxury condos. Community residents hope that this civilian trauma exercise will educate and mobilise the public to stop CB2 from approving the dangerous Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.

The community's goal is to keep the real estate zoning intact, to attract new hospital investors to restore a full-service hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's.

2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer
2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2