While an injured, elderly lady laid waiting for help, a District of Columbia ambulance crew reportedly drove past her house.
They didn't miss it. They headed to a firehouse, and demanded another crew handle the call, according to WTTG.
D.C. Fire and EMS officials say they're investigating the latest incident involving an ambulance crew.
Sources say switching out those two ambulances caused a 15 minute delay in getting the 93-year-old woman with a head injury to the hospital.
She survived and is now recovering at home after a five-day hospital stay, the station reported.
"We dispatch our closest unit to the emergency," Assistant Chief For Operations Timothy Gerhart told reporters.
"Ambulance 6 was dispatched, and currently we're looking into why Ambulance 29 was consequently dispatched to the emergency," Gerhart said.
For ambulances to switch assignments like that, EMS officials say the Office of Unified Communications would need to be notified, as well as records updated, among other things. All of that adds to the response time, the station reported.
The EMS service in the nation's capital has come under continued scrutiny since the death of New York Times Editor David Rosenbaum.
He was injured in a robbery, but the EMS crew misdiagnosed him, and transported him to the hospital as a low priority patient. He died two days later.
A suit stemming from his death called for sweeping changes in the way patients are handled in D.C. D.C.
"We expect our emergency vehicles to get on the scene as quickly as possible when they're dispatched to a response, and that's why we're investigating it very actively and we will take appropriate action," Gerhart told reporters.
It is also too early to say if the delayed response has hampered the 93-year-old woman's recovery.
