Danielle Smith Alberta health services An Edmonton doctor mourning the death of his wife is sounding the alarm over ambulance response times. Dr. Guy Blais says his wife Elaine waited nearly 90 minutes for an ambulance, only to die upon arrival at hospital. As Joel Gotlib explains, Blais believes the delay contributed to her death — something he wants to prevent from happening to other Albertans. Edmonton family doctor Dr. Guy Blais is grieving the unexpected loss of his wife Elaine Warren-Blais — a death he and his family believes could have been prevented. “In medicine, we have this thing about the ‘golden hour’ — that if you get somebody treated within the hour, they’re more likely to survive,” Blais said. But on a Friday morning six weeks ago, Blais said that critical time between life and death came and went — during which his 65-year-old wife’s condition deteriorated. “(From) the time of the first 911 phone call to the time (help) arrived was about an hour and 24 minutes,” Blais said. “So the EMTs were working against time when they came to get her.” In the early morning hours of July 24, Elaine got out of bed and collapsed. Story continues below advertisement “She fainted and hit her head. I then tried to get her up, and she fainted again,” Blais said. Elaine became cold, clammy and short of breath. Being a doctor, Blais knew she needed to get to the hospital immediately. Blais said he called 911 at 4:52 a.m. and dispatch took his information, but wasn’t able to say when an ambulance would arrive Elaine’s condition declined. She wasn’t able to stand or walk and Blais, being unable to get her to a vehicle on his own, said he called 911 again about 40 minutes later. “I basically said the same thing that I said before — that we need an ambulance right away, she wasn’t getting better. They told me they would take the information. While they’re assessing her, she lost consciousness again and had a cardiac arrest in our front room,” Blais said, adding EMS asked for more help to be sent to the home in the Riverbend area. Several other EMS units quickly arrived to assist with performing CPR, starting an IV and getting Elaine loaded into the ambulance and off to the University of Alberta Hospital. She coded again on the way to hospital. “They did the cardiac resuscitation, shocked her twice and so on but they couldn’t get her heartbeat back in normal rhythm,” Blais said, explaining she was declared dead shortly after arriving at the U of A Hospital. #fyp #foryou - @cowtowncoyote