Skydiver killed in Gimli accident waited 'significantly longer' for ambulance than normal: Shared Health

An ambulance didn't arrive until 36 minutes after a fatal skydiving accident was reported in Gimli over the weekend, a spokesperson for Manitoba Shared Health said in an email Tuesday.

Jean du Toit, an experienced 53-year-old skydiver, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident Saturday night.

People on the scene at the Gimli Industrial Park called for an ambulance at 7:11 p.m., and an ambulance was dispatched about two minutes later. However, the nearest available ambulance at that time travelled from an area northeast of Selkirk and arrived at the scene at 7:47 p.m., Shared Health said.

The provincial health organization acknowledged the response time was "significantly longer" than its operational targets.

At the time of the 911 call, an ambulance from the Gimli area was in Eriksdale, about an hour's drive away, while a second ambulance based in the Gimli area was out of service, the spokesperson said.

Emergency resources were strategically positioned throughout the Interlake using a "flexible deployment approach," but coverage over the weekend was stretched thin due in part to a high number of staff sick calls, Shared Health said.

Efforts to call in casual staff to fill in weren't successful.

In a news release Monday, RCMP said they were called around 7:25 p.m. When officers arrived, they found an unresponsive woman on the ground receiving medical attention from others at the scene. An RCMP officer began to assist and paramedics arrived "within minutes," police said Monday.

Bob Moroz, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents 6,500 Manitoba health-care workers, said in a statement on Monday that rural ambulances are currently understaffed by 20 to 25 per cent.

"Our hearts are with the family and loved ones affected by this tragic event," Moroz said in the statement. 

The union "is renewing our call to Shared Health, the minister of health, and the premier to address the worsening staffing shortages now."

Shared Health says recruitment efforts to fill emergency response service vacancies, which have increased over the course of the pandemic, remain a priority across the province.

The organization says a centralized recruitment team has been established to bring on emergency response service personnel, including paramedics.

Two recruitment co-ordinators were recently hired to help with that work.

Shared Health says it's moving toward a 24/7 paramedic staffing model to reduce the system's dependence on overtime or on-call scheduling, and to improve patient care.

It's also working to increase educational capacity for high-demand professions within emergency response services, the Shared Health spokesperson said.