Rescuers used an inflatable toy sled to transport heart attack victim on snow-clogged Baltimore street. (Photo by Sean Bowie)
by FERN SHEN, photos by SEAN BOWIE
One dire consequence of Baltimore’s snow-smothered streets was apparent on Saturday, when rescuers couldn’t reach a Hampden man who’d had an apparent heart-attack while shoveling snow. They had to drag him out of his neighborhood on a child’s inflatable sled because Ash Street, where he lived, is unplowed.
Baltimore photographer Sean Bowie happened upon the scene at about 3:30 pm. Later Saturday, at about sundown, he encountered a city snow-plow on Auchenteroly Terrace near Druid Hill Park that had been sitting idle for, as best he could tell, nearly 18 hours waiting for two flats tires to be repaired.
“I couldn’t help wondering about the connections, on some level, between these two things I had just seen,” Bowie said, in a telephone interview today.
Bowie said the man, “John,” whose last name he didn’t get, seemed to be conscious after paramedics pulled him along snowy Ash Street and loaded him into the ambulance. He said the man’s wife, “Kitty,” told him her husband had been shoveling snow when he was stricken.
((UPDATE: His name was actually Peter Dwyer and he was treated and recovered. Story and photos here.))
Paramedics across the city were facing similar problems throughout the storm and into today, as many streets remained unplowed.
As for the long-disabled snowplow, Bowie said in an email “I spoke with Rob Wilson, operations manager with Admiral Tire Commercial, who said the reason for the wait was due to the contracted tire replacement companies not having the ability or the desire to come out in such weather.”
Bowie said Anderson told him “that his outfit was not as prepared either (lacking snow chains).”
“I found this to be very interesting,” Bowie wroite. “But, I suppose the budget for snow removal having been eaten by the December storm, it shouldn’t surprise me that it would take this long.”
Rescuers had to leave their ambulance on Union Street and wade through two-foot deep snow on Ash Street to answer the call. (Photo by Sean Bowie)
(Photo by Sean Bowie)
(Photo by Sean Bowie)
City workers trying to get snowplow-with-flat-tires fixed and back on the road. (Photo by Sean Bowie)
- Photos by Sean Bowie, who can be reached at seanmichaelphoto@gmail.com
