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Paramedics use child's snow sled to rescue Hampden heart attack victim

February 8, 2010 at 1:21 pm 10

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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

  • http://anteropietila.com Antero Pietila

    Great stuff, Sean!

    • Editor

      Thanks, Antero…….We hope to followup if we can. Meanwhile, did they ever plow YOUR street?

  • J. Rice

    Most of the side streets in Hampden will never be cleared. Baltimore is notorious for leaving every man for themselves in the snow. Earlier a friend posted a shot on Facebook of everyone who lives on her street in Hampden digging out the street. They know the plow is never coming. You can complain all you want, it’s been this way for the 17 years I’ve been in town.

  • debbie feldman jones

    Same thing in Lake-Evesham. A call went out on the listserve for neighbors to shove the street in front of their houses.

    I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, in light of the economic crisis faced by the city and the state. There are many years when there is hardly a single significant snowfall. There’s a really big storm once every decade or so. Is the cost of having double or triple the snow removal equipment and supplies worth it? Especially because there is no way to really clear every street and alley. Many are so narrow that a plow can’t go through. And when the plow does go through a residential street in neighborhoods without off-street parking (that is, most of the city), it just piles the snow up against the cars. Where are residents supposed to put that snow when they shovel out the cars? Can’t put it in the street. The sidewalks are supposed to be shoveled.

    It’s a logistics nightmare.

  • Joan Jacobson

    I walked Monday for two hours between Lauraville and Hamilton on all side streets for a few miles. The only evidence of plowing was a rare half-block that might have been privately plowed. Otherwise, I found two streets cleared by hand with many neighbors pitching in to shovel. Most streets were impassible and some were still two feet high and untouched by even foot traffic. One fellow had spent the day shoveling out half his street, then scouting the best exit to Harford Road so he could catch a plane. Haven’t seen those backhoes the city promised yet.

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