I-Team: Questions after Apex EMS call
APEX, N.C. (WTVD) -- Lucinda and Ervin Ward were together for nearly 30 years.
"My husband, he was my best friend. He was my confidant," the Apex senior said.
But, in February of last year, Lucinda's life took an unexpected turn.
"I remember me and my husband being in the car going to dialysis, and I reached across him to his door, and he kind of slumped over on me. I knew something was wrong immediately, so I immediately called 911, she recalled.
She made that call at 7:02 a.m.
The Apex fire and EMS station is about a mile from Lucinda's house. They were dispatched at 7:03 a.m.
Firefighters arrived first, seven minutes after Lucinda called for help.
"There was three people in the fire truck. Only one got out. Two sat in the truck and they only checked his pulse, she recounted. "They waited and he just sat in the car. My husband just sat in the car five minutes without any medical attention."
A report says the firefighters checked his blood sugar and pulse and gave him oxygen.
Paramedics then arrived at 7:14 a.m. That was 12 minutes after Lucinda called 911.
"That was very disappointing, knowing that he was unconscious in the car, and they didn't respond quicker and they could have," she said.
After paramedics checked her husband's vital signs, his blood pressure and blood sugar, they left for the hospital at 7:27 a.m.
It was 13 minutes after they arrived at the house and 25 minutes after Lucinda called 911.
But shortly after they left, Ervin Ward went into cardiac arrest.
Paramedics stopped at a busy intersection and called for an advanced practice paramedic to help revive him.
After more than 30 minutes, they restored his pulse and changed their destination to Rex Hospital which the paramedics felt is better equipped for cardiac care.
The stop on the side of the road lasted 36 minutes.
They finally arrived at the hospital at 8:30 - nearly 90 minutes after Lucinda called 911.
"They said 'your husband's blood pressure dropped low and it dropped so low that he went into cardiac arrest and that prevented oxygen from going to his brain' and resulted in a brain injury from a low blood pressure," she recollected.
Ervin died nine days later at the age of 54.
His wife was angry and wanted to find out why it took so long for her husband to get to the hospital.
So, she filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates EMS in North Carolina.
The I-Team obtained internal emails showing DHHS opened an investigation after it received Lucinda's complaint.
Officials spoke to the EMS team to find out if there was an improper delay in responding to the call for help.
The paramedics said they simply could "not recall" anything unusual about the initial response.
"EMS is an essential part of our community and we put a lot of trust in them, but I think they may have turned a blind eye. They are not being fully open of what happened," said Lucinda.
After reviewing the incident for several weeks, DHHS sent a letter to Lucinda. It says investigators found "no violations of EMS rules" in her husband's case.
Lucinda Ward now is thinking of suing the town of Apex hoping that will reveal more answers and prevent other families from having to endure nagging questions about a delay in lifesaving medical care.
"I definitely don't want it to happen to anyone else not when someone is fighting for their life when it's somebody's husband. It's somebody's' father. It's somebody's brother," she said sadly.
Neither Apex town officials nor the Department of Health and Human Services would comment for this story.
