By Leah Murray

Delivery drivers, cabs and first responders struggle to find a local apartment

Mar 9, 2017 | 3:41 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — A Medicine Hat woman says she wants the city to take action after paramedics struggled to find her home during a medical emergency.

Lynn Holman has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The disease affects her lungs, requires many inhalers and medications to manage, and when she has an attack, it can make it almost impossible to breath.

On March 1, Lynn Holman says she started coughing and couldn’t catch her breath.

She texted her neighbour to call 911 because she couldn’t speak.

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“I was coughing so much that my whole body hurt, and I was trying to catch my breath and I could not move,” said Holman

A 911 operator called Holman’s cell phone to wait with her for the paramedic’s arrival.

Holman said EMS responded quickly but they struggled to find her apartment.

“You know I was trying to breath, trying to talk, to let them know they’ve gone by me a couple of times,” she said.

Holman currently lives in a city-owned housing building on Southlands Boulevard SE.

The building behind hers is almost identical and they share a parking lot.All the units are numbered the same, so she says people get confused and don’t realize her apartment is the one out front that faces the street.

“I always explain: ‘I face the street,I have flowers out front,’ and they always go to the back,” she said.

She has the same problem every time she orders food, calls a cab, or has had to call emergency services.

Holman made a complaint to the city last year about the issue and they put plaques up on the complexes with the building numbers, but she said it doesn’t seem to have solved the problem.

No one from the city was available for an interview but officials did say they are looking into the matter with the dispatch centre and the Community Housing Society.

In a statement to CHAT News, Alberta Health Services said this isn’t a problem that happens often for EMS and they have reported the issue to be updated in their mapping system.

“Alberta Health Services dispatch services uses advanced GPS mapping technology to ensure EMS crews respond to emergencies as quickly and safely as possible,” the statement reads.

“Rarely, a location will be identified that is not clearly mapped in software. When that happens, EMS has many strategies to quickly locate the patient, including calling the original caller back for more precise directions (often using local landmarks for reference), and identifying the caller’s phone location through the phone provider. Crews also report the issue and our maps are updated accordingly.”

Holman said she just wants to see something done to fix the problem because she’s scared it could happen again to her, or one of her neighbours.

“When you need an ambulance and you need the police and it’s dire, you need them,” she said. “They’re great, but not if they can’t find you.”