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'Someone is going to die': N.S. fire chief calls for better communication among emergency agencies

Related Topics: Emergency Health Services

The chief of a rural Nova Scotia fire department is sounding the alarm over what he calls poor communication between agencies during an emergency, saying it could cost someone's life.

Chris Wolfe, chief of the North Queens Fire Association in Caledonia, N.S., took to social media last week to warn residents that his department was not being notified of emergencies in its coverage area while some people waited hours for ambulances to arrive.

"Someone is going to die because of poor communication and structure within our health-care system," Wolfe said in a Facebook post Sunday.

The province's ambulance provider, Emergency Health Services (EHS), has a program called Medical First Responders, which allows eligible first responders like firefighters to provide care to someone who is injured or in distress.