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Defense Will Likely Highlight Ambulance Delay in Death of Marcelo Lucero

Posted March 18, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Hate Watch

From when dispatchers received a 911 call about the stabbing of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero, roughly 40 minutes elapsed before he arrived at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital, located three miles away. Manny Fernandez, a New York Times metro reporter now assigned to the trial of Jeffrey Conroy—who is accused of stabbing and killing Lucero as a hate crime—has the story, which references ambulance company documents obtained by The New York Times:

The 911 call came in at 11:55 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2008. Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, had been stabbed in the chest near a train station in the Long Island village of Patchogue. The nearest hospital, Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center, was three miles away. Mr. Lucero appeared to be alive when the Patchogue Ambulance Company arrived at the scene, his eyes opening upon being moved and his breathing fast and labored, according to ambulance company documents.

But when Mr. Lucero finally arrived at Brookhaven Memorial, the time was 12:34 a.m. � nearly 40 minutes had elapsed. That delay in getting Mr. Lucero to the hospital will most likely play into the defense of the young man charged with killing him.

According to Fernandez, the documents suggest several reasons why the ambulance might have taken so long to reach the hospital:

It took the Patchogue Ambulance Company 33 minutes from the time it received the call to take Mr. Lucero to the hospital.

The reasons for the delay are not entirely clear from the documents, but two things might have played a role. Mr. Lucero was taken to a helicopter landing zone, but he was never airlifted. Instead, Mr. Lucero was driven to the hospital because of his �deterioration into traumatic cardiac arrest,� according to the documents.

In addition, an emergency medical technician with the ambulance company did not appear to be fully trained. The E.M.T. wrote in part in one of the documents, �Due to company policy I am not yet authorized to perform A.L.S.,� or Advanced Life Support.

In an article that may well preview the defense’s strategy in the case, Fernandez also cites the autopsy report:

The autopsy report by the Suffolk County medical examiner�s office listed Mr. Lucero�s cause of death as a stab wound to the chest. The stab wound, roughly four inches deep, did not cut any major organs. It cut Mr. Lucero�s right axillary artery and an adjacent large vein, according to the report.

�This is the kind of wound that�s survivable if everybody acts very quickly,� said Dr. Michael M. Baden, a forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner for New York City who examined Mr. Lucero�s autopsy report at the request of The New York Times. �If he had gotten to a hospital, say, in 10 minutes or 15 minutes, usually this type of an injury is survivable when properly treated. This is something that doesn�t cause you to die immediately.�

On major piece missing from the article is what the average ambulance response time should have been in that part of Suffolk County, at that time of the night. Although it certainly appears as if the response should have been faster, it’s impossible to tell if the ambulance team was under-performing without some perspective.

Tags : hate crimes, jeffrey conroy, marcelo lucero

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