B.C.'s 911 software too slow to recommend CPR, says inquest witness

Karin Larsen · CBC News

· Posted: May 08, 2025 4:04 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

An adept successful exigency medicine testified astatine the Sidney McIntyre-Starko coroner's inquest that bundle utilized by British Columbia 911 operators takes excessively agelong to urge perchance life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). 

Dr. Michael Kurz said the aesculapian precedence dispatch strategy (MPDS) that guides 911 call-takers in their over-the-phone response does not conscionable the "agreed-upon modular of care."

"I americium definite that if you marque it down the protocols successful MPDS, determination are instructions for CPR," said Kurz, an exigency doc and prof of medicine astatine the University of Chicago.

"The interest I person — and wherefore I'm testifying contiguous —  is due to the fact that I deliberation the bid successful which they take to bash it is incorrect."

MPDS is proprietary bundle made by a Salt Lake City institution and licensed successful B.C. The strategy directs 911 operators done questions and protocols that see what archetypal assistance measures to counsel implicit the telephone and erstwhile to dispatch paramedics. 

McIntyre-Starko, 18, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose successful her University of Victoria pupil dorm country successful January 2024. 

The inquest into her decease was called aft her parents went nationalist with concerns implicit the effect of UVic field information and the magnitude of clip it took to springiness naloxone and CPR.

Kurz said based connected peer-reviewed research, the American Heart Association advised a much simplified protocol than what MPDA employs. The AHA strategy is called "no-no-go." 

He said no-no-go saves lives due to the fact that 911 operators are quicker to dispatch paramedics and instruct CPR to beryllium started.

"There is nary much time-dependent unwellness that exigency aesculapian services respond to than cardiac arrest," helium said. "The magnitude of clip we person to marque a quality successful whether oregon not that idiosyncratic survives is vanishingly small." 

With no-no-go, the 911 relation asks 2 questions: Is the diligent conscious, and is the diligent breathing normally? If the reply to either question is no, CPR is advised and a precedence paramedic effect triggered, according to Kurz. 

Kurz said no-no-go tin effect successful a grade of over-response of resources, but that the borderline of mistake is acceptable erstwhile beingness is successful the balance.

Software not the issue, says MPDA adviser

The pupil who called 911 erstwhile McIntyre-Starko and different pistillate pupil fell unconscious did not instantly uncover that drugs were involved. Instead, she said the 2 were seizing and turning blue. 

The study of seizures enactment the 911 relation into the MPDA seizure protocol, wherever she was directed to inquire if the unconscious students were pregnant, among different conditions. 

It took 7 minutes for the 911 relation to dispatch paramedics to McIntyre-Starko and 13 minutes to nonstop Narcan.

An advisor for MPDA, which is made by a institution successful Salt Lake City, defended the bundle astatine the inquest. 

Brett Patterson, standards assembly seat of the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, said the contented with the 911 telephone for McIntyre-Starko was not the MPDA bundle protocols, but alternatively the statement fixed by the caller. 

"The call-taker listens to that statement and chooses 1 of the main ailment protocols,"  helium said. 

"We bash not promote the call-taker to question what the caller is telling us. If the diligent is seizing, past we expect definite behaviours based connected the presumption of that diligent that are dealt with connected the seizure protocol," helium said. 

Patterson said no-no-go is oversimplified and perchance dangerous. 

Fentanyl overdose affects the portion of the encephalon that controls breathing. Absence of breathing will, wrong minutes, trigger encephalon harm and origin the bosom to halt beating.

CPR thorax compressions tin support a idiosyncratic successful cardiac apprehension live by forcing oxygen into the lungs and humor circulation.

The inquest is scheduled to tally into adjacent week.