By Susan El Khoury and Jordan Gartner
Published: May. 8, 2024 at 9:05 PM EDT
ST. LOUIS (KMOV/Gray News) - A Missouri family says an ambulance delay may have cost them the life of one of their loved ones.
Family members told KMOV that an ambulance failed to pick up 60-year-old Rodney LaRue right away after he was involved in a crash in September 2021.
The 60-year-old ultimately died, according to his family.
“It just wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have died that way,” Rodney LaRue’s sister Sharon LaRue said.
Rodney LaRue had just celebrated his 60th birthday but his sister said he was still the baby of the family, being the youngest of six.
“We’re a very close family,” Sharon LaRue said. “He was an extremely talented musician, and he would build guitars, beautiful guitars.”
Rodney LaRue was a handyman and known for the motorized scooter he’d drive to jobs, according to the family.
That day he was reportedly crossing the intersection of Ivanhoe Avenue and Arsenal Street in the south part of the city when he collided with a minivan.
Surveillance video showed Rodney LaRue heading through a green light when a minivan, that police say was supposed to yield, turned left.
“He had maybe two or three seconds to react,” Sharon LaRue said. “He did the right thing; he turned the scooter down but ended up going underneath the car.”
Rodney LaRue was on the street and the wait for an ambulance began.
KMOV reports it has been reporting on 911 call delays for years with emergency calls being put on hold, but that didn’t happen here.
A police officer was driving his patrol truck behind the minivan, he reportedly saw what happened and radioed for help.
The surveillance video shows within minutes, more officers and a fire truck arrived, but the ambulance didn’t show up until more than a half hour after the crash.
“I don’t see an excuse for why it took so long,” Sharon LaRue said. “What could the excuse be?”
It turned out the medics headed to Rodney LaRue stopped mid-call.
KMOV reports its investigative team obtained police radio traffic of officers being sent to the ambulance, which pulled over because someone threw a rock at it.
“Relative to EMS, I just spoke to them they’re still NUA and you guys are number five on their list,” an emergency dispatcher can be heard saying on the call.
NUA means “no unit available” and is shorthand often used by city dispatchers when they have no open ambulances.
City officials won’t say if there were any other units to send to Rodney LaRue, saying more than two years later it remains an ongoing investigation.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Matt Devoti, the LaRue family’s lawyer, said.
Devoti is representing the family in their lawsuit against the city and EMTs over their delayed response.
According to police reports, when the ambulance was hit by the rock it left a “large dent” in the passenger side of the cabin.
“A dent in an ambulance is not a good reason to take it out of service,” Devoti said. “Why weren’t they directed immediately to continue their response? Or on the other side of that, why wasn’t a second crew immediately dispatched?”
Devoti believes there’s more to this that St. Louis City won’t talk about.
“One of the things that we believe is that the excuse is that at the time, the Comptroller had a policy that directed city employees to immediately report any property damage to their vehicles,” Devoti said.
KMOV reports its investigative team asked the city for a copy of that policy, but they did not immediately receive it.
The policy is one of multiple public records KMOV said its team is trying to obtain.
The fire department has declined to release any records regarding the case, saying they’re protected by HIPAA.
“Somebody needs to say what happened and fix it,” Sharon LaRue said.
KMOV reports its investigative team also uncovered police records showing in the months leading up to this investigation, there were at least five times when someone threw things at ambulances, all happening in the same area around the west side of Tower Grove Park.
Sources told KMOV that they believe a man with a mental health condition would throw things when he heard sirens. Police say he was never caught, still, it’s clear the fire department knew the risk.
The fire department declined to comment citing a long-running policy that they can’t speak on cases where there is pending litigation.
“If no one else deserves answers, at least the family members deserve answers,” said St. Louis Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, who is with the Public Safety Committee.
While the policies are public records, unlike many other cities, they are not publicly posted online.
When asked if he believed people should have easier access to those records Aldridge responded, “Absolutely. It’s disturbing how hidden some policies are.”
Aldridge added, “Ultimately I think all the books should be open when it comes to policies from our EMT, our fire, our police, residents deserve to know.”
It can’t be overlooked how close everything was, KMOV reports.
The ambulance was hit two miles from where Rodney LaRue was waiting. From the crash scene, it’s a four-minute drive to the hospital where he was eventually taken.
“The surgeons came in and took us into a small room and told us he had died on the operating table and that he basically had bled to death,” Sharon LaRue said.
Rodney LaRue died three hours after the crash. The medical examiner’s report notes the manner of death was a car accident, it doesn’t mention waiting on an ambulance.
“The practice in this office is not to include narrative information in the body of the report,” explained Dr. Jane Turner, a forensic pathologist at Virchow Consulting Services.
Turner said the report details injuries that are common in pedestrian crashes.
“Significantly, there are injuries of the chest and abdomen that are lethal,” she said.
When asked if someone in this case got immediate medical attention and if it could change the outcome Turner answered, “That’s hard to say. They were severe injuries.”
The medical examiner’s report found Rodney LaRue’s blood alcohol level was double the legal limit that day. But police said he had the right of way and was driving 26 mph in an area that had a 25 mph speed limit.
“We miss him so much. You end up with a big hole in your heart,” Sharon LaRue said. “I would hope if different decisions were made, we would still have our brother.”
As far as the five other times the KMOV investigative team found where ambulances were hit, the city hasn’t released public records on those cases.
The driver of the minivan that collided with Rodney LaRue was charged with involuntary manslaughter. However, a circuit court judge dismissed those charges.
The case went to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Last week, the justices issued a unanimous opinion saying the charges shouldn’t have been tossed. The court has since sent the case back to the circuit court.
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