Two tragic delays occur one block apart

New York Post

Two of this week's snow-linked tragedies occurred just a block apart.

The parents of 3-month-old Addison Reynoso say the boy is brain dead because minutes were lost Wednesday afternoon in getting emergency help to their home on 39th Avenue in Corona, Queens.

Two days earlier and one block away, Yvonne Freeman, 75, suffered fatal respiratory distress after waiting three hours for EMTs to fight their way through the snow.

State Sen. José Peralta, who represents the district, yesterday called for an "exhaustive and honest review" and said "swift and forceful action must be taken against those who failed our city in a time of need."

It has been alleged that some sanitation workers engaged in a slowdown or did not plow some neighborhoods at the behest of bosses angry at pending budget cuts.

Addison's parents, Luis Reynoso and Rocio Xoyatla, yesterday weren't thinking about who to blame. They were waiting for a priest to deliver their son last rites at Elmhurst Hospital.

Doctors say Addison contracted the common human respiratory syncytial virus, which only rarely causes severe breathing problems.

His mom said that when he lost consciousness, his baby-sitter could not get through to 911. Xoyatla finally did at 1:12 p.m., and it took EMTs more than 12 minutes to get there.

After a two-mile drive, the ambulance got stuck on an unplowed street 30 yards from the emergency room. Addison, carried on a mad dash through the snow, was declared brain dead soon after arrival.

"The doctors told me . . . there's nothing more we can do to save him," Xoyatla said yesterday as she and her weeping husband kept a bedside vigil.

Freeman's daughter, Laura, said she called 911 at about 8 a.m. Monday. It took about 20 minutes to get an operator. And firefighters and EMTs -- who ran several blocks after their vehicles got snarled in the snow -- took another three hours to get there.

Freeman was pronounced dead at the scene.

by Annais Morales and Dareh Gregorian