Her family might have their own 'what-ifs' about the evening she froze to death | Opinion

In situations like this, it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. I actually agree with the president of the private ambulance company: the failure of his crew to get out of their truck to look for a Milwaukee woman who fell near a bus stop creates a lot of "what-ifs."

So let's play "what if."

That woman, who called 911 to report that she needed help in the subzero temperatures, was later found dead from suspected hypothermia. Jolene Waldref, 49, of South Milwaukee, was walking to the bus stop after work on Jan. 15 when she fell and hit her head on a gate.

Curtis Ambulance service leaders defended their actions at a news conference Tuesday. They said the company did nothing wrong in responding to the emergency call at North 76th and West Congress streets, an intersection with bus stops on each corner.

Heck, the temperature, after all, was 2 degrees below zero, with wind chills at minus 20. Who would want to get outside of a warm truck on an evening like that?

As folks freeze to death in Milwaukee,an Ohio pastor charged for offering shelter

"They would have had to check each of the four bus stops," said James Baker, the president of Curtis Ambulance. "You can't check behind every snowbank."

Baker said the crew did check all four corners of the intersection. After spending 6 minutes on the scene and not seeing Waldref, they moved on to the next call.

A reporter asked Baker if the ambulance crew would have taken the extra minutes to get out of the truck and found her, would she be alive?

"We can't live in a thing of what-ifs. We look at situations like this and ask, is a protocol change necessary?" he asked. "In this case, I don't think there is."

He's right about the what-ifs. Once you get started, the what-ifs just start flowing:

• "What if they would have gotten out of the truck?"
• "What if they would have heard Waldref moan or call out to them?"
• "What if Waldref not answering her cell phone when dispatchers called her back (twice) meant she was hurt and not because she was able to catch a bus?"

See what happens? You can "what-if" someone else to death.

So what if minutes after the crew left, a by-stander walking along the same intersection spotted Waldref behind a snowbank?

The wind chill is plunging.It's hard not to see cruelty in GOP homeless bill

From the time of the first call from Waldref when the private ambulance was dispatched to when Milwaukee firefighters arrived at the scene after receiving two subsequent 911 calls, about 30 minutes had passed.

I don’t believe Curtis operators were malicious in their actions, but their actions do come across as lazy. We don’t get many do-overs in life-or-death situations. Residents trust medical crews with their lives. This time, it appears they failed. Maybe it was already too late, but we will never know.

This is an unfortunate situation all around, leaving Waldref's daughters, ages 14 and 21, with their own "what-ifs."

Like what if the crew got out of the ambulance and found Jolene Waldref was still alive?

Email James Causey at jcausey@jrn.com; follow him at X@jecausey.

(Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the attribution of an official with Curtis Ambulance.)