Connecticut 911 – Two nonprofit newsrooms are collecting firsthand accounts from people who called 911 for medical emergencies in Connecticut, focusing on wait times for ambulances and what delay meant for patients and families afterward.
Have you called 911 for a medical emergency in Connecticut?
ProPublica and The Connecticut Mirror are asking residents to share firsthand accounts of what happened after the call—especially whether an ambulance took longer than expected to arrive.
The reporting effort is centered on the gap between the data and the lived reality of emergency response. The newsrooms say they know people in some towns have had to wait up to 20 minutes for an ambulance. but that the numbers don’t show what happens as time stretches out. They also say they can’t see the full impact on someone’s life in the weeks and months that follow delayed emergency care.
They’re not looking only for stories that confirm problems in the abstract. They want the details: if you called for yourself or someone else, whether you faced a long wait for emergency care to arrive, and what the delay meant in the immediate moment and afterward.
The effort also reflects a broader question the newsrooms say they want answered across communities statewide: emergency medical services are often underresourced, but what the strain looks like when it hits everyday families.
To participate, people can fill out a brief form to share their experience. The newsrooms say their reporters read through every response and may follow up.
For questions or concerns, they provide a direct contact: CT Mirror reporter Jenna Carlesso and ProPublica reporter Cassandra Garibay can be emailed at [email protected].
Not a Connecticut resident but know someone who is? The newsrooms say you can still help by sending the form to them.
And if you work or volunteer for emergency medical services in Connecticut, they say they also want to hear your perspective through an EMS experience form.
Connecticut 911 emergency medical services ambulance delays ProPublica The Connecticut Mirror medical emergency reporting
20 minutes is crazy though.
So basically they want people to tell stories about waiting? I’ve seen ambulances come fast sometimes and other times it’s like they’re nowhere. Hope they’re not just cherry-picking the worst calls.
Wait times are because Connecticut 911 is overwhelmed right? Like if you call, they should just send the nearest ambulance, not whatever bureaucracy. Also 20 minutes sounds like the call center being slow not the actual EMTs. My aunt said it took forever but she never mentioned where it was, so idk.
I don’t get why they need 911 callers to describe delays, like we already all know EMS is underfunded. But I guess it matters because the data doesn’t show what happens after, which is the part nobody talks about. If it was my kid, I’d be writing essays, not filling out a form on some website. Anyway Jenna Carlesso and Cassandra Garibay should probably also ask why some towns are always worse than others.