TriMet honors team who helped drive man to hospital in bus
By Web Staff
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PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — TriMet honored a team of employees on Wednesday who helped drive a man suffering a medical emergency to the hospital on New Year’s Eve in a bus.
According to Portland fire officials, crews responded in the early morning hours of New Year’s Eve to the report of a 43-year-old man with chest pain on a city bus.
Officials said a paramedic helped treat the man for 20 minutes, but no AMR ambulances were available.
So instead, the bus driver worked with firefighters and drove the man to the hospital with a fire truck clearing a path for the bus.
On Wednesday morning, the team of TriMet employees were honored at the board of directors business meeting. The bus driver, Joe Wiggins, his supervisor Hassan Hassan and the assistant manager Chia Claro were recognized.
Dispatcher Zoey Owens was also involved, TriMet said.
Wiggins said he was just doing his job that night.
“When the fire department asked us to transport him, Hassan was the voice of reason. I was the voice of ‘let’s just get going!” Wiggins said. “We do what we need to do when people need us. Always. Every driver that I’ve met in TriMet, every supervisor, every manager, every dispatcher, would have done at least as much if not more than I did. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy doing his job.”
Hassan Hassan said, “Without the help of Joe. I mean Joe could have just said ‘No, I’m done. I’m just going home.’ But without Joe, that guy would have been – maybe we saved his life.”
The TriMet board of directors praised the employees for going above and beyond the call of duty and gave them a standing ovation.
Back in November, local managers of the AMR ambulance fleet in Multnomah County told FOX 12 that they would be about 60 paramedics short at the start of 2024.
AMR and Multnomah County have been at odds in recent months over ambulance staffing issues and how to solve it.
AMR has criticized the county for requiring two paramedics on ambulances, as opposed to AMR’s preferred model of one paramedic and one less qualified EMT, which could allow paramedics to be more widely available across Multnomah County.
At the time of the TriMet bus incident, Multnomah County said AMR was responsible for determining the necessary staffing to meet its needs.
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