Seattle Woman Dies After 10-Hour Ambulance Wait, AMR Left Voicemail After Her Death

A 71-year-old Seattle woman died waiting for an ambulance that never came, then received a voicemail from the ambulance company on the day she died.

The King County medical examiner reported Pamela Hogan's time of death as the same day AMR left a message on her phone.

On April 8, 2022, Hogan called 911 with debilitating knee pain.

Her call was transferred by a Seattle Fire Department dispatcher to a nurse line operated by AMR.

The Game Nobody Should Play

When Hogan asked if mentioning congestive heart failure would "bump it up," the dispatcher told her, "We're not going to play that game".

An ambulance was eventually dispatched to her apartment building.

AMR dispatch logs show Hogan's ride was canceled and reassigned three minutes after the crew arrived at her building's address.

The reason listed was "patient not found."

A System Without Oversight

When Seattle started routing certain 911 callers to the nurse line in 2022, it stopped capping and tracking their ambulance response times.

The nurse line is operated by the parent company of Seattle's for-profit ambulance contractor, AMR.

The city signed a new five-year contract with AMR in September that continues to exempt nurse-line ambulance waits from contractual time standards.

Moving Forward

Superior Court Judge David Keenan ruled that the case can move forward, denying motions to dismiss by both the city and AMR.

Hogan's son Alex says he was in touch with his mother in the days before she called 911 but didn't hear from her on April 8 or in the weeks after.

She was a retired executive assistant who loved cooking casseroles, watching "Judge Judy" and listening to The Pointer Sisters.