WCBC

October 2nd, 2018 by WCBC Radio

The Allegany County Board of Education has issued a press release concerning last Friday’s incident that saw a referee injured during the varsity Allegany High School football game at Greenway Avenue Stadium. The game official was  struck by two players, rendering him unconscious. While the press release states that an Allegany County Public School system certified athletic trainer was the first to respond, WCBC’s sideline reporter Paul Miller was actually the first to check on the status of the official as captured during the on-air broadcast of the game…

                                        

According to the release, the official was not in cardiac arrest, and while he was unconscious he was breathing and had a pulse. Miller, who has more than 40 years experience as a certified respiratory therapist, saw things differently, reporting from the scene that as soon as he arrived at the site of the accident- he checked for a pulse and initially there was none.  Another disputed point centered on how long it took the ambulance to respond to the scene. While there were reports of anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes, City Administrator Jeff Rhodes said that the records show the time of response to be just 7 minutes from the time the call was received to the unit arrived at the stadium…

                                   

Rhodes also responded to rumors that there was only one functioning ambulance available Friday night at the time of the incident…

                                                        

The school board press release concludes by noting that the system has worked  with local ems operators and remain committed to having an ambulance at all varsity events at Greenway Avenue Stadium- which will be the case all remaining varsity events the rest of the season. The next varsity event at the stadium is a girls’ soccer game between Fort Hill and Bishop Walsh scheduled for today. There will be an ambulance on-site for that event.  The ambulance on-hand at Mountain Ridge High School events has been provided to the school system by volunteer and paid companies from Frostburg to Tri-Towns, coordinated by Allegany County EMS.