Medical Emergency Leaves Ailing Reporter Waiting At City Hall 25 Minutes For Ambulance

DETROIT (WWJ) - A medical emergency at City Hall Thursday morning left the victim waiting 25 minutes for an EMS unit to arrive.

When the unit came - it was from Macomb County.

Veteran Detroit News reporter Darren Nichols was suffering stroke-like symptoms in the press room, which is in the basement of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.

Free Press reporter Matt Helms noticed that something was wrong, and called 911, around 10:10 a.m. He called again at 10:30 a.m. Still no ambulance.

It finally showed up about five minutes later.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan commented about the delay, when he came out of the closed-door meeting with City Council:

"It is not acceptable. The national standard is eight minutes and we have a team now looking at why the response was so slow and I'm waiting on an answer from the fire department on that," said Duggan.

Nichols was rushed to Detroit Receiving Hospital. His condition is unknown.