Some of the victims wounded during the mass shooting at the Allen outlet mall last month were at the hospital as soon as 20 minutes after the initial 911 call was made, according to a newly released internal report on emergency medical response times.
Shots rang out within the Allen Premium Outlets about 3:30 p.m. May 6, killing eight people and hospitalizing at least seven others. The gunman was fatally shot by an Allen police officer who was in the area responding to an unrelated call.
The report compiled by the Allen Fire Department Fire Marshal’s office gives a minute-by-minute look at the medical personnel’s response to the shooting and Dr. Kevin Hoffman, the department’s medical director said in a statement that “every recoverable victim was saved.”
Seventeen medical units are listed in the report: seven from Allen, five of which were ambulances; four from Plano; three from McKinney; and one each from Fairview, Lucas and Prosper. Frisco and Princeton departments also assisted in the response.
Of those 17 units, six ambulances transported patients from the scene to the hospital.
The other units remained in a staging area at the mall, and the responders from Prosper tended to Allen police officers. Two of the Allen ambulances made two trips each between the outlets to the hospital with patients.
According to the report, the first ambulance was en route to the mall within two minutes of the initial 911 call. The unit, from Allen, arrived at 3:42 p.m., six minutes after the call, and made contact with a patient by 3:49 p.m.
At least one patient was loaded into the ambulance and heading toward the hospital within roughly four minutes and arrived at the hospital three minutes later, timestamps in the report show.
Three additional Allen ambulances trickled onto the scene minutes behind the first one and showed similar response times.
It was not clear in the report how many patients each ambulance transported at a time but it showed all victims arrived at the hospitals between 3:56 p.m. and 5:21 p.m.
At least one patient was taken to the hospital in a police officer’s patrol car as well, according to the report.
Officials have previously said most patients were taken to Medical City McKinney, which is about a 3-mile drive from the mall.
“There is no question that the entire public safety and medical community came together on this tragic day, implementing plans and training that has gone on quietly for years,” Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said in a statement. “One of the most difficult things we must deal with as first responders is that no matter how much we train or how quickly we respond we were not able to help everyone. We will always remember those whose lives were taken on May 6. Our community will come together, Allen strong, to see that they are not forgotten.”
