BURBANK — Just 4 years old, Eden Jade Smith was thrown from a horse and trampled at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center last week.
Her parents are not angry about the accident but over the response by the nearby equestrian school, which they say refused to immediately summon an ambulance for the girl, who suffered seven broken ribs and a collapsed lung.
The riding school manager acknowledged that an instructor told a family friend seeking help that she needed information about the girl and her location before she would call an ambulance.
Angered by that response, the parents drove Eden to nearby Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
"My main concern is, I don't want to see a child or adult who needs medical treatment be refused it," said 22-year-old Tracey Kellett of Arcadia, the girl's mother. "I want to see their policy changed. They should just ring an ambulance for a person."
Kellett said they would have called an ambulance themselves, but didn't have a cell phone handy and did not see any pay phones nearby.
Officials at the riding school said the instructor followed the family friend to the stricken girl, and then offered to call an ambulance. But the parents, angry at the initial refusal, spurned the offer.
"We went to make sure [an ambulance is] what's needed," said Carolyn Kinnaman, manager of the Traditional Equitation School. "We have to tell [the dispatcher] where they are, who they are, are they conscious, unconscious, are there broken bones? Then we say we are coming out to meet them at front."
According to Kinnaman, Los Angeles Fire Department officials told the school years ago not to call for an ambulance unless workers were sure it was an emergency. "[Workers] were calling without checking and we had to put a stop to this," she said.
The school's emergency procedures sheet tells staff to give information such as a victim's age, gender, condition and what happened.
But a Fire Department spokesman disputed that account, saying the proper procedure is to get the ambulance rolling and direct the crew as more information becomes available.
"They should've just called an ambulance even if they had no information at all--'a girl fell off a horse' is all you need," said Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis.
"There was a delay there shouldn't have been," Collis added. "It'd be nice to have that information, but if it delays the response, I see no need to do that. People call here all the time without any information; we often get more than one call on the same incident."
