EMS forced into red alert twice on Monday morning

CALGARY- A high volume of calls combined with poor weather forced EMS to declare a red alert twice on Monday morning.

A red alert is when there are no ambulances available as they’re on other calls, but there are paramedics available to treat patients. They arrive to scenes in other vehicles, and wait for ambulances to arrive if a patient needs to be transported.

Due to a number of medical calls in a short period of time, as well as weather-related calls, there were two red alerts. One was from 8:43 a.m. to 9:01 a.m, while the other was between 9:23 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.

Alberta Health Services says red alerts that last that long are extremely rare.

There are a total of 45 ambulances in the AHS EMS Calgary Metro fleet.