Brandon woman questions lack of care during air transport to Winnipeg after heart attack

A Brandon, Man., senior says the conditions of her air ambulance trip to Winnipeg last month were "totally inhumane" and she thought she would die before getting there.

Eleanor Buechler, 79, went to the Brandon Regional Health Centre because of pain in her chest on Feb. 1. She was diagnosed with a heart attack and was airlifted to Winnipeg two days later to receive an angiogram at St. Boniface hospital.

An angiogram is a diagnostic test that takes X-ray pictures of the coronary arteries and the vessels that supply blood to the heart. Buechler said she was sent for the procedure to determine the extent of the damage caused by the heart attack.

Buechler, who was taken by ambulance on a stretcher to the airport, said she was made to walk to the plane outside while wearing only a hospital nightgown, housecoat and slippers.

"I was told to walk to the plane, and I was flabbergasted because I thought, 'I was just diagnosed with a heart attack — what am I doing?'" she told CBC.

The plane was cold too, she said, and she had to sit buckled into a seat with no blankets.

"All of the way to Winnipeg, I thought, 'If I have a heart attack, I will die if the cold doesn't get me first,'" said Buechler.

"I have no fear of flying. It was the fear of dying with no help."

Buechler said she was so cold when she got off the plane that her hands and feet were numb. She had to walk to the stretcher van which took her to St. Boniface hospital.

Once arriving, she was told she could enter the hospital via a snow-covered wheelchair ramp or by cement stairs, and chose the stairs.

"I was so cold that I was vibrating."

Buechler said she was able to warm herself up and stop shaking in time for the angiogram, which requires patients to be still so a needle can be inserted into a main artery.

She wonders why she was made to walk to the plane, stretcher van and hospital when Brandon hospital staff put her on bed rest.

In a statement to CBC News, a Shared Health spokesperson said patient relations have reached out to Buechler and that the incident is currently being reviewed.