People in St. Mary’s Bay want answers about poor cell phone service after a man fell from a cliff Saturday night and lay on a beach in St. Vincent’s until around noon the following day when he was discovered by a young boy.
The injured man, who’s in his forties, wasn’t able to contact anyone because of a lack of cell service. The boy who found him had to run to a house and call for an ambulance. A helicopter was dispatched to airlift him out but paramedics didn’t have access to communication with emergency personnel.
Janice Fleming, a member of the volunteer fire service, says they were promised by the Liberal government of the day four years ago that mobile phone service in the area would be upgraded. Nothing has since happened.
Fleming says ambulance personnel had no way of contacting base to provide coordinates or the extent of the man’s injuries which she describes as significant.
She ended up driving back and forth between St. Stephen’s and St. Vincent’s many times just to get cell service to provide information. She ended up having the paramedics transfer the man to an area where cell service was available.
