New York City Council Joint Hearing on Ambulance Response Times and Intro 990 – October 20, 2026

On Tuesday, October 20, 2026, at 10:00 AM, the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Emergency Management, chaired by Joann Ariola, held a joint oversight hearing with the Committee on Hospitals, chaired by Mercedes Narcisse, in Hearing Room 2 at 250 Broadway. The hearing covered oversight item T2026-2405 (Ambulance Response Times) and Int 0990-2026, a bill that would require Notify NYC alerts when FDNY EMS has more than 25 pending ambulance dispatches. Roll call was present for Ariola, De La Rosa, Maloney, Paladino, Sanchez, Schulman, and Wong. Other members attending included Speaker Julie Menin and Council Members Narcisse, Brooks Powers, Epstein, Restler, Brewer, Farías, Aldebol, Gutiérrez, and Dinowitz. The minutes record the oversight as filed by committee and Int 0990-2026 as laid over by committee.

Public Comments & Testimony

• Jennifer Daly, mother of 14-year-old Kevin, testified that on September 28, 2026, her son had a stroke at St. Francis Preparatory High School. The school nurse called 911 three times, but no ambulance arrived. The family drove Kevin to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, where he was diagnosed with a stroke and later transferred to Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. She expressed gratitude for the hearing and stressed that families need to know when help is not coming.
• Michael Greco, President of Local 2507, said the EMS system is in crisis and that life-threatening ambulance response times have increased more than 41% since fiscal year 2015. He said more than 500 EMTs left in fiscal year 2026 alone, cited the pay disparity between EMTs and firefighters, and demanded pay equity, a fair contract, and recognition of EMS as an essential public safety service.
• Vincent Barrialli, President of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621, said cardiac arrest survival rates have fallen from roughly 35% to 16%, and that EMS is underpaid relative to firefighters despite handling the majority of FDNY's emergency calls. He called for EMS to be treated as a co-equal branch of FDNY and for pay and benefits comparable to firefighters.
• Anthony Lamarena, Vice President of Local 3621, provided daily counts of ambulances off service, ranging from 68 to 138 at 2:00 PM during the week before the hearing. He said 112 ambulances were off service and 51 calls were holding during his testimony, with most holding over three hours. He described multiple cases of patients dying or waiting hours for ambulances and said the system has already failed.
• Logan Clark and Valerie Gaudino of the Independent Budget Office testified that MMR data show end-to-end ambulance response times have increased by nearly three minutes since FY22 and now average more than 13 minutes. Daily ambulance operating hours in the 911 system fell from about 8,900 in FY22 to 8,100 in FY26. They noted that 11 hospital systems removed ambulances from the 911 system in FY26 and that EMT attrition is closely tied to the firefighter promotional exam cycle.
• Joseph Raineri, Executive Director of the Regional EMS Council of New York City, opposed moving to single-paramedic ambulances, saying dual paramedics are needed for complex clinical care. He called for better pay, work-life balance, clear career paths, and a focus on retaining experienced providers.
• Other public witnesses included Christian Bear Lopez, a paramedic who called for an independent EMS department and asked why the council had not held a hearing on Intro 0521; Gerardney Williams, a paramedic and Army veteran who described ambulances being sent 25 minutes across Manhattan and criticized hospitals for pulling ambulances out of the 911 system; Andrew Freena, a former EMT who said only 26% of paramedic responses arrived within 10 minutes; Walter Adler, a hospital-based paramedic and 1199 delegate who called for reducing 911 call volume, ending the promotional pipeline from EMS to fire, and creating an independent EMS department; Jack Chapman of 1199, who said ALS call volume increased 22.9% since 2015 versus 2.5% for non-life-threatening calls and that about 4,300 EMTs and paramedics left between FY2019 and FY2026; Stephen Northmore, a 14-year FDNY EMS member, who described multiple delayed-response cases and said pay is the wound that must be stopped first; James Kerr, former executive director of NYC EMS from 1980 to 1988, who proposed a mayor-directed EMS improvement task force with a 90-day implementation plan and response-time targets; Tyler Weaver, whose son Nicholas Costello died after a 20-minute ambulance wait in 2023, who said cardiac arrest revival rates fell from 20% to 16% and that response times are back to levels from the early 1980s; Cheryl Bernard, a retired NYPD communications supervisor, who argued that DOT bike lanes, bus lanes, and street narrowing are slowing emergency response; Christopher King, a 27-year FDNY EMT, who said the government has failed EMS, not the reverse, and that pay must be fixed immediately; and Chowdhury Mahmood, who alleged FireCAD system crashes, vendor accountability failures, and a no-bid EMS CAD contract, and requested independent technical certification.

Discussion Items

• Chair Ariola opened by noting that over the summer, 700 calls were being held by the EMS system due to staffing shortages. She said EMS responds to more than 1.6 million medical calls each year and that response times to life-threatening emergencies have increased over the past decade. She described Int 0990-2026 as a "minutes matter" bill to alert New Yorkers through Notify NYC when ambulance dispatch is delayed.
• Chair Narcisse, a registered nurse, said delayed ambulance response and prolonged ED wait times are urgent challenges. She cited reports that H+H patients waited an average of 12.8 hours to be transferred from the emergency department to an inpatient bed between 2022 and 2025. She also cited hospital closures, staffing shortages, and federal Medicaid cuts as contributing factors.
• Speaker Julie Menin said EMS is understaffed and underpaid, noting EMS responds to 1.6 million calls annually with about 4,500 members while fire operations respond to about 500,000 calls with about 13,000 members. She cited EMT pay of about $18 per hour, an average EMT tenure of under three years, and an average response time around 13 minutes. She said the city must pay EMS workers a living wage.
• FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito testified that average ambulance in-service hours fell from 8,891 in FY22 to 8,109 in FY26, while life-threatening calls rose from 564,412 in FY22 to 610,771 in FY26. He said 358 EMTs and 63 paramedics left EMS to become firefighters in 2026, following 288 EMTs and 48 paramedics in 2025. He also cited 19 hospital closures since 2003, hospitals reducing ambulance contributions to the 911 system, and recruitment challenges. FDNY said it has deployed 14 Paramedic Response Units, created centralized resource coordination centers, moved to borough-based command, invoked mutual aid, and is reviewing offline EMS members for redeployment.
• On the Kevin Daly incident, Chief Paul Miano said the 911 system was experiencing more than 100 calls above normal volume at the time. The call was processed through the overflow position and classified as an unknown condition because no EMS call taker was available to triage it. An ambulance was dispatched, but arrived after the patient had already left. Chief Denise Werner said the department is working to improve communications between NYPD and EMS dispatch.
• On the incident in Speaker Menin's district involving a 16-year-old injured at a basketball game, FDNY said the call was triaged as a segment-five injury, not life-threatening. Ambulances were dispatched but were preempted and redirected to life-threatening emergencies. FDNY explained that CFR fire engines are only dispatched to segment one, two, and three calls and cannot transport patients.
• FDNY said it does not support Int 0990-2026 as written because the likely volume of notifications may not provide useful information, but it is open to further discussion on providing real-time information to the public.
• Chief Miano said the department averages more than 90 ambulances off service per day, overwhelmingly due to staffing shortages. He said high-acuity segment one through three calls are immediately dispatched and do not hold, while lower-acuity calls may be held or preempted. He also said response time is measured from the 911 call to arrival on scene, not to reaching the patient's side.
• Council members pressed FDNY on pay parity, retention, recruitment, ambulance off-service numbers, NYPD transport of patients, public access to ambulance location data, street closures and Local Law 6, siren noise, and the promotion of EMTs to firefighter roles. FDNY said it cannot currently provide response-time-to-hospital data by council district or NYPD transport data, but committed to follow up.
• NYC Health + Hospitals physician Dr. Josh Motzquist testified that current H+H average time from ED arrival to seeing a first provider is 29 minutes, an improvement from 33 minutes. He said the average time from an admission decision to transfer from the ED to an inpatient bed is about 270 minutes. This differs from Chair Narcisse's cited 12.8-hour average; the testimony did not reconcile the two figures, which may reflect different metrics or time periods.
• Dr. Motzquist said H+H saw about 1.1 million ED patients in 2025, that higher-acuity cases have increased, and that about 2% of patients leave without being seen. He said H+H has used virtual express care with FDNY to treat some 911 calls without ambulance transport. He did not have data on NYC Care enrollment, hospital-specific wait times, AMA rates, Bridge to Home, SHOW, or B-HEARD expansion, and committed to provide follow-up information.
• On psychiatric services, H+H reported 33,400 unique patients and 56,600 visits in 2025 across its psychiatric emergency services and comprehensive psychiatric emergency programs, up from about 33,000 patients and 55,000 visits. The ED Leads program reported 30,400 encounters in 2025, over 6,500 referrals to outpatient clinics, and over 3,600 naloxone kits distributed.

Key Outcomes

• The committee filed oversight item T2026-2405 and laid over Int 0990-2026 without a final vote.
• FDNY opposed the current version of Int 0990-2026, citing notification volume concerns, but agreed to continue discussions about real-time public notification.
• FDNY committed to follow up on requests for data, including full 911-to-hospital-arrival times by council district, NYPD transport data, the transcript of Kevin Daly's 911 calls, and information on recruitment, veteran staffing, and an NSF grant.
• H+H committed to provide additional data on hospital-specific ED wait times, AMA rates, NYC Care enrollment, and program expansion details.
• Council members, including Speaker Menin and Chair Ariola, pledged to prioritize EMS pay parity, contract resolution, uniformed first responder status for EMS, and retention efforts. Chair Narcisse and other members committed to supporting EMS holiday meals and continued oversight.
• Written testimony was accepted for 72 hours after the hearing by email to testimony@council.nyc.gov.