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Response time that day about double the average

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Editor's note: This is one of a series of stories produced by The Lebanon Voice highlighting the need for faster medical response times in West Lebanon and the need for better recognition of aneurysms by rescue personnel nationwide.

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LEBANON - The time it took for a Lebanon ambulance to get to Prospect Hill Road to aid aneurysm victim Martha T. Soto-Galicia was roughly double the average time it usually takes volunteer departments, like Lebanon, the director of Sanford Regional Dispatch said on Friday.

Soto-Galicia, the president of The Lebanon Voice, suffered the aneurysm on the afternoon of Feb. 12.

She suffered a level four brain aneurysm leaving her legally blind, with compromised short-term memory and type 2 diabetes, which four out of seven brain aneurysm victims develop post-event.

The 911 call was made by Harrison Thorp, her significant other and editor of The Lebanon Voice, at 4:59 p.m., according to documentation furnished to The Lebanon Voice by the dispatch center.

Lebanon Rescue was first toned at 5:01, and Lebanon Rescue Chief Dan Meehan said he was en route by 5:04.

Meehan arrived at 5:14, but the ambulance and driver never showed up until 5:27, according to a dispatch report, 26 minutes after they'd been toned and 28 minutes after the call came in. The paramedic arrived several minutes later.

The average time between the tone and an ambulance being on scene in volunteer-department towns covered by Sanford Regional Dispatch, including Lebanon, is 12 to 13 minutes, said Bill Tower, director of Sanford Regional Dispatch, which handles all of Lebanon's fire and rescue calls.

Just for the sake of comparison, for a city or town with a full-time fire and rescue department like Sanford, the wait is three to four minutes, Tower said.

"It all has to do with the town you're living in and who's paying the bills," Tower said. "It's not the perfect answer, but that's the answer."

Milton has an ambulance stationed about a minute away on White Mountain Highway, but the department was never toned by Lebanon for mutual aid.

Meehan was not immediately available for a comment on this report.

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