By Jay Tokasz
The Buffalo News
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Nine months after a Christmas weekend blizzard killed 47 people, a Buffalo woman says her mother died waiting for rescue crews to take her to a hospital during the storm — a fatality that isn’t counted in Erie County’s official tally of confirmed storm deaths.
Yolanda Ross said she believes her mother, Janet Gamblin, would be alive today if the City of Buffalo had been better prepared for the blizzard that paralyzed much of Western New York for more than 48 hours in December.
Gamblin, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and needed continuous oxygen, was denied when she asked first responders to take her to the hospital during the storm, according to Ross and other family members. She struggled for days to breathe in enough oxygen and died on Dec. 26 at age 71 in her second-floor apartment.
“She would have had a chance at living and still surviving if they had got her to the hospital,” Ross said. “My mother was literally begging for her life.”
Ross in March filed a notice of claim accusing the city of failing to respond properly to an emergency medical call, and she said she intends to follow up with a lawsuit in state Supreme Court.
Michael J. DeGeorge, spokesman for Mayor Byron W. Brown, declined to comment, citing “pending litigation.”
Ross said she was on the telephone with her mother when she died.
“As I’m talking to her, she gets quiet. I’m like, ‘Ma, I love you,’ and the next thing I hear is her take a gasp of breath, and that was it,” she said. “I just bugged out, like ‘Oh my God, this can’t be happening.’ The morning after Christmas. I freaked out. I lost it.”
Ross lives in Buffalo about 10 minutes by car from her mother, but couldn’t get to her due to the impassable roads and a travel ban that continued for days after the storm. Ross’ brother Omar Hill and his wife Tiffany Kenner had been staying with Gamblin prior to the blizzard and were with her when she passed. Emergency dispatchers had warned them to wait for first responders and not to try and take Ross to the hospital, Kenner said.
Kenner hummed hymns to her mother-in-law as she became weaker and weaker.
“She was a beautiful woman, a mother to everyone,” Kenner said. “She liked church songs. I was basically humming it to her, maybe singing a verse here or there.”
The deaths of at least 46 people in Erie County were related to the storm, according to county official. Another person in Niagara County also died in the storm. An Erie County spokesman said Gamblin was not included in the county’s tally, but gave no details as to why.
[RELATED: Report – Communication failures left Buffalo unprepared for fatal blizzard]
By her family’s account, however, the storm — and the city’s lack of response to it — contributed to Gamblin’s death.
2 claims filed over blizzard deaths
The Buffalo News learned about Ross’ notice of claim through a Freedom of Information Law request to the city attorney’s office, then contacted Ross and other family members for details about what happened in the blizzard.
One other notice of claim has been filed against the city regarding a blizzard-related death. An attorney for Gloria Mawazo filed the notice with the city on March 6, accusing city and county officials of failing to adequately warn residents of the blizzard’s severity. Mawazo is the widow of Abdul Sharifu, 26, who left his East Side home for supplies around noon on Christmas Eve and was found in the snow about 10 hours later, according to the notice of claim.
Attorney Brittany Penberthy also filed the notice in State Supreme Court, which The News reported on previously. The notice said Sharifu died that night in John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital of hypothermia and exposure after being denied access to Buffalo General Hospital.
Gamblin was left to die at home when she could have been treated at a nearby hospital, according to her family.
“We lost a lot of people in this blizzard due to EMT delays and things like that, because they were unprepared,” Ross said.
Ross criticized the city for using the National Guard to help fend against store lootings, rather than focusing on people like her mother who were desperate for help.
Gamblin died around 9 a.m. on Dec. 26, according to family members, although her death certificate lists time of death at 9:03 p.m.
Family members said they waited several hours for Gamblin’s body to be picked up and were further upset by how police and National Guard handled the situation.
“They just threw her on the floor like a slab of meat, and when we said something about it, they pointed the gun and put the hand up and told us to get back,” Kenner said. “They treated us like they were in a raid ... It was a whole ordeal. It was traumatizing.”
Ross said the authorities arrived in a vehicle that was capable of driving through the heavy snow and could have been used to transport Gamblin to a hospital when she was alive.
“The sad part about it is they just zipped her up in a bag and threw her in the back of a truck like she was a piece of trash,” she said. “You know, that hurts. That’s somebody’s mother. That’s my mother.”
A native of Mobile, Ala., Gamblin had lived in Buffalo most of her life and managed a family-owned barbeque business and a corner store and laundromat when she was younger. She later worked at Roswell Park Cancer Center, and she was a regular at Zion Missionary Baptist Church.
“She was a pillar of the community,” Ross said.
Gamblin used an electric-powered machine to supply continuous supplemental oxygen, and when the power at her home went out on Dec. 23 and 24, the machine did not work. She switched to a portable oxygen tank, and at one point, Hill and Kenner carried her down a flight of stairs to a senior center that had power, presumably from a generator, so that she could use a portable powered machine for a few hours.
Hill and Kenner carried Gamblin back to her apartment when the power in the apartment returned. But by Christmas Day, Gamblin was panting, out of breath and leaning listless to her side.
Seeking help
Hill and Kenner said they called 911 dozens of times to get emergency personnel to check on her. Eventually, Hill said, dispatchers hung up on him, so he ventured outside to try and flag down police, an ambulance or a fire truck.
Buffalo firefighters from the Jefferson Avenue station — about a half mile from Gamblin’s apartment — arrived sometime in the evening on Christmas Eve, according to the notice of claim. By that time, the blizzard had clogged streets with so much snow that many emergency vehicles were getting stuck, and the city was operating with limited emergency services.
Gamblin’s oxygen saturation level was measured at a dangerously low 53 mm, which should have warranted a trip to the hospital, said Kenner, who works as a surgical technician and is familiar with medical conditions such as hypoxemia.
At first, firefighters seemed ready to call for an ambulance to get Gamblin to the nearest hospital, according to Kenner, who said she was asked to get Gamblin dressed. The firefighter who measured her oxygen levels said she needed to go to a hospital, Kenner said. But then the firefighters gathered among themselves in a hallway, and moments later announced Gamblin would stay put. They left a small tank of oxygen and said to call 911 again if Gamblin’s condition worsened, said Kenner and Hill.
About an hour after the firefighters left, the family began calling 911 again, to no avail. Hill said dispatchers told him they couldn’t get an ambulance to the apartment.
“My mom’s specific words was, ‘What do I have to do, die before y’all come and get me?’ ” Ross said.
Kenner said she doesn’t understand why no emergency personnel could get back to Gamblin’s apartment, because she had seen vehicles traveling along Jefferson Avenue by then.
In a hospital, “at least she would have had a chance,” Kenner said. “But you showed up and left her here.”
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