22 Minutes: Your Life May Be At Risk

Imagine it is a Thursday evening on Williams Island, about 5:30pm in the evening.

You fall, hitting your head and splitting it open with blood pouring out.

Then waiting 22 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

This really happened on Williams Island. On Thursday evening, November 21st, a valet fell, striking his head and sustaining a serious injury – complete with enough blood to warrant a scene in a movie.

Emergency 911 was called at 5:33pm. Aventura Police arrived at 5:44pm. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue arrived at 5:55pm.

22 minutes.

Do you feel comfortable with that? When is it okay to say every minute doesn’t count?

This is not to blame Aventura Police or Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, because personally I don’t think it is their fault. In fact, response times on Williams Island average 7-10 minutes. That’s an average of course – you know a basic arithmetic problem to smooth out the longer and shorter times so we can supposedly have a better idea of what to expect.

And that’s the problem. How would you feel if you were the person waiting 22 minutes (or longer)? What guarantee do you have that you will be the beneficiary of the “average” time? How lucky do you feel that you might even be one of those who gets treated in less than average time — lucky enough to risk your life on it?

We all know its about the traffic – part time residents, visitors, shoppers are all attracted to the good life that Aventura has to offer. But if you think there is nothing that the City of Aventura can do about it, think again.

There is an ancient Greek philosophy regarding the practice of medicine that is oft-repeated as “first, do no harm“.

Let’s take the Prive’ for example – the proposed development on the North island of Two Islands. How much traffic will be added by 160 units, 574 parking spaces, transportation for workers at the 20,000 sq. ft. spa, two restaurants, two pools, concierge services, not to mention landscaping and maintenance of the twin towers’ physical plant itself ? The City has the obligation not only to ask those questions, but to test the responses by real facts and observations, not mathematical formulas that have no relationship to the reality of Aventura.

Some people have said that 160 units isn’t much, or that not all owners will be in residence at the same time. Those who would say that, I suspect, would want you to believe that the traffic impact will be minimal and therefore of no concern.

This is where the City needs to be responsible. It isn’t the gross traffic numbers; or average numbers during a certain time of day or year – it’s about the tipping point. When does one car too many slow things down? The City needs to consider traffic responsibly – instead of blowing up the safety balloon until it breaks, how about a novel idea – stop filling the balloon before it breaks?  If the Prive’ balloon breaks, the developers will be long gone with their millions and the City of Aventura won’t be able to do anything at that point except let us suffer with the mess. The standard by which every development project in Aventura should be considered – not just the Prive’ — is “first, do no harm“.

22 minutes. Are you willing to take that risk for yourself? Your family?

More importantly, do you want the developers of the Prive’ to decide that risk for you and your family?

Tick . . . Tick . . . Tick . . .

This entry was posted on November 25, 2013 at 7:51 PM and is filed under Articles & Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.