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The elderly woman who was fatally attacked by three dogs on Sunday afternoon is remembered as a gardening enthusiast whose personality was “larger than life”.

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“Rusty will be missed by many. We would like to thank the City of Calgary for their condolences,” Heather Johnson said in a GoFundMe campaign organized to help the family with funeral expenses.

Police say the 86-year-old – identified in the fundraiser by her first name, Betty Ann, and her more commonly used nickname, Rusty – was fatally attacked while tending to her garden at her home of Capitol Hill around 2 p.m. after its neighbor. the dogs escaped from their backyard. The three dogs have since been seized by the city and are suspected be a North American Pit Bull Terrier mix, a North American Staffordshire mix and an American Pit Bull.

Betty Ann was a veteran and cancer survivor, recently in remission, and her family remembers her as a “little but strong lady”.

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“She was ready for her golden years without cancer,” Johnson said.

The fundraiser says she lived on Capitol Hill for 50 years, always very proud of her home and “especially her garden.” Most recently, Rusty lived in the house with her niece, who Johnson said she had an incredible bond with.

After the attack, Betty Ann leaned against a garage door in her alley for about half an hour before an ambulance arrived. Her home on 21st Avenue NW is less than a 10-minute drive from Foothills Medical Center, where she ultimately died. Neighbors said they saw two ambulances switch to other calls as they waited alongside Betty Ann.

“The disbelief and shock (are) breathtaking. It took a shocking 35 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, by the time they did it was (too) late for Rusty,” Johnson said. .

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Alberta Health Services launched an investigation into the long response time on Monday. On Tuesday, AHS told Postmedia its review found the 911 call was initially triaged as not life-threatening, which resulted in a 30-minute delay between the call and paramedics responding. .

AHS said dispatchers categorized the incident for police response based on information provided by the caller. From the details provided to EMS by the police, they believed it was not life threatening and did not immediately send an ambulance to the scene alongside the police.

“When CPS arrived on scene, they informed EMS that the patient’s injuries were serious,” AHS said in a written statement.

“EMS immediately dispatched an ambulance, which arrived at the scene nine minutes later. This tragic incident occurred at a time when EMS call volumes were very high. However, once the call was deemed a priority, an ambulance was dispatched immediately.

“AHS is discussing these findings in more detail within EMS and will contact CPS to identify any further learning from this tragic incident.”

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Based on the AHS findings, Health Minister Jason Copping’s office said the minister was “relieved to hear that the initial review by AHS confirms that there was no undue delay in the response from the EMS.

“It doesn’t change the fact that this death was a terrible tragedy, or the need to deal with the strain on EMS,” said Steve Buick, Copping’s publicist.

“We must continue to support EMS and add any necessary resources until we get response times back within AHS targets, where they were until last summer when volumes increased 30% .”

Earlier Tuesday, the union representing Alberta paramedics criticized the systemic issues that led to the wait.

The Alberta Health Sciences Association said the incident is an example of larger issues with the management of ambulance services in the province. HSAA President Mike Parker said ambulance waits of up to an hour are common in Alberta.

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“We go through this level of no available units on a daily basis. . . the example of Sunday’s event clearly identifies what this means for the lives and bodily integrity of people who desperately need paramedics,” Parker said, adding that people often wait 45 minutes or an hour for the ambulances.

“It’s everyday and our members are absolutely devastated to the point of leaving the industry.”

While the province recently announced plans to bolster EMS services across the province — a move that will put four more ambulances on Calgary’s roads by the end of June and five more by the end of September — Parker said that more was needed to alleviate the immediate pressure facing paramedics. . He said there would be a high cost to significantly improve EMS services across the province, “probably a huge amount of money.”

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“Cause and effect; you’re starving this system into complete disarray, where the public doesn’t even believe they’ll get an ambulance anymore, and sadly they’re damn right,” he said.

“It’s not on the backs of the paramedics who are doing everything they can. It’s on a system that’s been allowed to fail, even though we’ve been talking about it now for, I don’t know, 10 years.

NDP Health Critic David Shepherd said he was horrified and disturbed when he heard about the incident and the ambulance delay. He said the province’s ambulance and hospital systems had been pushed to “breaking point”.

“This situation has become dangerously common and response times in Calgary in 2022 are the slowest on record,” he said, calling on Health Minister Jason Copping to accept responsibility for his “catastrophic mismanagement of the health system”.

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‘Lots of love’

On Monday evening, a small memorial began to form outside the garage where Betty Ann was attacked. Bouquets of flowers rub shoulders with a small statue of an angel. A note attached to the effigy reads: “We will miss you Rusty, much love.”

Alison Jardine, who lives near Mount Pleasant, was moved to bring flowers to the site of the fatal attack.

“I’m an avid gardener myself and this really struck me,” said Jardine, who has lived in the area for about 25 years.

“The fact that it took the ambulance so long to get there makes you feel a bit unsafe in your own neighborhood.”

The Calgary Police criminal investigation into the incident is continuing. According to what will be revealed by this investigation, the police say that the owner of the dog could face charges, including negligence causing death or breach of regulations. The dogs are still being held as the investigation continues; they could be euthanized.

The city said city officers who attended the scene were granted furlough.

Since 2000, there have been at least two fatal dog attacks in the Calgary area, both involving the dog’s owners or their family members. A newborn baby was killed by the family husky in Airdrie in 2012 and a 50-year-old woman from the Langdon area was killed in 2018 while trying to protect a toddler from the family dog.

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Twitter: @michaelrdrguez