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Chicago Emergency Response Times Worsen

Crime and Justice News

There is a chorus of concerns over Chicago’s emergency response times, which critics say are too slow to help injured people. In Illinois, the state’s administrative code requires fire departments to measure EMS response times against a standard of six minutes, one minute longer than the National Fire Protection Association’s widely followed five-minute standard, the Trace reports. A Trace analysis of last year’s medical emergency incidents, including accidents, seizures, and shootings through November 19, 2024, found that in over one in five cases, Chicago EMS took more than six minutes to respond. From 2021 through November 2024, though the department received fewer calls overall, the rate of incidents with response times longer than six minutes grew by 4.6 percentage points. Last year, it took EMS more than six minutes to respond to roughly 63,000 incidents. Slower response times mean that gunshot victims are left with a narrower window for receiving life-saving care.


As fewer incidents met the state standard, the city’s budget for the Chicago Fire Department decreased from $644 million in 2021 to $592 million in 2025. In the past five years, its portion of the city’s corporate fund has shrunk from 16 percent to 10 percent. The decreased funding for these lifesaving services highlights gun violence survivors’ longstanding concern that the city is not investing enough in short-term solutions to help those facing the brunt of the crisis. Emergency medical services are meant to help victims, but half a dozen survivors of gun violence interviewed said the city is not meeting their needs. First responders have blamed ambulance response times on the budget. For at least a decade, the city has weathered a shortage of ambulances and paramedics; over the years, Fire Department staff have asked for more funding. “It’s so densely populated, that it’s really, really difficult to provide adequate services with the resources that we currently have,” said Victor Chan, who co-owns and teaches with an independent EMT training program in Chicago. The lack of resources, he added, leads to too much overtime, which causes burnout.



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