“All these people are symptomatic, lying on the ground, needing help, but can’t communicate what they need,” Roles said. “That’s why I give a lot of praise to the fire and EMS staff for doing an outstanding job of identifying the problem.”

“I’ve never seen where there’s been some sort of medical misadventure to this magnitude,” he said. “But again, it could have been a lot worse. Not to downplay where we are, but thinking about where we could be, it could certainly have been very, very tragic.”