When emergency responders answered Code Blue calls in New York City during the recent cold snap, roughly one in five cases were closed with a determination of “no assistance needed,” according to testimony at a City Council oversight hearing Tuesday.
At least one of those cases involved a man who was reported sleeping outside during a freezing night but was not located at the time of the response and later died, the Council heard at its joint oversight hearing on Code Blue operations, which was held in response to the deaths of 18 people outdoors during a prolonged stretch of extreme cold that began on Jan. 19.
