the first ambulance was turned away

Breitbart News says today that the first ambulance called to help Natasha Richardson after the fall that led to her death was turned away, presumably at her request, because at the time she showed no signs of injury.  Another ambulance was called later but by then it was too late. A separate story from the AP explains why this may have been critical.

Richardson appears to have had a period of "lucidity" between her fall and the onset of symptoms. If she then lost consciousness, that interval would have raised a red flag for doctors.  "If they (patients) become comatose after this lucid interval, then you're on a sliding scale of who's going to wake up and who isn't going to wake up from this type of injury," Tator said.  In other words, time is of the essence, he said.

Oh good.  Because this wasn’t tragically sad enough already.  Now we can dial the heartache up to 11 because her death was maybe possibly preventable.  At this rate the snow will melt next month and we’ll find out that when Natasha fell she landed on a bunny with big soft ears who was bringing food to her babies but she died too so the baby bunnies all starved.  And one of those baby bunnies was a magic bunny who granted wishes.