Ambulance trips from Rhode Island’s East Bay took about a minute longer in the first six months following the abrupt closure of the Washington Bridge’s westbound span on Dec. 11, 2023, according to a study in the July 2026 issue of the Rhode Island Medical Journal.
The study examined a year’s worth of ambulance transports — 125,817 in all — from June 11, 2023 to June 11, 2024. Researchers compared the six months before and after the bridge closure, as well as the four days when westbound travel was almost completely shut off.
Researchers used Rhode Island Department of Health records of 911 calls to compare how long ambulances took to reach patients, how long they took to reach hospitals and where patients were taken…