The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This reduction was produced simply by redefining top priority.  Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.
One half of all of last year's top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases would strengthen the author's conclusion that it was the redefinition of top priority that produced the reduction in turnaround time.