Trust me... if people really knew...

How serious this situation was -- it wouldn't just be George Smitherman wearing those adult diapers.

So be forewarned... if you're planning on having a heart-attack in the Greater Toronto Area... please be sure to book your ambulance ahead of time...

The frantic calls from Toronto EMS to city hospitals warn again and again there are no ambulances to respond to 911 calls.

In text messages obtained by the Sun, EMS duty officers plead with hospitals to free up paramedics who are sitting with patients waiting to be admitted.

This really isn't news; it's been like this for years. I have a friend who's a Toronto paramedic and he could scare the snot out of anybody who has a friend, or family member, with a serious health condition.

On March 10, an unnamed EMS duty officer warned hospitals that available ambulance levels were gravely low.

"We have three available ambulances in Toronto, we are unable to respond to 911 calls, please offload some crews ASAP," one message sent just after 10 p.m. reads.

Less than 15 minutes later, the situation gets worse.

"Update, we have no available units in our system," the next message reads. "We are looking after 40 patients in (emergency department) hallways, please free up some of our resources as public safety is at risk."

If only Dalton hadn't been pissin' away all those taxpayer nickels and dimes.

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LAST WORD: Here's the thing... you got kids?

On March 1, several Echo calls -- which could be for a child not breathing, for example -- only hit the standard 66% of the time.

On March 4, Echo calls received in the afternoon were only responded to in less than nine minutes 33% of the time.

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