At 7:30 a.m. on June 28, 2021, Ryan Ackerman sat down for a daily meeting. A paramedic and manager with BC Emergency Health Services, Ackerman had attended these meetings nearly every day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They had become routine. This one was different. “A manager in the dispatch centre popped in very briefly and just said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay, things really got out of control overnight,’ ” Ackerman says.