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The local access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.

(Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — The controversial lane closures at the George Washington Bridge last September delayed emergency responders from attending to at least four medical situations in Fort Lee — including helping a 91-year-old woman who lay unconscious and later died, according to a report by The Record.

Democrats have long accused Republican Gov. Chris Christie of ordering the lane closures as political retribution for Fort Lee's Democratic mayor refusing to endorse his re-election bid last year. Today, newly unveiled e-mails show that one of Christie's top aides knew about the closures in advance. The governor himself has denied being involved and today issued a statement admonishing the aide.

As traffic clogged the area, the response time doubled in at least two medical calls, according to a letter from Paul Favia, the head of Fort Lee's EMS department, sent to the borough's mayor, the Record's report said.

On the morning of Sept. 9 — the first day of the gridlock — EMS crews took seven to nine minutes to arrive at the scene of a car accident in which four people were injured, when the response time should have been less than four minutes, according to the report.

It then took responders seven minutes to reach the unconscious woman that morning, the report said. She later died of cardiac arrest at a hospital, according to the report.

Favia did not say whether the delay directly caused her death, but he noted in the letter that "paramedics were delayed due to heavy traffic on Fort Lee Road and had to meet the ambulance en-route to the hospital instead of on the scene," the report said.

Responders were late getting to a third call that morning, in which a person was experiencing chest pains," according to the report.

More traffic issues the next morning caused responders to reach a man experiencing chest pains in seven minutes, when it should have taken three to four, the report said.

It is unclear whether there were more delays in medical help. Favia's letter was dated Sept. 10; the traffic problems persisted until Sept. 13.

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