SF Mayor Lee was able to answer questions in ambulance after collapsing

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was able to answer paramedics’ questions as he rode to the hospital in an ambulance from the Safeway where he had collapsed the night of Dec. 11, before dying of a heart attack three hours later.

Sources familiar with efforts to save the mayor’s life that night confirmed that Lee was conscious and talking in the ambulance after 10:12 p.m., shortly after witnesses at the supermarket on Monterey Boulevard called 911.

None of the sources would speak on the record, citing Lee family privacy.

Three people called 911 from the Safeway that night, according to recordings obtained by The Chronicle.

The first call came from an unidentified man who simply said he was calling from 625 Monterey Blvd., the address of a Safeway at which Lee and his wife, Anita, had been shopping near their Glen Park neighborhood home. The call ends after that.

A dispatcher answered the second call at 10:07 p.m. from an unidentified woman who said that a 65-year-old man needed help.

The dispatcher said she’d already requested an ambulance.

“It’s the mayor of San Francisco,” the caller said.

After a pause, the dispatcher said: “OK, OK, but is he completely alert when you’re talking to him?”

Seconds go by. No response is heard.

At 10:09 the dispatcher said: “I’m sending the paramedics now. Stay on the line. I’ll tell you exactly what to do next.”

After another pause, the dispatcher asked: “Is he right in front of the Safeway?”

A minute passed before the caller responded: “By the vegetables.”

“All right. they’re on their way,” the dispatcher said. “Call us back if anything changes, OK?”

Meanwhile, another 911 dispatcher had responded at 10:09 to the third call, from a man who said he was in charge of the Safeway. The dispatcher assured him that an ambulance was en route.

“I’m not 100 percent sure,” the caller said, “but I’m almost 100 percent sure that I think it’s Ed Lee, mayor of the city.”

“I’m sorry,” the dispatcher said. “Who is it?”

“I think it’s Mayor Ed Lee.”

The dispatcher asked: “Is there any way you can ask him?”

The man, who was calling on a landline, told the dispatcher to hold on.

He returned at 10:10 pm: “Yes, it is Ed Lee.”

“Were you able to ask him how he’s doing?” the dispatcher asked.

“I did not,” the man said.

They talked about where Lee was located in the store, and shortly after 10:11 p.m. the dispatcher again asked if the patient really was Lee.

“Does it look like him? Do you think it’s him?”

The man responded: “When I asked for his name, they just told me Lee. L-E-E.”

“OK,” the dispatcher said. “And does it look like the mayor?”

“Yes.”

“Not that that makes a difference,” the dispatcher said. “Because, you know, we’re getting him help regardless. We just, you know, obviously, like to know something like this.”

“Yeah.”

They ended the call at 10:12 and 22 seconds, when paramedics arrived at the Safeway. About five minutes had passed since a dispatcher picked up the first call.

In the ambulance, the mayor answered questions from paramedics and was able to speak, sources said.

Lee died at 1:11 a.m. on Dec. 12. The San Francisco medical examiner confirmed that the cause of death was a heart attack.

In a statement, the Lee family thanked the many people who provided a “shoulder of support” in recent days. They called it “one of the most difficult times of our lives.”

“Many will remember Ed Lee for his historic role as the first Asian American mayor of San Francisco. But we will forever remember him as a loving father, husband, son, uncle and friend,” the family wrote, noting that he made “deep personal sacrifices” as mayor, “but he always did things with a smile and an infectious sense of humor.”

The family has established the Edwin M. Lee Community Fund through the San Francisco Foundation to support nonprofits and social causes he cared about.