Miami Beach Fire Rescue officials are investigating after learning it took 31 minutes for a crew to answer a call just two miles from the nearest fire station.

Rescue unit 22 arrived three minutes after a 65-year-old man waiting for an ambulance was pronounced dead at his Venetian Islands home on March 5.

Records show the initial call came in 9:05 a.m. on March 5 after a woman found her husband on the floor. She said he was coherent and talking when she dialed 911. The crew was dispatched seven minutes later. She dialed 911 again before they arrived at 9:36 a.m.

In an email to her neighbors, the woman said she repeatedly called 911 and "asked what was taking them so long."

"From the time the call was dispatched, we look at recordings of the phone calls to the radio dispatches," said Miami Beach Fire Rescue Captain Adonis Garcia. "Why was there a delay?"

Garcia said the normal response time is between 4 and 6 minutes, one of the fastest response times in the state.

"Traffic has been extremely heavy the last few weeks," said Greg Olson, who works in the neighborhood.

There's also a drawbridge, but policy allows emergency dispatchers to call ahead to keep the bridge open to traffic. The bridge tender on duty offered Local 10 no comment Thursday.