Mother dies when 911 call ignored.

Lantern Jack said:

I found this in a four-day-old paper I found lying around. Has anyone posted a thread on this yet? Anyway...ghastly...

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060408114909990004

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I heard the 911 call on the news the other day. This poor little boy is trying to tell the dispatcher about his mother and the dispatcher is yelling at him not to play on the phone. You can hear plain as day the boy gets so frustrated he finally growl/grunts in anger. He is SOOO frustrated that it made me cry knowing he was standing feet away from his dead mother and trying to do what he had been told to do in an emergency and nobody would listen to him. It is a heartbreaking tape.

I'm too lazy to look for it, but there's a pretty long discussion about this over in Take it Outside.

You should venture over there sometime, Jack. I think you'd do well.

Lantern Jack said:

Wasn't he black? Do you think it could've been a race thing? Like how cops take forever to get to a crime scene in black neighborhoods, but they're like the Flash on speed for white folk?

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That sounds a bit prejudicial on your part LJ. Do you think all cops are like that? Do you also believe in predominantly minority cities that the cops respond to the 'white folk' slower?

But neither the police nor medical personnel ever arrived, according to family members.

Three hours later, the boy called again.

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SAD. VERY Sad.

Lantern Jack said:

Wasn't he black? Do you think it could've been a race thing? Like how cops take forever to get to a crime scene in black neighborhoods, but they're like the Flash on speed for white folk?

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the dispatcher (or non-dispatcher, in this case) was also black.

911 Operator: 'You're Going to Be In Trouble'

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No, actually you are going to be unemployed.


And, the five year boy who did exactly what he was supposed to do, lost his mother.

Yes, on the TIO board, the thread title is "What the f*ck?"

Because I just had no other words for it.

And eld, she didn't lose her job. She got a note in her file, because of the union and her years of service.

It's all bullsh*t.

eldragon said:

No, actually you are going to be unemployed.


And, the five year boy who did exactly what he was supposed to do, lost his mother.

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Here is the sad part. The b*tch dispatcher is still on duty while they "investigate".

It is unfortunate that this event happened and I feel terrible for the family. I used to be a 911 emergency dispatcher for a mid-sized town and we used to get tons of prank calls but we always sent a police officer to investigate - that was just standard policy. Of course, I can understand in larger cities that they probably don't have the manpower to send an officer to investigate each and every prank phone call - so though I am not removing fault from the dispatcher, I do place some of the blame on society - primarily the parents that allow their children to continually make prank 911 phone calls.

My-Immortal said:

That sounds a bit prejudicial on your part LJ. Do you think all cops are like that? Do you also believe in predominantly minority cities that the cops respond to the 'white folk' slower?

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I think you have it backwards, LJ didn't know that the dispatcher was also black, he only knew that the little boy was black.

In this case, I don't think race had anything to do with, at least it seems unlikely. It was just a guess, because I don't think anyone can see any reason why this would have happened. The dispatcher isn't going to be held responsible for someone else's prank and had absolutely nothing to gain by doing what she did.

She got a note in her file,

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Ok, then what the f*ck?"

cw37066 said:

Here is the sad part. The b*tch dispatcher is still on duty while they "investigate".

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And that is the part that makes me sick. Can anyone give me an example of a customer service job in which disrepecting a customer in this way would NOT get them fired? And that's just in the industries in which bad service would NOT result in the loss of a life...

welcome to the dark side of unions.

I can understand in larger cities that they probably don't have the manpower to send an officer to investigate each and every prank phone call - so though I am not removing fault from the dispatcher, I do place some of the blame on society - primarily the parents that allow their children to continually make prank 911 phone calls.

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I guess they need to hire more police, because every call needs to be investigated.


Especially when some turn out not be prank calls.


When my oldest daughter (17) was about 4, she was playing with a neigborhood girl (7) in our apartment complex in Vegas. I had delivered her to the girls apartment, and believed they would be playing there. A few minutes later, police knocked on my door. The girls had been making prank calls in a phone booth..........calling 911. Now, you know my daughter, aged 4, had no idea how to do this.........the older girl was the culprit.

But, still............my daughter learned at a young age what might happen if you make those calls:

• The police come to your house.
• someone who needs assistance might not get it because the cops are at our house.

Celia Cyanide said:

I think you have it backwards, LJ didn't know that the dispatcher was also black, he only knew that the little boy was black.

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Still, it was an unnecessary blanket statement about cops and race in LJ's post. Race has nothing to do with this -- stupidity does.

There's a big civil lawsuit now, and I think they're asking for $1 million... But is that all? If an Iranian-American woman could win $27 million for being harassed by an airline flight attendant, wouldn't you think the boy and his family should get more (if they win the case)? Well, not that a life can be measured in dollars and cents.

Celia Cyanide said:

And that is the part that makes me sick. Can anyone give me an example of a customer service job in which disrepecting a customer in this way would NOT get them fired?

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'911 Diapatcher' is not really a customer service job, insofar as it isn't in a profit driven industry. It's like demanding excellent customer service from the DMV.

Rob

maestrowork said:

Still, it was an unnecessary blanket statement about cops and race in LJ's post. Race has nothing to do with this -- stupidity does..

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Is he screaming "My mom needs help! She's dying!"??

Celia Cyanide said:

I think you have it backwards, LJ didn't know that the dispatcher was also black, he only knew that the little boy was black.

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Celia - I don't want to get into another lengthy discussion with you about this - but how exactly do I have it backwards? I understand that you and LJ are friends and almost always jump to each other's 'defense' but please I was making a comment about what he stated in his post:

Lantern Jack: "Wasn't he black? Do you think it could've been a race thing? Like how cops take forever to get to a crime scene in black neighborhoods, but they're like the Flash on speed for white folk?"

He didn't say anything in his post about the dispatcher being black - only that the boy was black and then went on to make a blanket statement about cops and their apparent racial bias which I thought was a rather prejudicial statement to make - and that is why I asked HIM about HIS statement.

So please, don't say I have it backwards.

eldragon said:

I guess they need to hire more police, because every call needs to be investigated.

But, still............my daughter learned at a young age what might happen if you make those calls:

• The police come to your house.
• someone who needs assistance might not get it because the cops are at our house.

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And when they ask to raise your property taxes because they need to hire more police to investiage prank 911 calls.....you'd be first in line to vote yes on that one - or would you be the one that thinks parents should just teach their kids not to make prank 911 calls?

I'm glad she learned that lesson - it's unfortunate that she had to learn it by making the prank call in the first place.

And when they ask to raise your property taxes because they need to hire more police to investiage prank 911 calls.....you'd be first in line to vote yes on that one - or would you be the one that thinks parents should just teach their kids not to make prank 911 calls?

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Both.


I'll pay whatever taxes I have to, because hiring more police is a good reason to pay more taxes.


And, we can't make everyone teach their kids not to make prank 911 calls, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the calls happen before the parent is aware of it.

Regardless .............this 5 year old boy was not making prank calls. He was tryng to save his mother. He was pleading with the dispatcher to help her. He waited THREE hours before calling again for help.



It's the dispatchers fault for assuming the boy was making a prank call.


He was 5 years old, for heaven's sake.

The tape is available oline - listen to it and see if it sounds like a funny prank call.

Well, Detroit IS the poorest city in America. I saw that on Oprah. It's pretty bad there since most of the auto factories have closed. So I can imagine that they don't have the police to handle many calls right away.

Still, at least she could have tried. Sent somebody. That poor kid had to sit with his dead mother for three hours before someone showed up.

Sick. And sad.

eldragon said:

Is he screaming "My mom needs help! She's dying!"??

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You'd be amazed to what lengths these kids will go for the sake of a prank.

Again, I'm not saying what the dispatcher did was right - but I wish some of you knew how difficult the 911/police/fire emergency job really was. I had a bank of 911 lines, a bank of non-emergency phone lines, the main police radio frequency, two minor police/fire radio frequencies, multiple computer screens in front of me, a seperate computer hooked up to the officer's squads, another computer hooked up to the state's computer, and the public window (for visitors etc) to maintain all at once - sometimes for 16 hours in a row after already working 16 hours the day before.