5-Year-Old Boy's 911 Call Ignored; Mother Dies

[Asparagus Queen]

Paul ~ I don't believe it's "down to the organization" in who is to blame here. The operator is the one who is answering the phones and is the one expected to use her best judgment for situations. Here, she obviously did not use proper judgment in the least, by ignoring the commonly accepted idea that every call should be taken seriously, whether or not it is a prank.

Better training and a formal protocal for all phone calls would've stopped this from happening. Do you know how much training she recieved? No, the organisation could've hired and not trained her at all. If that is the scenario, then the organisation is at fault partly.

She'd been working there for 18 years. She should have known better. But this is Detroit. *rolls eyes* Makes me proud to live in the D. Gotta wonder about this place.

This is a more detailed article: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... 1013/RSS07

[Paul]

Paul ~ I don't believe it's "down to the organization" in who is to blame here. The operator is the one who is answering the phones and is the one expected to use her best judgment for situations. Here, she obviously did not use proper judgment in the least, by ignoring the commonly accepted idea that every call should be taken seriously, whether or not it is a prank.

Better training and a formal protocal for all phone calls would've stopped this from happening. Do you know how much training she recieved? No, the organisation could've hired and not trained her at all. If that is the scenario, then the organisation is at fault partly.

She'd been working there for 18 years. She should have known better. But this is Detroit. *rolls eyes* Makes me proud to live in the D. Gotta wonder about this place.

This is a more detailed article: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... 1013/RSS07

Haha, thanks for the detailed article . Then the organisation isn't at fault, but the 18 year career isn't mentioned in the first article

[benladesh]

That is absolutly horrible. You know the lady who thought it was a prank call. She must feel so guilty. The best course of action is to send someone over. The worst that can happen is that the kids are in trouble because the police came over and the parents have to deal with them. *sigh*

[Dragonfire]

I had already read the first article when a local news station showed the story tonight. The family is planning a wrongful death suit, and I'm glad. I just can't believe both operators lied about sending the police over.

And apparently NYC is the only 911 dispatch office that trains their operators (at least, that's what I think it said on the news).

[Asparagus Queen]

I had already read the first article when a local news station showed the story tonight. The family is planning a wrongful death suit, and I'm glad. I just can't believe both operators lied about sending the police over.

And apparently NYC is the only 911 dispatch office that trains their operators (at least, that's what I think it said on the news).

The second operator did send the police. They arrived at the house because they were dispatched because of a rowdy kid, or something along the bad kid line. So the second operator did send out someone, but didn't send the cops out for the monther, or send the EMS like she should have. The first operator should have send out the EMS too.

[Hunter Lupe]

If 25% of your 911 calls are pranks, you're in trouble either way. You can either waste public resources on investigating all calls (which would lead to other, equally sensational headlines along the lines of "Where was the police while Little Timmy was brutally murdered?") or dismiss some of those calls as pranks (which would lead to a public outcry when you get it wrong -- and that's bound to happen at some point).

To be honest, the kid isn't exactly helping his own case: "Where's Mr. Turner at?..." - "Right here." - "Let me talk to him." - "She's not gonna ... she's not gonna talk." (Mr. Turner? She?). If the 911 operator wants an adult, get an adult (try the neighbours) -- or at least explain why you can't. The only part of the entire call that makes sense is "My mom has passed out" -- and if the rest of the call doesn't make any sembalnce of sense, I don't think anyone would consider it very serious. Threatening the kid was a bad idea -- but at the same time, he could have went with that as well: if the 911 operator threatens to send the police, and you want the police... what's the problem?
"Oh, but he's just a kid" argument is double-edged: if he can't communicate with the outside world properly, the fault is at least partly with him (if a 2-year old picks up the phone, calls 911, and mumbles something incoherent, do we blame the operator as well?).

While the incident is regrettable (unfortunate for the family), I do not really see what could be done to prevent it happening in the future -- short of completely changing the policy and sending the relevant services to all calls. A training course would not help anything here -- if the 911 operators are still be used as filters on incoming calls, 18 years of live experience is better than any training course you could offer. Mistakes will occur regardless of the operator's experience, and we'll just have to deal with those until we dispatch people to every call.

[corvusrayven]

I had already read the first article when a local news station showed the story tonight. The family is planning a wrongful death suit, and I'm glad. I just can't believe both operators lied about sending the police over.
And apparently NYC is the only 911 dispatch office that trains their operators (at least, that's what I think it said on the news).

Just to respond to that bit real quick.

Are you SURE they lied? Cops like to use a term called "advise if needed" which means, which means they don't think they should go. But will at a later time if neccessary. Their shift supervisor might have cancelled the unit as well if he didn't think it was high priority and they were busy.

As for training, several places offer training for new dispatchers. Here in Fayetteville, GA they hire dispatchers and give them 3 months training. Then they are sent to a state certification program.

Now, as to why there wasn't someone sent. 911 centers get prank calls all the time, from all ages, with a multitude of "problems" being pranked. There are constant calls that amount to nothing, and perhaps she made one mistake. Or perhaps the child was less understandable than you think.

In response to hunter lupe, I can only speak for here, but I know that the vast majority of calls we go to are nothing. Not neccessarily prank, but perhaps miscommunication etc. but the majority of centers WILL send units even for a prank call.

I agree, she should have sent units and ems out. But from what I've heard she wasn't able to get a whole lot of information from this child either.

As for why she may not have sent help? Perhaps she asked her supervisor and they said not to. Indeed perhaps it was a personal choice. Perhaps their POLICY said that unless it was a verifyable concern to not send out ems. Perhaps they were busy and had no one to send.

There are a million concerns to look at in a radio room. And unfortunately there's not a book that tells you how to react in every situation, because every single situation is different. And so much of it cannot be gauged and have guidelines set forth. Much of what they do is based on personal choices. Dispatchers have a lot of choices to make even on simpler calls, because there is often too much information, or too little. It's deciding who needs to know what, what is important, what might become important, and what takes precedence.

However, upon those variables. If she failed to notify her units, her supervisor, or the dispatcher for fire and ems. THEN she should be held accountable.

But when you think it makes you sick because someone didn't respond, think of the thousands of calls they DO respond to.

In Georgia though, our policy is-- if you cannot speak to an adult you will always send at least one unit. If you think there might be more to it, send the appropriate units or ems.

But please remember, the dispatcher you're calling to talk to is only human and will make errors too.

K

-911 dispatcher in training-

[SpiraLethe]

To be honest, the kid isn't exactly helping his own case: "Where's Mr. Turner at?..." - "Right here." - "Let me talk to him." - "She's not gonna ... she's not gonna talk." (Mr. Turner? She?). If the 911 operator wants an adult, get an adult (try the neighbours) -- or at least explain why you can't. The only part of the entire call that makes sense is "My mom has passed out" -- and if the rest of the call doesn't make any sembalnce of sense, I don't think anyone would consider it very serious. Threatening the kid was a bad idea -- but at the same time, he could have went with that as well: if the 911 operator threatens to send the police, and you want the police... what's the problem?
"Oh, but he's just a kid" argument is double-edged: if he can't communicate with the outside world properly, the fault is at least partly with him (if a 2-year old picks up the phone, calls 911, and mumbles something incoherent, do we blame the operator as well?).

That's too much expectations for a 5 year old child who's confused and scared. You can't expect him to think like a rational adult.

While the incident is regrettable (unfortunate for the family), I do not really see what could be done to prevent it happening in the future -- short of completely changing the policy and sending the relevant services to all calls. A training course would not help anything here -- if the 911 operators are still be used as filters on incoming calls, 18 years of live experience is better than any training course you could offer. Mistakes will occur regardless of the operator's experience, and we'll just have to deal with those until we dispatch people to every call.

So what happened is okay and should be ignored?

And I understand that these people are only human and will make human errors, however what happens cannot be just written off like that. Someone died. This is a serious issue. I believe the dispatcher (or even the entire organisation) should be punished because she (they) did make a mistake (from what I can gather from the article) and deserves some sort of consequence. Yes, there will be faults in the system, but that doesn't mean we just accept them and move on without evaluating and attempting to fix them.

Last edited by SpiraLethe on Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Kugetsu]

This isn't nearly as bad as that incident where the woman got shot in the head, called the dispatcher and the dispatcher laughed at her and saying something along the lines of "If you got shot in the head, then you wouldn't be able to talk to me. You're crazy woman!" Whiel she sat there and almost bled to death.

Sorry, but there are things that are unforgivable as far as dispatchers go, regardless of any other outside statistics. There are things you just don't do, and that's one of them. (rules and protocols shouldn't cloud a person's judgement).

In this case, unless they absolutely had no one to go out there and look, then I don't see why someone wasn't sent. It's their responsibility and whether or not it was the dispatcher's fault or the organization's someone died, and that's more important than who's fault it was.

Also a language barrier shouldn't be used as a reason to not check up on the situation, in fact, I would think that a person would be more inclined to check up on it if a young child was doing it.

[Xil]

Think of your schools. How many times has the alarm been pulled? In the past four years at my school, we've had 1 fire and about 8 pranks pulls. Everytime that alarm is pulled, whether it be emergency or false, the firefighters and police are called in. Irregardless of whether the school is concious of the fact that it's a prank or fire or attack. Each time that alarm is pulled, it costs the school and emergency services a combined $400.00.

With our school alarms, dispatchers are alerted. When you go into that line of work, I'd assume one would be quite concious of the seriousness of the job. There's little to no time to examine the economic intensity (and perhaps, fallibility) of the situation and whether it's worth investing units into or not. The woman in the article, basing my opinion on the information supplied, deserves to be punished, and perhaps a re-evaluation of the system is due too.

When it comes to 911, Im a firm believer in "act first, ask questions later" regardless of the ammount of money deploying units will cost or the likelyhood of the situation.

[Asparagus Queen]

If she thought it was a prank, she should have asked more questions. Like maybe something about the mother? Maybe "Is your mom hurt?" "Did your mom fall?" "Are your mom's eyes open?" "Is your mom breathing?" Anything like that to ask more questions about the mom, since she wasn't getting much info out of the kid.

[Mongrel]

Does it really matter who's at fault? Maybe the kid should've been more coherent, maybe the operators should've realized that the boy wasn't prank-calling them, but the fact of the matter is, this isn't the first time someone's 911 call has been ignored and I doubt it'll be the last.
The articles say that one out of every 4 calls is a prank. If that's true, then the system has a problem. Maybe for a big city it's different, but I think there should be some way to punish people who make prank calls to freakin' 911, like the fine 843 mentioned. It's just wrong that so many calls can and do screw up the system.

[theonlysaneone]

Why are we all blaming the kid for this, or the training organization? The dispatcher is at fault here, for not taking a 5 year old seriously when he said his mom had passed out. Bear in mind that someone that young is probably incapable of lying, or at least lying well. The woman probably didn't even use her own judgment, but just followed standard procedure for a questionable call. This is another example of bureaucratic gridlock causing massive problems, in this case indirectly causing a woman's untimely and completely preventable death.

[843]

She should have also known that a child with a dying mother is unlikely to be calm and relaxed.