[Unbelievable] Mom Dies After Boy's 911 Call Considered Prank

S**t does happen. But when it happens for them, people die. You need to treat every call seriously whether you think it may be real or not. Otherwise what's the point of calling 911. Should she go to jail, well no. But should she get fired, I'm thinking yes (at the very least demoted; maybe stop taking calls for awhile). I've had to call 911 before, and if those emergency responders didn't show up or the operator treated it as a prank call, I wouldn't be thinking, oh well s**t happens. I want every possible thing to be done to save the people I love, and if they can't provide that then they shouldn't be doing that job. How hard is it to just send someone; better safe than sorry dont you think.

 

The thing is they said a 1/4 of their call are prank calls. It's a tough job. I do not think they send people out to every call. They just can't. There is some discrimination involved.

Kimberly Harris, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1023, called the charges "absolutely ludicrous" and said the operators couldn't hear the boy's call very well because they use antiquated headsets. The operators believed the call was a prank, Harris said. She said tapes of the call released to the media were enhanced and did not contain background noise.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060608/NEWS01/606080335/1001/news

Again, countless factors.

There is a good chance the woman would of died anyway. We just don't know.

 

You don't know that for sure.

 

The charges may be a bit much, sure. But she needs to be held accountable for her action. All these reasons seem like excuses to me, and again if this happened when I had to call 911 and my family was being fed this afterward, that's exactly what I would be thinking; excuses. They couldnt hear very well because they were using antiquated head sets; well then why weren't they using better ones. And if they couldn't hear very well, then maybe you should look into the situation. If there is a lot of background noise you can't possibly make a well-thought decision regarding the nature of the call. If there is a sliver of doubt shouldn't you send someone to investigate. What exactly about the call led the operator to believe it was a prank? And you can't just assume, well there was a good chance the mom would have died. We'll never know what could have happened had the responders did their job. I'd rather err on the side of caution. We're talking about people's lives here.

Again I think the charges might be a bit much, and I'm thinkin they will be dropped. If she's an experienced veteran whose done an exemplary job to this point, then yes that should have some bearing on the situation. BUT she still should be held accountable as well as that particular call station.

 

There was an article in the Dallas Morning News a few weeks ago that was similar to this one.

From the article:

In early March, a woman told a 911 operator that her ex-boyfriend was trying to force his way into her apartment. As the operator asked for her name, she screamed that the man had gotten in. A commotion could be heard, and the line went dead.

The 911 operator told police that the victim refused to give her name and did not want to be contacted. But a recording of the call showed that wasn't true. Police arrived after the suspect had abducted and fled with the woman. The woman was released hours later after being beaten.

Chief Kay said the operator "probably" erred in writing that the victim refused to give her name and did not want to be contacted, but he described the mistake as "relatively minor."

So that doesn't qualify as an emergency, but this one does (from the same article):

On a recent Friday, a man told a 911 operator that he went to a junkyard to exchange a car part but that the junkyard refused. He wanted the police. "An officer will be out there as soon as possible," the operator said.

The operator categorized the call as a major disturbance with unknown weapons, even though she didn't ask about weapons and the caller told her that he wasn't really arguing with anybody.

The final result: The police spent more than an hour on the call. It was determined to be a non-police matter.

Amazingly, the city of Dallas implemented a 311 informational call system in order to cut down on non-emergency calls to 911 and to cut down on the volume the 911 operators had to deal with. They publicized the heck out of the 311 number and then, for some reason, combined the call centers so 911 and 311 operators are one in the same, defeating the entire purpose of setting up the 311 number in the first place.

 

My friend's mom called 911 because there was a coyote in her backyard. They get tons of calls like this.

 

It really is to bad that they didn't make the nonemergency number as simple to remember.

 

It's our responsibility to know the non-emergency numbers...

 

Hey, O.J. made one mistake! Good thing he's still free!

EDIT: Let's make that two mistakes.

Bottom line, these people knew what kind of job they were in when they decided to be 911 dispatchers. It's a very serious job. It's not up to them to decide who is making prank calls and who is not. Because of their negligence (which apparently some people believe negligence is only caused by drugs and alcohol...whatever), a 6 year-old kid is going to grow up without a mother. **** them.

 

That is a silly comparison. Her intent was not to kill a person. She made a judgement call and it was the wrong call. Any time you have people making decisions there is going to be human error. It is a tragedy and I am sure she will face consequences. Those consequences should not include going to jail. Should she ever work in a 911 call office ever again? Absolutely not.

It is not even in the same league as someone who maliciously murdered someone.

Should all doctors that make mistakes (no matter how big or small) and in the process kill someone go to jail? I think not. I feel that is a much better comparison.

 

If a someone came in to a doctor's office complaining of chest pains and the doctor thought they were lying and refused to treat them? Then the person died of a heart attack? Yes, that doctor should go to jail.

If 25% of the calls were pranks, that means 75% of them are not. That's absurd that these people make a decision on an emergency without following proper protocol because there was a 1 in 4 chance this kid was lying. Unacceptable.

 

WHO HERE IS SAYING IT'S A CRIME?

 

obviously not...and this is the result of it.

the "book" accounts for dealing with prank calls, i'm sure. i'm guessing this wasn't the way to do it.

 

My opinion hasn't changed. She decided to improvise, go against protocol, and should have to live with the results.

 

I am. And apparently some people in Michigan are too.

 

**** happens when you party naked.

 

so what about all these cops blow away innocent people
They knew the job description too
yet we don't seem to put them in Jail

Rocket River

 

The intentions are noble, but if a large percentage of emergency calls are pranks, checking all of them out is a waste of human resources and money. The system's already underfunded and overused.

I believe some money should be spent on awareness for other dispatch numbers (writing them down...). It wouldn't affect this tragedy in particular, but it can reduce the load over time.

 

There was a 75% chance this was a real call, based on the statisitics cited by one of the supervisors. If Frank Billingsley said there was a 75% chance of rain, we'd be carrying umbrellas. And if it was such a waste of human resources and money, it would be in their protocol to make judgment calls on whether or not an emergency call is a prank. It's not, they did, and a woman died.

I agree with this.

 

And the 25% thing is a little deceiving too. There's a big difference between a stupid teenager who calls and says, "Hey, send an ambulance, there's an enormous crack in my butt" and a 5 year old kid who calls, apparently says a lot of inaudible things, but does manage to say clearly enough, "My mommy has passed out." Of course you don't send a car out on the former except to reprimand the culprit, but to not at least send a policeman out to check out the latter is definitely negligence. However, I'm with Meowgi and those that think this should not be considered a crime. She should certainly be fired, but not given jail time.