Yeah, that had occured to me. She had to take positive action to screw up. It wasn’t negligence, it was malice.
Hang her.
That poor child just wants his mom back, you can tell he thinks there’s still a chance. I hope the rest of his life is made better because of this monumental fuckup.
This actually happend to my SIL’s friend. She’s Japanese, and like many Japanese women has a very young sounding voice. She phoned 911 because her baby was choking and the operater kept insisting on speaking to her mother. I think a combination of a young voice and a language barrier created a situation where friend was saying “My mother is not here (she’s in Japan!), and my baby is choking!” and the operator thinking that some kids doll was broken. However, this operator DID send help and everyone was fine. An important distinction to the story in the OP, for sure.
I think I agree with those that are saying a mistake is acceptable. A totally moronic mistake that even a rookie doesn’t make isn’t acceptable for someone who should know WAY better.
It’s probably going to take a stick of dynamite (figuratively speaking) to get Detroit to fire her worthless ass. I work with dispatchers whom I don’t think should be down there, yet they’ve been fired and re-hired and quit and re-hired - hell, I’ve quit and been re-hired - because we’re always short of people and we need warm bodies who can at least answer telephones.
This woman needs to be gone. 30 years of service? All that means is she’s burned out and doesn’t need to answer phones. It can be hard to maintain empathy, sometimes, but Rule #1 is you always send somebody. A dispatcher’s job is not to decide what calls are worthy of response; her job is to take the information and pass it on to the right people. We’re routers, pure and simple. We take the calls, we give instructions to the callers where appropriate, we prioritize the calls, we dispatch the calls. We’ve sent officers out to a person who reported tiny little Mexicans on horses riding in her trees. We’ve sent an ambulance out to a guy with a toothache. You take enough calls like these and it’s easy to get jaded, but then you answer the phone and it’s a little kid crying or a woman screaming for help because her husband is pounding the shit out of her (or vice versa) and you remember why you’re doing this.
That stupid bitch in Detroit didn’t remember, and now a woman is dead and a little kid doesn’t have a mommy anymore and it’s her fault (yeah, the woman could have been beyond hope, but we’ll never know for sure). She needs to be fired so that she can spend her time sitting in her house thinking about how she was in the position to rescue someone, give help, make a difference - and she failed. Miserably.
YES YES YES!!! Exactly. This wasn’t a “mistake”, or an “accident.” This was someone deliberately dismissing a call for help, because she figured it was a prank call, even though even PRANK CALLS are supposed to be taken seriously.
And someone fucking died because of her.
That kid lost his mom. I don’t think this woman losing her JOB is all that bad when you compare them.
Except if it is policy. It might be that 911 operators in this city casually ignore “obvious pranks” on a regular basis.
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Once the investigation is complete and finds the dispatcher at fault, the dispatcher should be fired.
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Once the investigation is complete and finds the dispatcher at fault, the City should demand an autopsy to determine a precise time of death.
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Once the investigation is complete and finds the dispatcher at fault, and she died in the time that her son called 911, the city should make an offer of at least $1M, grossed up, and sign a NDA.
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Once the investigation is complete and finds the dispatcher at fault, perhaps training at that 9-1-1 center will improve, and this won’t happen there, anymore.
I understand the outrage here, and generally speaking, it’s warranted, yet there are some variables that the news story leaves out such as;
how many times had 9-1-1 been called from that residence in the recent past?
was the phone wireline or wireless (cellular)? subquestion, is the detroit 9-1-1 center phase II wireless compliant (location by GPS or triangulation). Sub-sub question if the phone WAS wireless (cellular) could calls back be made to it.
These things ALL factor into a decision to send responders. Like it or not. If you get a 9-1-1 call from a wireless phone, and you can’t locate it because a) you’re not phase II compliant or active or b) because the phone doesn’t stay connected long enough to re-bid and get new ANI/ALI (number and location) information then you can’t send responders to an area the size of a cellular footprint. (which can be almost a 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and up in some cases).
There’s an initial feeling of WTF! But there are real things to consider before we judge. Real things that effect every single person under the provence of a 9-1-1 system.
I think just losing her job isn’t enough punishment for her taking it upon herself to decide what is and what isn’t a prank call. Losing everything she owns to help take care of this child and spending a few years in a jail cell might persuade her to rethink her decision.
This entire thing makes me sick. What is the point of teaching your children to call 911 if some asshat operator is going to ignore them?
Well that we don’t know. AS far as I could tell there was nothing in the story that indicated one way or the other whether the operator’s indifference made a difference.
However, I agree she deserves to be fired, you simply do not have the right to make the kind of judgement she did wrt the boy’s call. And if it is easily shown that the three hour delay was material in the mother’s death, then certinaly charges of some kind should be brought.
Except, from what I understand, operators are NEVER supposed to ignore “pranks”.
buttonjockey, if you’re going to be methodical and reasonable about this, instead of feeding the group rage, you’re not going to gain much of a mob following here in the pit at all!
I however, pretty much agree with you.
I was trying to dial 9-1 to reach an outside line at work and accidentally dialed 9-1-1. They sent someone up to my cube (even though this mistake happened many, many times each day). You don’t NOT send someone. The city should be sued (I believe each city heads up the 911 emergency services, though I could be wrong). That poor kid.
button, I would agree with you except 1)It doesn’t matter how many times 911 was called in the past. You send the police Every Time. 2) The issue was not that they couldn’t locate the address. The dispatcher refused to take the call seriously and did not send help. It’s not “Sweetie, what’s your address?” it was “You shouldn’t play with 911.”
I do agree that unless they can prove the woman died in the three hours after the call was made but before the cops showed up, then the woman shouldn’t be charged with the death. But her appalling off the cuff dismissal of the call as just a prank cannot be stomached. Even if you suspect a prank, you send help. Period. Then if it was a prank you press charges for filing a false report. The consequences of not sending help because you think it might be a prank, and you turn out to be wrong, are too great. It’s called CYA.
I’d be willing to Pit you for not whole-heartedly thinking this is Pittable. But you’re such a gentle soul, I have to let it go. Hell, you’ve never Pitted me, proving you’re nice to a fault.
I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. But only a moment, stay with me on this.
Maybe the 911 operator got a few calls in the past about the woman being “passed-out”. Maybe she though a 6-year-old describing his mother as being “passed-out” didn’t ring any bells. Detroit, being such a peaceful city to be in, probably deals with enough burning buildings and shootings each night to become immune to a mom passing out in front of her kids. I can’t imagine it happens often in Detroit.
That said, Detroit has earned it’s place in shitty cities to live. Even if this kids mom came home late from a bar and passed out on the kitchen floor, 911 is useful for two reasons.
First, if she’s dying or dead and a 6 year old calls, send someone to check it out. If there’s an adult there, don’t ask to talk to them. They would have probably called you themselves in most cases.
Second, if the mom is passed out and the 6 year old calls you afraid there’s something wrong, GET THE FUCKING COPS THERE TO DOCUMENT THIS SHIT!!!
If it’s a “simple” case of mom passing out in front of a 6 year old, why isn’t that in and of itself reason to get the cops out there?!? If mom was out in the bars all day and comes home to pass out in front of a 6 year old, it might be a good idea to get someone out there at some point. Even if you don’t want to dispatch a cop, yau may mention to someone:
“I got a call from a child that said his mom is passed out on the kitchen floor and there’s no adult there I could talk to. Could you swing by at your leisure just to make sure everything’s OK?”
Unless the 911 operator is so far out of touch (as it seems) to realize TWO
Before calling for systematic improvements in Detroit’s 911 system, it’d be good to know if this represents a systematic failure, or one operator’s not doing her job properly.
Philadelphia overhauled its 911 system after the murder of Eddie Polec in 1994. Operators were reported to have ignored dozens of appeals for help from callers while Polec (a teenaged boy) was being beaten to death on the steps of a suburban church; operators were rude or openly antagonistic to callers (three operators wound up being fired; three were suspended). No help arrived for over 40 minutes after the first call. There were also unpleasant racial overtones (all of the operators were black— the victim, his attackers and apparently most or all of the callers were white).
Hope race didn’t play a factor in the Detroit case.
(heh, CapsLock+space bar = post)
Unless the 911 operator is so far out of touch (as it seems) to realize TWO calls from the same number are pranks. In which case a cop should be sent to lock up the caller for the night to lessen the burden.
I had a chance 10 years ago at a pretty good job in Detroit. Just didn’t want to live there. And that’s when I was single. Why the hell would anyone want to move there? The tourism board has done their damndest, but other than a week long visit, would anyone really want to move there?
A once great city. Sad really. And angering. There is no excuse for this. Somebody please restore Detroit to one of the great cities to live in.
And fire this bitch. Fuck the union, fire her. The sewer rats have more common sense than this bitch.
Jackmannii I remember that case, but didn’t know what kind of sanctions those operators got. I feel, that at the least this 911 operator ought to be fired, and at the most prosecuted if it is shown that the woman would likely be alive had the operator done her job and sent help.
The operator was black. No race unless you really want to reach for it. I think it’s a systemic thing that has been a long time in the making.
It’s not racial, from what I can see and have seen for years there. And it’s not just the 911 operator’s. Well, it’s not the 911 operator’s, but rather the whole setup. From the courts, to the law enforcement, to the civil servants, to the street cleaners. The whole city is messed up and nobody wants to take a stand. It’s more of the same year in and year out to do just enough to keep the city from buring (and they’re failing that as well) and keep themselves in power.
Detroit, IMO as an outsider, is nothing more than a border for the economicaly viable suburbs to have a place to keep those that just don’t give a shit. Look at anything keping the area going, and it’s almost guaranteed to be outside the city limits.
I’ve always had a soft-spot for Detroit as a “blue-collar town” where you can buy a bungalow or brownstone and make it on 40 hours a week. From my visits and talking to old friends that llive in the area, Detroit isn’t any of that. The suburbs are. But Detroit-proper is just a mess that nobody wants to deal with.
Sad really. One of America’s great cities and nobody cares it’s turning (turned) into shit. When I think of Detroit, it’s the suburbs. It’s the only area I’d want to visit. And the only area I don’t have to worry 24/7 about being shot in. The risk is there in the suburbs when I go, but it’s not a 50/50 proposition.
Oh I agree, but the known unknowns are staring us in the face…the fact that we don’t know where this call came from, and/or if it could be traced or located is a HUGE deal. Kids get ahold of their parents cellphones all the time, and even many de-activated ones can dial 9-1-1. If the dispatcher dismissed this as a prank on a wireline phone that was directly addressable, and this woman died in the interim, the dispatcher is, or at least SHOULD BE liable in her death, be fired, jailed, and tattooed with the the dead womans name.
And if it is policy, that’s exactly why you slap emergency services with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and not just the operator.