Attempt to summarize for those who don’t want to click linky: 89-year-old man drives brand-new SUV into lake behind house. Calls 911. Operator repeatedly tells the man to calm down while getting information and dispatching responders, sometimes each of them talking over each other. 911 operator never gives man any instructions as to things he might do for himself, which the article insinuates is a problem and that the call might have been mishandled. The call was nearly three minutes and by the end of the call the man says water is coming in and the vehicle is sinking, and that’s all we know from the article. Rescue crews attempted to break windows to extract the man, but ended up having to winch the SUV out before they could get to him. By then he was drowned.
I can’t decide if I’m sad or angry or what, hearing about this 89-year-old man who drove into a lake behind his property and couldn’t seem to figure out how to get out. Is the 911 operator culpable? Is it her fault the man drowned in his own car? The article insinuates as much. Do 911 call centers have every possible scenario written down with procedural for operators to read off to callers? If not, why would anyone think the operator did anything wrong, why would it be her fault the guy couldn’t figure out to climb through a window (maybe he couldn’t, at 89, anyway), or to wait until pressure equalized to open the door? What if he couldn’t swim, and because of that wouldn’t attempt to leave the vehicle anyway?
This makes it sound like the vehicle was still above water when they were trying to get him out/get to the vehicle. So why couldn’t they/he open the doors? Did he have them locked? Was he too confused to do anything other than call 911? (Considering that he drove into the lake behind his house, I’m kind of leaning that way.)
It was stated the car was brand new, so the auto-lock doors are a real possibility. However, all the newer cars I’ve been in that do that, also release from the inside without having to unlock anything. Just pull the inside door handle and it opens. From the outside, no. I’ve found it to be a useful feature in the city, because I have had people come up to my car at intersections and try to open a door! But in the name of needing to know how things work, I’ve also made sure the doors open for me from inside after I hear them auto-lock, and so far all of them have.
Yes, but that suggests to me that he didn’t even try the door, as pulling the handle automatically unlocks and opens it. Maybe it was floating too low at that point, which would make sense. I’d like to hear what the neighbors saw when they were swimming out there - was he trying to open the door/window? Or just focusing on the phone call?
It reminds me of the women in Maine who just died last week after plunging their vehicle off a boat ramp; they had time to place a phone call as well, and drowned too.
(Another mention that I made in that thread - get a window breaker/seatbelt cutter like this or this and secure it somewhere easy to get to and to remove (velcro, whatever) in your car. Even if you don’t have to use it yourself, maybe you can save someone else.)
I listened to the audio. She dispatched the Fire Dept within 20 secs of his calling. The rest is her trying to get him to calm down.
If his first move is to call 911 vs opening a door I think we have to assume he’s too feeble to escape by himself. If water was pressing on the doors and he was deep enough in to be fully underwater I can imagine it would have been almost impossible for him to open the doors. I don’t what she could have told him to do that would have made a difference. Maybe opening the roof hatch assuming the car wasn’t shorted out at that point.
I think the only way he was going to get out of that vehicle was if someone hauled him out and there wasn’t enough time to do that.
I’m not sure if the dispatch job encourages her to get creative in the first place.
No, it is not the operator’s fault. It is the fault of the old man with dementia for driving his vehicle into the water. I would think that would be obvious.
It is impossible to have every possible scenario mapped out but we do have instructions for several common incidents and a few rare ones. When something new makes the news in a big way it tends to spur the creation of a new guide card.
So we now have a guide card to give advice to someone reporting receiving a suspicious powder in the mail. We have another one for a vehicle with uncontrolled acceleration.
There was a training article within the last year or so in one of the industry trade magazines about sinking vehicles. The point that was stressed is to get the person out of the vehicle very fast, within 30 sec IIRC. Delay some of the other usual questioning if you have to.
There is no way to know if the dispatcher in this incident had read that article or even if her agency subscribes to that particular certification organization.
ETA: It is usually easier to open the door right away or else when the vehicle is nearly fully flooded. Partially sunk vehicles have a lot of water pressure holding the door shut. Mythbusters did a show on that.
This is the second time in a week I have read a story on here about somebody driving into a lake and then ringing somebody for help, and my reaction was the same both times, why the fuck would you make a phone call when you are in a sinking car?
Even if you got the worlds greatest dispatcher on the line you will be submerged before anybody gets to you. I know people panic, but are we so reliant on mobile phones these days that we jump straight to the phone even when its probably the worst thing to do. You have limited time to do something to save your life, and you are going to sit there on a phone hoping a miracle happens? Really?
Anyway, regardless of that, I wonder if manufacturers could have an optional extra in their cars, an emergency button on the dash that when pushed immediately lowers all electric windows.
The issue isn’t the door, but the window. As Tellyworth points out, once the water is on the outside of the door, it’s impossible to open it. The way to exit is to roll down or break the window and swim out.
If the car had power windows, they may have been shorted out and useless. They do have hammers designed to break the windows, but it’s quite likely the driver didn’t have one.
The rescuers could have broken a window, but if you don’t know about the issues involved, you’d probably try to open the door, which is impossible even if the door were unlocked.
So, really, there was nothing the dispatcher could have told him to do. Someone had to arrive who knew to break the window and who had the means to do it. The fire department would know, or maybe a passerby, but the driver in the car could only sit tight and remain calm.
You have a fucked up idea of what fault means, then. If you are positing that he was not of sound mind, it by definition CANNOT be his fault. How vile.
The electrical system of a car will continue to work for quite a long time after submersion. Water is a conductor, but it’s not an awesome conductor; it’s not like being immersed in liquid metal. Electricity will still prefer to flow through the wiring system, which has much lower resistance than the water. So yes, even after the car is fully submerged - and before you’ve drowned - an undamaged car should still have functioning power windows and power door locks.
The instruction I’ve heard repeatedly is that if your car ends up in water, you should immediately lower all the windows and climb/swim out. Egress will be easier before water reaches the bottom of the window opening, and also after water is done pouring in (i.e. no air left inside the car). If you can’t open the windows (damaged electrical system), then you can wait until the car is full of water and pressure has been equalized, at which point it will become possible to open a door and make your escape. This will require getting one last breath of air before the car fills completely, which will then give you time to get a door open.
The “car in water” and “swimmer in rip current” scenarios are covered regularly on the evening news - usually right after someone has died that way. A more proactive person can browse YouTube and find several hundred billlion videos demonstrating how to avoid death in these situations.