Mom dies after 911 operator ignores boy's call

[Taualumna]

DETROIT (AP) — A five-year-old boy called 911 to report his mother had collapsed in their Detroit apartment but an operator told him he should not be playing with the phone and the woman died before help arrived.

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[amanda6035]

thats....kinda effed up.

[James]

Make them pitch in for the funeral and make them attend.

[honeychile]

It doesn't take a crystal ball to see an unemployment line in someone's future. At least, it better not!

[Lady Pi Phi]

I can't believe she is still on the job. She should at least be suspended while the investigation is in progress.

[wrigley]

OMG that poor little boy.

Local news played the 911 call between the little boy and the 911 dispatcher. She sounded snarky in the conversation. She kept asking him to go get a grownup to come to the phone. Yeah the only grownup in the house is passed out. The kicker is the little boy called back a second time and "somehow" ended up with this woman a second time on the phone.

[AchtungBaby80]

Oh, my goodness... You just don't think of stuff like this ever happening.

[CrimsonTide4]

That poor little boy did the right thing and was not helped.

Fire her!!!

[winnieb]

Originally posted by honeychile
It doesn't take a crystal ball to see an unemployment line in someone's future. At least, it better not!

My crystal ball shows the dispatecher being fired and a lawsuit in the works!

Poor little boy!!!

[AGDee]

The local papers are reporting that she will not be fired but has been disciplined (I believe it's a brief suspension), that she's a veteran dispatcher who has a very good record and that over 1/3 of the calls they get daily are prank calls. NOT that I'm justifying, just saying what the papers are reporting.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by winnieb
My crystal ball shows the dispatecher being fired and a lawsuit in the works!

Me too...that is horrible.

[Leslie Anne]

That is so horribly sad.

[James]

She should be fired.

I agree that accidents and misjudgements happen but she is in a position of serious responsibility.

Remember, death is the one mistake that can't be apologized for or made right.

If the crcumstances hadn't ended with a death I would agree with a simple reprimand.

Originally posted by AGDee
The local papers are reporting that she will not be fired but has been disciplined (I believe it's a brief suspension), that she's a veteran dispatcher who has a very good record and that over 1/3 of the calls they get daily are prank calls. NOT that I'm justifying, just saying what the papers are reporting.

[KillarneyRose]

This reminds me of an incident a couple of years ago outside of Baltimore where someone called 911 to say that a woman was being kidnapped and the operator treated it as a prank call. The woman's body was found in the woods the next day. Apparently, her kidnappers drove her around for hours and made her use her ATM card and then shot her in the head and dumped her body.

This is fresh in my mind because I just read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago that a suit her family filed against the county was dismissed because the judge ruled that the county doesn't have a duty to protect its citizens (or something like that. I'm still working on my first coffee)

Anyhoo, it's just tragic

[DeltAlum]

I'm glad I'm not in this woman's position for a couple of reasons.

First, is the obvious.

Second, being a 911 operator must be a very tough job. I can remember when I was in elementary school, they kept pounding into our heads how expensive and how dangerous false alarms were (are).

With the very high number of crank calls mentioned in the article, I can understand how this kind of thing could happen.

Terribly tragic for all involved.