# Mis-routed 911 call causes 20 minute delay



## Tincanfireman (Jul 12, 2009)

A woman in Ohio called 911 for her husband, who was suffering an MI. Because of a combination of errors, the call was routed to a town 20 miles away with a similar street name and numbering.  Read more here


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## WuLabsWuTecH (Jul 12, 2009)

I've always thought it a bad idea to change to VOIP b/c of the psuedo 911 service...

And its really not cheaper than a normal land line either...  At least in my city.


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## usafmedic45 (Jul 12, 2009)

WuLabsWuTecH said:


> I've always thought it a bad idea to change to VOIP b/c of the psuedo 911 service...
> 
> And its really not cheaper than a normal land line either...  At least in my city.


We had this happen through a land line back in 1999.  The major difference was that the call was misrouted from west central Indiana *to Plano, Texas*.  How that happened never really was clarified but it took quite several minutes for the dispatchers down there to get in touch with our dispatchers.  Not that it would have mattered.  The patient was dead from his injury the second it happened (shotgun blast to center mass of an 8 year old).  That is one of the calls that still haunts me to this day....


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## Sasha (Jul 12, 2009)

"something wrong with the system"? It sounds like the mistake was on their end when they misspelt their address change...


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## remote_medic (Jul 12, 2009)

Something very similar happened here in Maine last week. House burned for 20 minutes longer then it needed to...

http://www.sunjournal.com/node/28610/


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## Epi-do (Jul 12, 2009)

How sad for the families in both articles.  Unfortunately, as long as humans are responsible for programming the computers/technology of today, there are going to be errors.  That, combined with the fact that 911 call centers just can't keep up with developing, new technologies means that we are going to continue to hear of more stories like this.  Something tells me things like this happen more often than we are aware of, even though it is a shame that they happen at all.


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## minneola24 (Jul 12, 2009)

When there was an ambulance at my school a while ago I noticed they had GPS and was very concerned if they used this for getting to calls. My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.


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## Tincanfireman (Jul 12, 2009)

minneola24 said:


> When there was an ambulance at my school a while ago I noticed they had GPS and was very concerned if they used this for getting to calls. My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.


 
GPS's are great, but I treat them the same as pulse oximetry; a nice adjunct, but nothing more. Living out here in Hooterville has taught me to rely on my experience and the locator book first, and the GPS a distant second. Many's the time I've done the proverbial "went from his nose to his toes with a detour through his elbow" when I relied on GPS. Additionally, this call had nothing to do with GPS, the call went to an entirely wrong city due to a multitude of human and technological errors.


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## Meursault (Jul 12, 2009)

minneola24 said:


> My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.



They make a T-shirt! 

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/the_plural_of_anecdote_is_not_data_tshirt-235279170565465750


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## MendoEMT (Jul 13, 2009)

Where I'm at there's a different problem, the PSAP that handles cell-phone calls is run by California Highway Patrol and gets swamped with calls, so calling on a cell phone assures a long long long wait.  One woman waited for half and hour while her house burned.


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## Mountain Res-Q (Jul 14, 2009)

minneola24 said:


> When there was an ambulance at my school a while ago I noticed they had GPS and was very concerned if they used this for getting to calls. My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.



GPS... ha ha ha...  IN SAR (at least my area) we have GPS but never use them for anything other than  exact coordinates.  Every SAR newbie wants to know when we train them on GPS and when we hand out GPS.  All I say is "MAP AND COMPASS!!!"  The same thing applys for Street EMS.  If we are going to place our lives in the hands of a finiky machine made in Japan by the lowest bidder... we get what we deserve.  Maps and your brain!!!



MendoEMT said:


> Where I'm at there's a different problem, the PSAP that handles cell-phone calls is run by California Highway Patrol and gets swamped with calls, so calling on a cell phone assures a long long long wait.  One woman waited for half and hour while her house burned.



Ah, California... gotta love the system.  My county is at a crossroads for CHP.  If you call by cell phone here you can get one of 3 CHP dispatch centers depending on where you are in the county.  The closest one?  2 hours away.  The furthest?  4 hours away!  The dispatchers know nothing of where we are at and often (from experience) send dispatch out the wrong area and can't properly relay the dirrections.  Cell Phones and 911 in CA were designed with the thought that any cell 911 call would be by someone on the road.  Whoda thunk that we would abandon home phones for the cell?  Solution?  Learn the non-emergent numbes for local LE, EMS, and Fire and program them in to the phone or call 911 from a land line.


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## rmellish (Jul 16, 2009)

This happens frequently in my area if they don't specify the township the street address is located in the initial dispatch. 

Not 20 mins usually, but easily 10-15 if they really drop the ball. Sad. 

I remember a 40 minute response time to an arrest one night. Gotta love dispatch.


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## redcrossemt (Jul 20, 2009)

I've been transferred on cell phone calls to 911 many times before. If you're near the freeway in our area, they usually route to the State Police. Then, the troopers transfer you to the county. Then the county sheriff's dispatch transfers you to the city. Then the city takes your information, dispatches a fire truck, and transfers you to the private ambulance service that does the pre-arrival instructions.

I can see where many minutes are taken up passing the call before it ever gets dispatched.

They are working on a central fire/rescue/EMS dispatch for the county. I will be very happy if it gets implemented any time soon, especially if there is good county oversight (right now it sounds like it will be in the hands of the private ambulance service).


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## HotelCo (Jul 20, 2009)

Tincanfireman said:


> GPS's are great, but I treat them the same as pulse oximetry; a nice adjunct, but nothing more. Living out here in Hooterville has taught me to rely on my experience and the locator book first, and the GPS a distant second. Many's the time I've done the proverbial "went from his nose to his toes with a detour through his elbow" when I relied on GPS. Additionally, this call had nothing to do with GPS, the call went to an entirely wrong city due to a multitude of human and technological errors.



Awesome Green Acres reference! I love that show.



minneola24 said:


> When there was an ambulance at my school a while ago I noticed they had GPS and was very concerned if they used this for getting to calls. My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.



It hasn't failed me yet. Of course, I always have a map available when I don't know the area.


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## Sasha (Jul 20, 2009)

> When there was an ambulance at my school a while ago I noticed they had GPS and was very concerned if they used this for getting to calls. My dad has had his GPS take him to wrong places plenty of times.



This error wasn't because of GPS, it was because they registered their address wrong when they changed it. How is that the fault of the GPS and why are GPS' being knocked now?


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## WuLabsWuTecH (Jul 20, 2009)

Agreed, it wasn't the GPS's fault here.  They unknwoingly registered the wrong address.

There are also downsides to a central dispatching system.  The major one I see is that in our county, which has an automatic response area (i.e. mutual aid is automatic, there is not need to call for mutual aid.  The computer finds cloest avalaible units to the incident location and dispatches them regardless of which district things happen in.  We are mutual aided to a neighboring suburb all the time since our station is clower to the boarder than theirs are) and a population of over 1.7 million, is that things take forever to dispatch.  Granted with your system they also take forever to dispatch, but we only have one main dispatch channel so if a lot of calls come in at once, we have the dispatchers to handle to calls, but we might be waiting 5 minutes for the "stacked" dispatches to be put out on the dispatch channel.

Furthermore, with that many stations on one frequency, it's easy to hit the wrong buttons and open up the wrong station's PA system or not open one up at all!  Finally its hard to keep track of who staffs what and what is in service.

One of the suburbs has 2 engines, a rescue, a ladder, a haz-mat, 2 medics, an EMS fly car, and a fire batallion command.  Today the city tried to dispatch them sending 2 engines, a rescue, a ladder, a haz-mat and a medic to a scene of a truck accident.  Problem was, they only can staff 3 of the big trucks at a time (engine, rescue, ladder, hasmat) and while they can staff both medics, the guy in the EMS flycar is the same guy in the batallion and a medic and a flycar were already on a run.  They just don't keep the manpower around to use ALL of their trucks at the same time.  So in order to figure out what the city wanted, the guys at that station had to wait for the other stacked dispatches to finish, so they could call back on the frequency to see what equipement they wanted where.

While a central dispatch is a good idea, if it gets too crowded you start running into other issues.  I would prefer dividing the county up in to 3 or 4 areas and have them mutual aid each other.


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