911 Call Center Investigates Delayed Response to Drowning Woman
By: Brittney Johnson, KARK 4 News
Updated: January 17, 2013
The Little Rock 911 Communications center is upgrading it's training
policies to keep you safe after a woman drowned waiting for help.
The case is under investigation. Right now, authorities will only confirm a woman called 911 at 7:57 Monday morning but her call was 26 minutes later. Now the center is trying to put more safeguards in place to prevent anything like this from happening again.
When a call comes in to the Little Rock 911 center every second and every word count. Trainees practice on a simulator making calls and sending for help.
Trainer Alan Cate checked a trainee's practice call, saying "It shows the number and the call was successfully entered."
If you call 911 the first person you'll talk to is a call taker who determines what time of emergency you have and pushes your call to police or fire dispatch centers. Authorities are investigating what went wrong Monday morning, when Jinglei Yi called from her car, with her son, as the two were sinking in a pond. "Water is in my car, I'm falling down, right now," she says in a 911 recording.
"In this specific incident it was in a remote location and not visible to passing citizens so we just got the one call" says 911 Communications Director Laura Martin.
"We're going to get help on the way for you," a call taker says in the recording. Rescue crews finally made it to the scene 43 minutes later, too late for Yi, who was pronounced dead.
"The is the worse case scenario for any 911 center," says Martin. "It's shaken up the entire department."
Martin says it is department policy for the call takers to stay on the phone while MEMS is contacted, they're looking into whether that was case here, or if they got off the call too soon. The call taker is on leave during the investigation. Yi's son, who was also in the car, is still in the hospital.
The director says, they are looking into enhancing their equipment and adding trainers to each shift in an effort to prevent calls from slipping through the cracks.
The case is under investigation. Right now, authorities will only confirm a woman called 911 at 7:57 Monday morning but her call was 26 minutes later. Now the center is trying to put more safeguards in place to prevent anything like this from happening again.
When a call comes in to the Little Rock 911 center every second and every word count. Trainees practice on a simulator making calls and sending for help.
Trainer Alan Cate checked a trainee's practice call, saying "It shows the number and the call was successfully entered."
If you call 911 the first person you'll talk to is a call taker who determines what time of emergency you have and pushes your call to police or fire dispatch centers. Authorities are investigating what went wrong Monday morning, when Jinglei Yi called from her car, with her son, as the two were sinking in a pond. "Water is in my car, I'm falling down, right now," she says in a 911 recording.
"In this specific incident it was in a remote location and not visible to passing citizens so we just got the one call" says 911 Communications Director Laura Martin.
"We're going to get help on the way for you," a call taker says in the recording. Rescue crews finally made it to the scene 43 minutes later, too late for Yi, who was pronounced dead.
"The is the worse case scenario for any 911 center," says Martin. "It's shaken up the entire department."
Martin says it is department policy for the call takers to stay on the phone while MEMS is contacted, they're looking into whether that was case here, or if they got off the call too soon. The call taker is on leave during the investigation. Yi's son, who was also in the car, is still in the hospital.
The director says, they are looking into enhancing their equipment and adding trainers to each shift in an effort to prevent calls from slipping through the cracks.
