"Hello, 911, I think someone's breaking into my house... Hello?" ... "ZZZZZZzzzzZZZZZ"

[The Brain]

<a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41820-2004Aug5.html target=new>Woman calls 911 for an emergency... and the dispatcher falls asleep during the call.</a>

Associated Press
Thursday, August 5, 2004; 1:14 PM

BALTIMORE -- After 10 years on the job at Anne Arundel County's 911 call center, Louis Gerber's alleged two-minute snooze may get him a written reprimand or, even, fired.

On June 29, Patricia Berg phoned Anne Arundel County Police to report a possible prowler, but the Glen Burnie resident apparently had to wait precisely 1 minute and 42 seconds for a response.

The reason: Gerber allegedly fell asleep.

After a few moments of back and forth talk, Gerber didn't answer. According to the tape recording, his sleep was broken only when Berg asked him if help was on the way.

\"Hello?\" Berg said several times.

\"Hello...yes?\" Gerber answered.

\"I was just wondering if you were still there?\" Berg asked.

\"What's the problem?\" Gerber asked.

\"I've already told you,\" Berg said. \"You don't remember me telling you what was wrong?\"

Frankly, she's fortunate there was no apparent break-in. Plus, I wonder just how liable he would have been held had there actually been some intruder who proceeded to kill her?

And, apparently, this sort of thing occurs far more frequently than is let on:

• In August 1992, a woman in Lexington, Massachusetts, stabbed by an attacker, gasped an address to the town’s 911 dispatcher approximately five-thirty A.M. The dispatcher couldn't understand it and claims that he reported the call to his supervisor, who dismissed it as a prank. (The supervisor denies being told of the call). A dispatcher on the next shift played back the tape later that morning, understood the address and sent police. By the time the police got there, the woman had died.

• In May 1994, Chicago's Better Government Association, together with a local TV investigative team, went undercover with a hidden camera and caught large numbers of 911 dispatchers asleep on the job.

• In November 1994, ten calls to 911 from panicked Philadelphia residents reported a teenager being beaten by a gang with baseball bats. The callers were met with argumentative and rude response from dispatchers. Forty minutes passed before help was sent. The teenager was beaten to death.

<a href=http://www.emergencydispatch.org/articles/beforeyoucall9112.htm target=new>Read the full article on the "trustworthiness" of 911 here.</a>