I can't even believe this.

"911, Can you hold?"

it's this news story.

A woman in Bucks County, PA, died in a fire. She was disabled and could not get out of the house on her own. It's possible the 911 delay contributed to her death - it is said the phone rang 7 times before someone picked up, and then she was placed on hold.

"911, can you please hold?"

I'm sorry, but absent a disaster/event on the scale of September 11, 2001, those are words you should never hear. I'm not big on the entitlement mentality - as you are all well aware - but I do think the ONE government service we should be able to trust will help us is the 911/fire/police/EMTs.

Apparently there were 10 dispatchers on duty. They were not all busy. Apparently there was some "handing off" of the woman's case, causing further delay.


Once the firefighters WERE dispatched, it took them 5 minutes to arrive at the woman's house. Which is why I say the delay only possibly contributed to her death - 5 minutes, in a house fire, is easily long enough for a person to die. But still. Can you imagine the agonizing last minutes, wondering if anyone cared enough to help you. I mean, the people your tax dollars pay for.

And I realize I'm reading this through a very particular set of lenses: I live alone. If there were a major emergency and I needed help, it would be horrifying to be told to wait, to hold, and then have to listen to the balls-up as people try to figure out where I am.

Granted, I'm not disabled, so in many cases I'd be able to take care of things myself. But if I were, say, bleeding to death, I'd really hope that someone would be competent enough to dispatch the ambulance to where I was.

And yeah, I have some prior history with seeing the ineptitude or uncaringness of dispatchers: a woman I know who used to live here, one evening, saw one of her neighbors chasing his adult son up and down the street with a shotgun, cursing at him and threatening to shoot. This was while her children were playing outside. After getting the children in, she called 911. The operator first didn't believe her (???) and then said that it didn't seem like a major problem to her. (Yeah, right: a possibly-drunk, angry man, running through a residential area waving a gun and threatening to shoot it.)

And a couple years ago, when we had a minor fire in my classroom building, the dispatcher sent the firefighters to the wrong building on campus. Because, you know? "Biology Building" and "Science Building" just HAVE to be the same thing.

(The campus safety-guru was pretty pissed about that and I understand he gave that dispatcher a piece of his mind. We had even told the woman the address of our building. And I know, because I was the one who made the 911 call. And I was CALM. I was articulate. I said where the fire was, what the address was, even what the two nearest cross streets were. I verified a second time the building name. And they sent the firefighters to the wrong building!)

So anyway. I have real issues with the idea that when you need help, when it might be a matter of life and death, you can't depend on the people whose job it is to help you. And no, I'm not expecting the paramedics to come out for every little splinter or scrape - I drove myself to the ER the one time when I was concerned I was having a medical problem large enough to merit it (allergic reaction to fire ant bites). But I hope that if I ever wake up some morning and realize that I'm having a stroke, or if some lunatic breaks into my house and rapes and injures me seriously, that I can call 911 and NOT be told "hold, please."

The real kicker? The operators who told her to hold, who basically dropped the ball, are getting "disciplinary letters" in their files, and that's it.

Now, I understand: 911 and the paramedics won't save people in every case. There may be situations where time is just too short for the person for them to be saved. But they should at least make a damn effort!