that is soo horrible. omfg.

that call was soo sad.

I suppose Trauma Mama can't be everywhere at once :P... but you are right, that is very sad. I hope the 911 operator got what he or she deserved.

Why would 911 put people in emergencies on hold?

That's so terrible.

It is horrible she died like that...but we do not know both sides to the story and I think the press likes to play stuff like this up.

Now I am not saying she should have been put on hold. I think that is wrong and can be fatal in certain situations.

What I am saying is that the firemen who arrived could not enter the house due to heat and smoke. They KNEW someone was in there and still could not go in. I think that fact alone means that even if she was not put on hold, it is not likely that she would have survived.

Should the call have been answered faster? Definitely. Should they have put her on hold? Not in my book. Do they need to review their protocols? YES.

But did those actions cause her to die? From what I read, probably not.

Well, don't forget what happened at TM's call center. I don't know if that situation could result in people being put on hold, but I think it's easy to see how a call center can be bogged down by something like that, and I'm sure it happens often.

Moe is right. We don't know both sides, and the media will play up whatever side they choose. 911 is designed to help us, and they do. A couple of days ago we saw the story about the boy stuck in the washer. They helped. The boy is fine. But people crank call 911, and people call 911 for non emergent situations. It is a terrible thing to have happened. Why WAS she put on hold? Could she have been saved if that hadn't happened? I hope they investigate it thoroughly.

Why do we put people on hold? Sometimes we get multiple calls coming in all at once...we have had sometimes 8 calls pending with 3 people (or two on nites) to sort thru them all. If we each have 3 calls (and not all could be regarding the fire, could be a baby not breathing, a car accident, etc) that leaves 5 left to keep ringing.We do not know what the next calls that are pending to be answered are.

Sorry, no one can answer every call in 10 seconds. It would be interesting to see if the call center was dead at that time (and the caller put on hold) or whether there were many other calls coming in.

(still, they said it was a fire and had an address, the should have stopped in their tracks and sent the fire dept out. If we get something big, no matter HOW many calls are holding, the person who takes that call logs out inactive to get the departments going that need to go and answer radio traffic.)

If you had 8 lines ringing into your home and people trying to give you information and you need to call the right person to handle that call so you can pass it off to the right person and answer the next one, can YOU answer them all in 10 seconds or less?

We never put them on hold initially, we gather important information, such as address, phone number (as more people call from cell phones than landlines now) and nature of the problem.

If we have someone who needs us to stay on the line until ems gets there, we will put them on hold, telling them we have to take another emergency call and will be right back.

There is so much more to take into affect as well. You hear silence. I would like to see when dispatch intitially calls the fire department. We mute the caller so we can talk to the departments in question, but they always percieve they are on hold.

Plus, with structure fires, it usually isn't the only dept that goes. Automatic mutual aid comes into affect with more people and resources to call. Ems, red cross, etc.

If only it were as easy to click and send. It's not.