EMT dispatcher stays on 911 call for eight hours to help locate stroke victim

[sio]

A heroic FDNY dispatcher went beyond the call of duty - staying on the phone with an elderly Upper East Side stroke victim for nearly eight hours while rescuers struggled to pinpoint the woman’s location.

Comments

[tinylegacies]

Good for that operator but HOLY SHIT it never should have taken them 8 hours to find her.

[gloraelin]

yeah, seriously, when my car broke down and I didn't know where I was exactly, it took the operator about a minute and a half to find me, via my damn cell signal. I mean, I hope that the infrastructure isn't THAT different from Washington to NY, but REALLY?!

[rex_dart]

If your car is broken down, you're visible outside from all up and down the street; the signal doesn't have to be that accurate. If you're in an apartment in the city, you're basically inside a box that's buried somewhere in a ridiculously huge pile of boxes. I don't even live in a place with a lot of highrises, and the population density in my neighborhood is 33,000 people per square mile. That's a lot of housing to search even if you've got a good, accurate idea of where a person is.

[moonshaz]

Right on. We're talking about New York fucking City here. That's like looking for the world's smallest needle in a haystack the size of Mongolia.

I'm just so VERY glad they finally did find her.

[romp]

How old is "elderly"? She missed the 2-hour window to reverse damage so this is going to affect her ability to work at least short-term. :/

I thought phone lines showed up with an address and cells had GPS. Is it that it's so inexact, especially in such a dense city?

I'm glad the operator did the right thing for this woman. :)

[romp]

thanks!

[crystaltear]

While this is a nice story, I'd like to point out that police dispatchers do this all the time and they rarely get any appreciation for it.

[dissident]

Are you one of them by any chance, because otherwise WTF is this comment

[crystaltear]

I have three in my immediate family, and I don't see anything wrong with the comment: the fact is that dispatchers are faced with all types of dire situations where they are stuck at their desk or remain on the line with someone during an emergency.

[nerwende]

Good thing her cell phone's battery lasted for 8 hours.

[nycscribbler]

Part of me really appreciates the dispatcher's effort and dedication. Part of me wonders what other calls were slowed up or not dealt with properly because one dispatcher was tied up for eight hours.