Deaf Confront Deadly Problem: Unanswered Help Calls to 911

The death of a deaf woman from respiratory failure in San Diego--after she failed to get through to the emergency 911 telephone system--has triggered reports throughout California that 911 emergency operators are hanging up on calls from the deaf.

Such cases, reported in at least a half dozen counties, are emerging after a 911 operator in San Diego last summer hung up after mistakenly taking the sound of the woman’s telecommunications machine for a child playing with a touch-tone telephone.

The problem stems in part from the fact that emergency operators receive so few calls from the deaf that many do not recognize the high-pitched beeping of the telecommunications devices, known as TDDs, that deaf people nationwide are increasingly using to communicate by telephone.

Police and fire departments have also failed to maintain their TDDs on the receiving end, say advocates for the deaf and state 911 officials. Emergency operators as well as some deaf people appear to be confused about how to place and receive calls for help.

‘Failure to Serve’ Deaf

“I think what we’re looking at is a categorical failure to serve the deaf community,” said Greg Relyea, a San Diego lawyer representing the family of the woman who died last year. “The equipment is not adequate, the training procedures are not implemented and records of problems are not maintained.”

About 220,000 Californians have hearing so impaired that they are unable to communicate by telephone. Because many deaf people are unable to speak, they rely on TDDs--small devices like word processors consisting largely of a keyboard on which to type messages for telephone transmission to other TDDs.

Police and fire departments are expected to train their operators to recognize the high-pitched beeping of a TDD. Upon hearing it, they are supposed to transfer the call to a TDD in the office. A trained operator can type messages back to the caller.

Under state law, TDDs are distributed free to the deaf and hearing-impaired by telephone companies under a program subsidized by a surcharge on all telephone bills. State officials are uncertain how many TDDs are in use, but Pacific Bell alone has distributed more than 15,000.

Last March, Pacific Bell informed TDD users that the 911 system was accessible to them. “It is simple and easy to use,” Pacific Bell said in a brochure. “911 has saved thousands of lives and stopped crime. Don’t be afraid to use it.”

Followed Instructions

Jay Shufeldt, a retired newspaper printer living in San Diego, says he was aware of those instructions and followed them last July 17 after returning home to find his 72-year-old wife, Mary, having trouble breathing.

Over the next three hours, Shufeldt, who is deaf, called 911 by TDD three times. Each time, he received no response on the printout from his TDD. Finally, Shufeldt reached a daughter, who can hear and speak. She called 911 from her home and paramedics responded. By the time they arrived, Mrs. Shufeldt had died.

An internal investigation by the San Diego Police Department confirmed that the 911 operator had failed to recognize the TDD signal and hung up, thinking “that children were playing with the phone,” Capt. George Malloy said.

Attorney Relyea is pursuing a wrongful-death claim against the city, county and state, contending that he has medical evidence suggesting Mrs. Shufeldt would not have died had she gotten prompt medical care.

Meanwhile, news of the incident has spread through the deaf community nationwide, largely in newsletters published by agencies serving the deaf. In California, it has brought to light other reports of communications difficulties the deaf have experienced in emergencies.

Among them:

- In Riverside County, the Inland Service Center for the Deaf and Hearing-Impaired has asked the Riverside Police Department to investigate a complaint from a deaf woman who said she was unable to reach 911 when her husband had a severe asthma attack on July 26. The woman ended up contacting a deaf friend with a son who can hear. He called 911.

- In Alameda County, a group of young deaf people reported that they were unable to reach 911 when they believed a roommate was suicidal, said Wanda Dryden, an interpreter at the NORCAL Center on Deafness. After breaking down the bedroom door and taking the roommate to the hospital, they returned to find a police officer at their apartment investigating what the department had concluded were crank calls, Dryden said.

- Tony Papalia, a job counselor with NORCAL, said a member of his deaf bowling league in Sacramento told him he had been unable to get through to 911 after seeing a car hit a small boy. Papalia said another friend had been unable to get through after suffering a stroke at a party. In the end, neighbors called 911.

- Attorney Relyea recently received a letter from a counselor at a social service agency in Sonoma County who said a deaf client had tried without success to call 911 on July 6, believing someone was breaking into his house. The police later told the instructor that they believed an inexperienced operator had not understood the TDD, the letter to Relyea said.

- In Pasadena, Lt. Wesley Rice said the Police Department discovered that its sole TDD worked only intermittently. The discovery was made when Pauline Annarino from Life Signs showed up to discuss police communications with the deaf and asked her office to call the station by TDD. The TDD has since been replaced, Rice said.

- In Orange County, Fullerton Fire Chief Ron Coleman said he called seven emergency dispatch centers in Orange County and “found many . . . have their TDD hooked up to old seven-digit numbers” for the deaf rather than to the 911 system. He said last week that he had alerted all fire departments in the county and would ask the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs in Washington to send out a national alert.

- At a meeting in Arleta in the San Fernando Valley last month to discuss fears about the 911 system with police and state 911 officials, several members of the audience of about 80 deaf people told additional stories of being unable to get through in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

In an interview last week, William Brandenburg, the 911 program manager, said he is now convinced that there is a problem, and that it stems from inadequate training of police emergency operators and poor maintenance of police department TDDs.

Brandenburg said most of the problems seem to have resulted from emergency telephone-operator inexperience--even though his office distributes a two-minute training tape that police and fire departments should use to familiarize operators with the sound of a TDD.

But he said he suspects that some of the hearing-impaired may not be using their equipment properly. When calling for emergency help, Brandenburg speculated, they may not be hitting the TDD space bar to activate the high-pitched tone, which informs the operator it is a TDD call.

Advocates for the deaf agree that that may explain some instances in which deaf people say they were unable to get through. Because most deaf people communicate largely with other deaf people, they do not usually need to activate the high-pitched tone.

TDDs in Disrepair

Brandenburg also said it also seems that the TDDs in some dispatch centers get so little use that they fall into disrepair. Finally, he said, most emergency operators are probably unfamiliar with the abbreviated English many deaf people use when communicating by TDD.

Several modifications to the system have been suggested.

General Telephone of California intends to begin this month testing a new TDD with an electronic “voice enunciator.” A recorded voice replaces the high-pitched beeping sound and states that a hearing-impaired person is calling and should be connected to a TDD.

The device was developed recently for the state of Florida, where the state agency for the deaf asked telecommunications contractors to develop a voice enunciator system. If it works, General Telephone intends to make it available to its TDD customers in California.

Meanwhile, Brandenburg said, most police and fire departments would be better off not using their own TDDs for 911 calls. He is encouraging them to refer TDD 911 calls to the so-called state relay system initiated last month.

Under that system, deaf people using TDDs can communicate with hearing people using telephones by calling a central interpretation bureau in Hayward. There, a professional interpreter with a TDD and a phone serves as an intermediary in a conference call.

Some law enforcement agencies already use the service. When an emergency operator receives a TDD call and recognizes the high-pitched tone, he or she transfers the call to the interpretation bureau, stays on the line, then dispatches appropriate help.

But Fire Chief Coleman in Fullerton disagreed with Brandenburg, saying he feels community departments should be allowed to deal directly with their constituencies. He questioned how many calls the state translation bureau could handle in the event of an emergency.

“My perception of the problem is that it is a classic example of a communications gap,” Coleman said. “The people in the deaf community are obviously picking up more and more access . . . and yet the fire services and law enforcement services receive so few calls utilizing this system that the dispatch centers really haven’t caught up to speed.”

He added: “I think it’s indicative of a broader problem concerning any specific disability. . . . What it boils down to is these people are such a small population, they tend to get lost in the shuffle.”