Turning a Deaf Ear

It is hard to understand how officials responsible for San Diego’s 911 system could have taken the casual approach they apparently did to making the emergency communications lifeline available to the deaf.

A state law that went into effect Jan. 1, 1986, required all telephone emergency systems in California to install equipment that allows the deaf to use the 911 phone number just as hearing people do. Prior to the change, there was a special, seven-digit number, such as 233-DEAF, that persons using telecommunications devices for the deaf (TDDs) could call for help. Early last year, Pacific Bell mailed brochures informing TDD users about the new procedure.

The trouble was that San Diego had not made the switch. In July of last year, a 72-year-old woman died after her deaf husband tried unsuccessfully to use the new number. The 911 operator thought the high-pitched beeps his TDD made were the result of children playing with the phone, a police investigator later said.

Documents obtained by The Times show that in early 1986, Pacific Bell employees became aware that San Diego had not converted to the new system for the deaf and communicated their concern to the city and to the state’s 911 program manager. That seems to have caused no sense of urgency on the part of emergency officials.

It remains unclear whether the conversion had actually occurred by July when Mary Bell Shufeldt collapsed and died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But what is certain is that the emergency operator did not know how to handle a TDD call that came in on the 911 line.

The police lieutenant in charge of 911 in San Diego blamed misdirected mail for the failure to get the new system for the deaf operating sooner. He said instructions and training materials from the state never arrived at the appropriate office.

That may have been the case, but the Pacific Bell documents reflect at least two conversations about the matter between the phone company and the 911 dispatch supervisor and a phone call and a letter to the state program manager.

What’s striking about this fiasco is not only what appears to be incompetence on the part of those managing the 911 system, but also their cavalier attitude that seems to have treated the new law as if it were a requirement to plant additional shade trees downtown, not a question of saving lives.