When 911 Calls Fall Through the Cracks

When 911 mistakes occur, the results often are horrendous, seeming to obliterate the rescues operators make around the clock day after day after day.

In Philadelphia on Nov. 11, for example, a flurry of calls about roving thugs got less than good attention. When they finally evoked a response, a boy had been beaten to death.

“It just concerns me that people around the country may begin to doubt the effectiveness of their own systems because of this one incident,” said Kevin Duffy, a spokesman for the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials International.

Operators around the country handle millions of 911 calls a day, Duffy said, “and they’re all handled well.”

Even so, the recent Philadelphia tragedy evokes memories of others.

Just five days before, a man died of a heart attack in Castleberry, Ala., a town of 670 people, while his wife dialed 911 for help and got no answer. That’s when county authorities discovered the 911 phone line had been out of order 11 days.

When a house fire killed three children in Portland, Ore., in 1991, the city’s understaffed 911 system was held partly to blame for a 25-minute delay.

San Franciscans still recall what happened to the college student who called 911 at 1 a.m. in 1990 from a closed service station where his broken-down car had been towed. “Someone is breaking into my car and I need help!” he told the operator.

Despite sounds of a struggle and the young man’s shouts, the operator gave the call a low priority. Scott Quackenbush’s father found him days later, beaten to death, behind the gasoline station.

In 1989, a Los Angeles woman called 911 after being told her estranged husband was on his way to her 27th birthday party to kill her. The operator said she should call back. When her husband turned up, he burst in firing a handgun and killed her--and three other women, as well.