911 Calls Received

Following are the 911 calls received by dispatchers at the Evanston Fire Department after Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler collapsed Aug. 3 during an on-campus summer conditioning drill. They were obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

5:03:04 p.m. Cell phone call made to Evanston 911 center.

Trainer Tory Aggeler: We need a paramedic.

Evanston Dispatcher: Where?

Aggeler: At the sports and aquatic center, OK.

EV Dis: Hello . . . can you hear me? . . . What have you got over there, sir?

Aggeler: We have got . . . (garble).

EV Dis: Hello, hello, sir? . . . Hello?

5:04:10

EV Dis: Do you have something going on at the sports and aquatic place? I got this really bad cell phone call about someone unconscious or something like that.

Northwestern Dispatcher: I don’t know if there’s anything going on at sports aquatics. Why, you got a call from there?

EV Dis: Well, I don’t know. I got this really bad cell phone call, some guy, I could only make it out as they needed an ambulance over there. I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but . . .

NW Dis: OK, I could get someone over there.

5:04:51, second cell phone call is made by campus police officer on the scene.

Officer: How are you doing? . . . I got a call for you from Evanston about an ambulance request from a soccer field.

Second Evanston Dispatcher: This is a nonemergency call?

Officer: This is an emergency. We need an ambulance. Would you like to speak to him?

Second EV Dis: Well, yeah.

Officer: Go ahead, sir.

Second EV Dis: Hello?

Chabot: Hi, [coordinator of football operations] Justin Chabot with Northwestern football. We tried to call an ambulance. We are out at the lake field here at Northwestern University. . . . I guess the cell phone died.

Second EV Dis: At the Tech Institute?

Chabot: We are behind the sports and aquatic center.

Second EV Dis: If this for the 11-year-old with the cut toe?

Chabot: No, this is for a football player that’s got a heatstroke thing going on.

Second EV Dis: All right, what building are you at?

Chabot: We are behind sports and aquatic center on the lawn on the lake at Northwestern University. They are going to want to enter the campus off of Lincoln Street and come around.

Second EV Dis: Hang on.

Chabot: OK.

Second EV Dis: (to someone near her): Do they have an address for the sports and aquatic center?

Second EV Dis: (To Chabot) . . . got an officer going over there.

Chabot: Yeah, but we need to get an ambulance.

Second EV Dis: (to someone near her) Heatstroke, heatstroke. Do you have an address?

Second EV Dis: (To Chabot) All right, we’ll get somebody out there. How old is he?

Chabot: He’s 21 years old and he’s not doing good.

Second EV Dis: It’s behind the aquatic center?

Chabot: It’s on the field hockey . . . fields.

5:06:47.--Ambulance and fire truck dispatched

NW Dis: OK, heatstroke was just confirmed. Finally someone got through to me. It’s going to be . . . field hockey field behind sports aquatics . . . and we got officers responding and they should be there in a minute.

5:08

Truck 23: We are en route.

EV Dis: OK, it’s going to be one of the field hockey fields or one of the soccer fields just south of the sports and aquatic center. You got to go down Lincoln to the whole drive area there.

Truck 23: OK, we know where it’s at, thank you.

NW Dis: They are doing CPR on the subject right now, so if you could tell them to kind of speed it up.

EV Dis: They should be there in a minute.

Ambulance 21: Where’s 2(22) coming from?

EV Dis: I assume quarters.

Ambulance 21: Divert them over here to the Tech building and the stubbed toe. We are going to divert over to the heatstroke.

EV Dis to Ambulance 22: OK, Ambulance 21 is right there, they can go to the heatstroke if you want to take the stubbed toe. They are much closer.

NW Dis: 21, come off of Lincoln, pull your ambulance right through the gate, right to the patient.

Ambulance 21: 10-4.

5:09:42--Engine 23 on the scene.

5:11:10--Ambulance 21 arrives at the scene

5:22:30--Ambulance 21 en route to Evanston Hospital

5:25:35--Ambulance 21 arrives at Evanston Hospital.

5:45:00--Wheeler pronounced dead.