Griffith and Lake County officials are blaming human error for a delay in response Monday from first responders to a medical emergency 911 call from an elderly Griffith man who later died.
According to a release issued jointly late Tuesday afternoon from the Griffith Police Department, Lake County E911 Dispatch and Prompt Ambulance Service, E911 dispatch received a call at around 7:55 p.m. Monday from an 81-year-old man who they thought lived in the 300 block of Lillian Street. Prompt Ambulance Service responded to the call, but medics couldn’t get a response at that address from the man, who has not been identified.
Prompt medics then requested help from the Griffith Police Department, who discovered they were at the wrong address, the release said.
An officer searched the man’s last name in a local police database and determined the man lived in the 800 block of North Lillian Street, according to the release. When emergency personnel arrived at the right house, the man was found unresponsive, the release said. He was taken to Community Hospital in Munster, where he was pronounced dead, the press release said.
Brian Hitchcock, Lake County’s 911 director, said Tuesday an investigation is ongoing into the problem that began when the person taking the initial call entered the wrong address into the system before it was transferred to a dispatcher, who then sent emergency response to the wrong address.
The dispatcher, as part of center’s operating protocol, should have confirmed that address once the call was transferred from the call taker, Hitchcock said.
“That was clearly a dispatcher error,” he said, adding the mistake was not a training issue stemming from the recent county consolidation. The dispatcher who handled the call has nine years of previous dispatch experience and should have known to verify the address, he said.
Hitchcock said the dispatcher has been placed on an unpaid five-day suspension while the investigation continues. “Unfortunately, people are not machines and they make some mistakes,” Hitchcock, adding it is a profession where 99 percent efficiency is not good enough, it must be 100 percent.
The investigation into the call is ongoing, said Griffith Police Cmdr. Keith Martin.
The county’s consolidated dispatch center became fully operational Oct. 21, but the man’s death is the second to occur since Lake County’s E911 system went online.
Northern Indiana Commuter Transit District Officer Burt Sanders was found dead the morning of June 7 in Church of God in Christ in Gary after he’d called 911 about 2 a.m. Sanders, 44, was alone at the church when he reached dispatchers at the Gary Public Safety Facility; he told them he had chest pains and was unable to get to the door to unlock it for paramedics.
Prompt Ambulance was dispatched to the church, but when they knocked and no one answered, they left. The dispatcher who took Sanders’ call, Sherrie Williams, was fired. Her supervisor, Vanessa Reese, was given a 3-day unpaid suspension.
Carrie Napoleon and Michelle L. Quinn are freelance reporters for the Post-Tribune.
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