Woman’s call to 911 goes unanswered; officials think lightning might be to blame

CHILLICOTHE, OHIO — Continued issues after a May lightning strike might be the cause of a Monday 911 call going unanswered.

Joy Finley, 34, of Chillicothe, was visiting with her aunt, Bethany Michelle Cosby, at her grandmother’s North High Street home when Cosby, who is suffering from pancreatic cancer, began vomiting blood about 7 p.m. Finley told her grandmother to call 911 from their landline, but there was no answer.

“One of the calls we allowed the phone to ring 20 times and still no answer. After three unsuccessful attempts, we called directly to the (Chillicothe) police station and told them that they had better get an ambulance to our location immediately before my aunt bled to death,” Finley wrote in a tip to the Chillicothe Gazette.

Within five minutes at most, Finley said the Chillicothe Fire Department arrived and took Cosby to Adena Medical Center. The department confirmed it arrived for the call within three minutes of being dispatched.

“What if this was your family member? You would want your local 911 to pick up and get there ASAP,” Finley said.

Ross County Sheriff George Lavender, whose office oversees the entire 911 system, said part of the issue occurred when a previous 911 call didn’t disconnect. Although Finley’s grandmother’s call should have automatically been redirected to another line either at the Chillicothe Police Department or the sheriff’s office, it was not.

“I talked to the lady and I apologized,” Lavender said.

He also told her to always keep actual department numbers handy, as everyone should, because although people want to be able to rely on 911, they have to be prepared in case it is not working.

Chillicothe police Capt. Larry Bamfield said the dispatcher had tried to disconnect from the call through a touch screen button, but apparently it did not work. He noted the administrator from the sheriff’s office had left a note requesting dispatchers to disconnect using the computer mouse.

“Even though that line was open, the call should have still come in,” Bamfield said, echoing Lavender.

Bamfield said they have tested the system since Monday and haven’t experienced the issue again. However, he noted there have been continued issues with 911 since a lightning strike took down the system in May.

“They need to get the system fixed,” Bamfield said.

“We still have little quirks here and there from the lightning strike,” Lavender said.

Lavender said fixes have been made to the system, but personnel still are working out some issues. A service person was scheduled to check the system this week to find the problem and make needed repairs.

Bamfield and Lavender said they also are looking into adding a light like one that used to be on the old system so dispatchers have a visual cue if a line still is open and has not disconnected.

“We’re looking at alternatives to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Lavender said.

In May, a lightning strike hit the Law Enforcement Center, and while a generator kicked on, everything but the 911 system came back online. Employees reported smelling something burning within the system’s equipment after the strike. It took four days to bring the system back to normal operation.

The system also went down in August 2010, in part because a system card went bad and the internal backup did not trigger. As a result, people who needed emergency services had to call the non-emergency numbers for about 12 hours. That instance was the first time it had totally gone off-line since it was installed in the late 1990s.

At that time, a secondary backup system was put in place that automatically re-routes 911 calls to the non-emergency numbers, which is part of what failed Monday.

As for Finley’s aunt, she said they asked that she be taken to Riverside Methodist Hospital since that is where she is receiving treatment for her cancer.

Finley also was concerned about Life Ambulance’s need to request a transport unit from Jackson 45 minutes away when there is a Life Ambulance location in Chillicothe.

When contacted by the Chillicothe Gazette, a representative from Life Ambulance cited the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act as the reason she would not discuss why they needed to get an ambulance from Jackson to do the transport. However, she said they would research it and discuss the situation with the patient if she calls.

Read the story here.

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