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Nov 14, 2008 5:57 pm US/Central
Family: 911 Dispatcher Confusion Cost Man His Life
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
A North Texas woman says her husband died on a Fort Worth street because emergency crews were fighting over who was responsible for sending help.
On a rainy morning, early in October, a Transportation Security Administration worker crashed on bridge near Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, as he drove to work. The wreck happened because the driver of the car, 50-year-old Tommy Nix, was having a possible heart attack.
Now because Nix is having an emergency at Amon Carter and Industrial, at the south entrance of DFW Airport, -- the immediate help he needs is apparently stalled because of a line on the map.
There are more than 15 minutes of 911 calls that were placed, trying to get help for Nix. Click here and here to listen to them in their entirety.
Transcripts show one 911 call went like this –
DFW Dispatcher
: "Airport 911. What is the location of your emergency?"
Caller: "Uh, we're at the entrance to the airport, south entrance, just before the toll booth at the turn. Uh, by south entrance."
DFW Dispatcher: "Okay, hang on a minute because there's a jurisdiction thing. And you said you think he's having a heart attack?"
For the next several minutes, there was '911 call' confusion. As time ticked away, the crash address changed and dispatchers had to re-enter addresses.
While two DFW Airport officers found the scene, dispatchers still couldn't figure out exactly what was going on and where medical workers should be sent.
More precious minutes ticked by.
Finally, both DFW Airport and Fort Worth send ambulances, but even then a dispatcher says he told the ambulance not to speed because it was raining.
Nix died and now his family says something has to be done before a similar situation happens again. "So I lost a husband of 31-years. My children have lost their father. My grandson has lost their Papa. And he never got to meet his new granddaughter who's due in February," Debbie Nix said of her husband. "All because someone didn't know who was supposed to show up."
Friday afternoon DFW Airport Spokesperson, Ken Capps, issued a statement that said in part – "From DFW's standpoint, there was no delay in responding to the call. The incident was in the City of Fort Worth's jurisdiction and Fort Worth dispatchers notified DFW that an ambulance was en route."
DFW Airport officials say their ambulance arrived at the scene 18 minutes after the first call. It was 30 minutes after that call that the City of Fort Worth arrived.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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