What Happens When a 911 Emergency Call Goes Silent?
By MICHAEL BRICK
NYT
DALLAS — Four and a half hours into her shift, at 11:34 a.m. on Christmas Day, an emergency dispatcher in the suburbs took another call.
“Grapevine 911, where is your emergency?” she asked.
Static came back.
“Hello, Grapevine 911?” the dispatcher said.
The caller responded with two deep breaths. Days later, using audio software to scrutinize a recording of the call, investigators would find hints of the horror unfolding on the other end of the line. But at the moment, the dispatcher faced the signature predicament of her corner of law enforcement: an open line.
“Afterwards, when you realize, ‘I was listening to something horrific and I couldn’t do anything,’ that’s when the emotions kick in,” said Gary Allen, a retired dispatcher who worked for 20 years in Berkeley, Calif. “When you find out what you were in the middle of over the phone.”
(More here.)
NYT
DALLAS — Four and a half hours into her shift, at 11:34 a.m. on Christmas Day, an emergency dispatcher in the suburbs took another call.
“Grapevine 911, where is your emergency?” she asked.
Static came back.
“Hello, Grapevine 911?” the dispatcher said.
The caller responded with two deep breaths. Days later, using audio software to scrutinize a recording of the call, investigators would find hints of the horror unfolding on the other end of the line. But at the moment, the dispatcher faced the signature predicament of her corner of law enforcement: an open line.
“Afterwards, when you realize, ‘I was listening to something horrific and I couldn’t do anything,’ that’s when the emotions kick in,” said Gary Allen, a retired dispatcher who worked for 20 years in Berkeley, Calif. “When you find out what you were in the middle of over the phone.”
(More here.)
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