Critics Question Delaware County 911 Dispatcher's Delay After Girl Drowns

A party at a pool by Lake Eucha turned tragic last Saturday when a 7-year-old girl was found at the bottom.

Bystanders pulled her out and tried to revive her, but 7-year-old Kaitlynn Garcia died.

DISPATCH: "911. What's your emergency?"
CALLER: "Yes. We're in a pool and I have a little girl that's uh, she's drowning. She's not breathing, we're trying CPR right now."
DISPATCH: "Lake Eucha Pool?"
CALLER: "Yes."
DISPATCH: "Lake Eucha Pool? You know where that is?"

The 911 call came in to the Delaware County Sheriff's Office dispatch center at the courthouse, and the ambulance was five miles from the scene. But the first responders didn't get the call to go for several minutes.

DISPATCH: "We're trying to get people on the way now."
CALLER: "Okay. Hurry. Hurry! Hurry!"

"I'm ashamed of 911 in our county," said Bobbi Parris.

Parris is a frequent critic of county government, upset by what she described as only the latest misstep by Delaware County 911.

"That four minutes could have made a difference," Parris said. "Could it have saved her life? We don't know, but there's no excuse for it."

During long moments of silence, the dispatcher seems confused about what to do and offers no advice on how to save the girl.

CALLER: "Hurry! We don't know if she's breathing or not. She's got a hot dog or something stuck in and she was in the water."
DISPATCH: "Can you hold for a minute, please?"

Sheriff Harlan Moore is responsible for the 911 center, so he's asked the District Attorney to investigate what went wrong. 

"It's a bad deal, and we want to make sure we do a thorough complete investigation of the Sheriff's Office, so we can determine what happened," Moore said.

It took almost three minutes for the dispatcher to make any call. And then:

DISPATCH: "Yes. Is this Jay? Yeah, I'm sorry. I've got the wrong number."
CALLER: "We need somebody here now! She's is going…"
DISPTACH: "I, I, I'm trying to get a hold of an ambulance as best--trying to do the best, trying to do the best I can."

But while bystanders were trying to revive Kaitlynn at the pool, it took three and a half minutes for the dispatcher to make the right call.

DISPATCH: "Yeah, this is 911 Delaware. Need an ambulance at Eucha Pool."

And that call was actually to the local police department. They actually called the ambulance.

The sheriff said the man who took the call resigned before last weekend and no longer works there. He described him as an experienced dispatcher, who just didn't know where the ambulance needed to go and couldn't figure it out.

We Googled it and the top result gave clear directions to the pool.