EVIDENCE - THE BOTCHED 911 CALL THAT COST A YOUNG GIRL HER LIFE

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Ms. Karla Robinson, 4807 Pin Oak Park Dr., No. 1817, Houston, Texas 77081 (713?962?0682) appeared and stated that she was the great hand of the late Shania Harris, that she was the four month old baby who passed away last week because of some issues with 911 as well as some outside issues with Hermann Hospital, that basically she was sure that everyone was familiar with what happened, that her family lived in Harris County, they were annexed to Harris County but their mailing address said Missouri City, that when her brother-in-law called 911 he was transferred three times because they were trying to determine who was supposed to help them in that particular area, that the bottom line was that he asked if he hung up and dialed 911 again they would answer so they should send someone out to help them, that as a result of their going back and forth trying to determine if it was Fort Bend or Harris County he instructed his niece to take the baby to the nearest fire station and asked the 911 operator if they could contact the nearest fire station to their address to notify them that they were on their way, that the 911 operator told them to go to South Main and Chimney Rock, they lived five minutes from Willowridge where there was a fire station right besides Willowridge, that the reason she was present was that they had already buried Shania, but she did not want it to happen to anybody else every again and that was the same sentiment of her family, that she wanted to praise and commend Council Member Edwards and her staff because when she called Council Member Edwards last Wednesday she was in Brazil, but her people got right back with her and set up an appointment with her this morning and Council Member Robinson was also there, that Council Member Quan got on the phone and spoke with her directly and assured them that they would also do an investigation, that she must also commend Mayor Brown and Mr. Robert DeYoung because they also had been very aggressively trying to get to the bottom of what happened and given sincere condolences to her family. Council Members Keller, Alvarado and Quan absent.

Council Member Edwards moved to suspend the rules to hear from a representative of the 911 System, seconded by Council Member Tatro. All voting aye. Nays none. Council Member Robinson absent on personal business. Council Members Keller, Alvarado and Quan absent. MOTION 2002-0973 ADOPTED.

Mayor Brown stated that he wanted to thank Ms. Robinson for being present and stated that again they did extend their condolences to her and her family. Council Members Keller, Alvarado and Quan absent.

Upon questions by Mayor Brown, the representative stated that her name was Barbara Evans and she was the 911 manager of the City of Houston. Council Members Parker and Quan absent.

Upon questions by Council Member Edwards, Ms. Evans stated that they had the opportunity to review the tapes and at this point what they were also looking at was trying to determine if for some reason the call was misdirected to another agency and what were some of the other procedures that they could possibly look at to do in order for this not to happen again, that their intent was, if the family would allow them to, to go to their residence to make a call to 911 just to make sure that their address was established in the system correctly and to check with the other answering points, Missouri City and Fort Bend to determine if for some reason the call was misdirected or if they did get a copy of the call, because they had only been able to determine that they received one call through 911 at the City of Houston and another call that came in on the 10 digit number, but in reviewing that tape they had not been able to determine any operator saying that they were in the wrong jurisdiction, that dispatchers were aware of the peculiarity of how people were situated in the Fort Bend and Missouri City area, that normally when a call came in to 911 it was designated to come into the City of Houston and they had calls that may have gone to another area and was transferred over to them, that they did have procedures in place that if a call was misdirected to them they could transfer that call to another agency and she thought that throughout the system that was the way it was established within all the 47 jurisdictions and municipalities and public safety answering points, that in a normal life threatening situation if the child was still at the residence then they had operators who were trained to do pre arrival instructions until they could get an ambulance there, and that was what would have happened if the child was still at the location when they received the call, and Council Member Edwards stated that she would like to get with the fire department and see if they could initiate some CPR training, perhaps through civic clubs and so forth because she thought a small amount of the tragedy was compounded by people’s unawareness of what to do in that type of emergency. Council Member Quan absent.

Upon questions by Council Member Berry, Ms. Evans stated that if someone called in a complaint that was going to require the police at the moment the dispatchers or phone operators reported to the Police Department, that they were in the process of consolidating the function under one organization, which would be the 911 organization or rather the Houston Emergency Communication Center and by doing so they would eliminate people being transferred for help or if they had a problem and they would be able to conduct the investigation in one area, but right now they were still with the Houston Police Department although they had been assigned to her, and Council Member Berry stated that his wife called in probably two weeks ago, there were four shots that rang out, that four people had called in around 3:00 a.m. and the dispatcher hung up the minute she had enough information and did not tell them anything else and his wife was panicked and did not know if the call had even been taken, that they found out from their neighbors that the exact same thing had been done, just hanging up in the middle of the call, that he got repeated calls from constituents who called 911 in a panic and not only was the caller got off in the middle of their conversation but were treated rudely, that he did not know if they were short of time but that was a person who needed patience more than anything else and the dispatchers apparently were not providing it, and Ms. Evans stated that she would be conscious of that, and Mayor Brown stated that if that happened they would urge them to report it because all of those conversations were recorded and they would know who it was and would have transcripts of the transactions. Council Members Parker and Quan absent.

Upon questions by Council Member Sekula-Gibbs, Ms. Evans stated that actually they were all staffed for 24 hours, 7 days a week, that currently when a citizen called 911 they would go into the City of Houston 911 neutral answering point and at that answering point they would determine the nature of the emergency, if it was a fire or a medical emergency it would be transferred to a senior 911 telecommunicator who was capable of handing medical emergencies and giving pre arrival instructions, if the call was of a police nature it would be transferred to the police telecommunicator who was at a different location and they would in turn handle the call, that those individuals were still being supervised by the Police Department at this time but after consolidation they would be supervised by people on her staff, that the difference between having the call transferred or having the data transferred, they had a neutral answering point at which the address and telephone number was received and they in turn would determine if the citizen needed police, fire or medical emergency, that information along with the citizen and their address information would be transferred to the police telecommunicator at the 61 Riesner side, that a transfer meant that they had to push a button and that was what she meant by transfer, that she would have to investigate the incident that Council Member Berry had described to determine if that call was never transferred to a police telecommunicator, that also if there was a disconnect the 911 telecommunicators were trained and it was their procedure to call that citizen right back to determine what was the problem and then transfer them over, that was a procedure that was in place, that when a medical call came in they transfer it over to the senior 911 call taker in their location, that person would in turn take the address and phone number and all of the information that was needed in order to dispatch the call, that the senior individual was a civilian who was trained to give CPR and to do pre arrival instructions, they were certified to do that, that the information was automatically done, once they had the address and telephone number and had enough information to send to dispatch in order for them to send out an ambulance, then that was when they did a dispatch transfer, that it was done by keyboard and they did not have to hang up, that in this particular case, because the infant was no longer at home, the senior 911 telecommunicator in turn transferred the caller to Fort Bend County because he had indicated that they had already left to go to a fire station that was in the Fort Bend County area, then they contacted the call center there to notify them that the citizen, the baby and the family were on the way, that there was really no one to give medical instructions to at that point, that they actually stayed on the line with person until they were talking to the Fort Bend County call taker and the citizen did indicate that they had already gone, that the family arrived at the Fort Bend Fire Station and that was verified, that at that point they felt that their mission was completed, that if she thought about doing anything differently, she thought that when the first call came in and when the citizen indicated that he was getting ready to leave they would have probably instructed the call taker to tell the citizen not to leave because he would have gotten quicker service had they stayed on the line with them and they would have been able to give the pre arrival instructions and there would not have been a need for a transfer to another County. Council Members Galloway, Wiseman, Vasquez, Alvarado, Parker and Quan absent.

Upon questions by Council Member Edwards, Ms. Evans stated that as to the statement that there were two 911 calls and one 911 call was never picked up on they had not been able to find a record on that, that they could track down a call, that all of their calls were recorded, if they had the information they were able to go into their system and put in the address or telephone information and pull that call up to determine what time the call reached 911 and exactly what happened on it, that the information they would need was the telephone number of the caller or the address or location of the caller and the date, that if they were calling from a cell phone it did make a difference, that the difference was that at this point they were unable to check anything by location on a cell phone, that service was not available to them now and was something that they were looking forward to putting in place, but were waiting for some of the cell phone companies to put their equipment in place so they could do that and provide that service and be able to locate the citizen when they called on a cell phone, that some of the providers had allowed them and they were able to at least track by the telephone number of the cell so they could at least find out what number they were calling from and there were times when they had been able to locate the call based on the telephone number, but that was if the provider had given their customers Phase I location availability. Council Members Galloway, Wiseman, Keller, Vasquez and Sekula-Gibbs absent.

Council Member Edwards asked Mayor Brown if someone was doing an official investigation of the incident and Mayor Brown stated that was correct, and Council Member Edwards asked if she could be kept abreast of what was happening and Mayor Brown stated that they certainly would. Council Members Galloway, Wiseman, Keller, Vasquez and Sekula-Gibbs absent.

Ms. Robinson stated that she had talked to her brother in law and there was only one phone call, but on the records it only showed from the time that he was telling the family to take the baby to the hospital because with the three transfers that he had arguing with the dispatcher on his residence and who should come out he decided they were not going to get any help and they needed to take her away, that the dispatcher never started to try to give them instructions on CPR, they were trying to transfer the call to Fort Bend, and Ms. Evans stated that all of that would be on the record. Council Members Galloway, Wiseman, Ellis, Keller, Vasquez and Sekula-Gibbs absent.

Mr. Don Seributra, 7023 Dickson Way, Missouri City, Texas 77489 (281-437-4931) appeared and stated that he was a member of the Inner Loop Affordable Coalition and the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and Criminalization of a Generation, that he was present to speak about the young girl, Ms. Shania Harris, who died in route to Memorial Hermann Fort Bend Hospital because of a 911 call mix up concerning EMS services in Super Neighborhood 41 which was a fraction of the Houston area and Fort Bend County, that although Mayor Brown had officially recognized the Fort Bend Houston Super Neighborhood Council on June 20, 2002 a lot of residents had referred to the community as Missouri City because of the zip code 77489, that he prays for the Wilkins family in their tragic loss of Shania Harris who had stopped breathing on August 14, 2002, that a 911 call for medical emergency should have had the paramedics or EMS services arriving at the residence where the call originated from, that he did not know why the Wilkins family was not served in Houston’s jurisdiction, according to the Houston Chronicle, and why they had to contact Fort Bend County EMS, that the 911 operator should have their pass revoked since a resident of Super Neighborhood 41 was a resident inside the City of Houston, that the only thing that Fort Bend EMS should respond if an ambulance from Fire Station 80 off of Chimney Rock, not far away from Willowridge High School, which was his alma mater where he graduated in 1990, was called to a serious emergency, if it ever arose, that Fire Station 80 was not far from Rupstock Road where the 911 call originated from, the ambulance from the fire station should have been dispatched from the location of the emergency, the little girl’s life should have been saved, that he read in the Houston Chronicle on August 15, 2002, that it was similar to the death of Houston Police Officer Troy Blando, who died en route to Ben Taub Hospital because of response time after a 911 call was placed, that one questionable area should be looked into, the freeway call and why the transfer call did not reach Fort Bend EMS, that in the news article the Wilkins family went to a Missouri City Fire Station off of FM 2234 and used a call box around 3:06 a.m., however the infant died at Memorial Hermann Fort Bend Hospital of FM 1092 inside of Missouri City, that what they should learn from the incident in the Super Neighborhood 41 was the three way calling where a Fort Bend EMS vehicle should have been dispatched as soon as possible, even if the 911 operator said that they should contact Fort Bend EMS because they were not in the jurisdiction and because the zip code was inside Missouri City, which was printed on their envelopes on their home addresses, that his mother was suffering from a disorder since 1999 and hoped that the EMS mix up did not cause another death in the 41 area, that he could not reveal a campaign that he was working for at this time, that he was supporting a Sanchez for statewide race, that since Neighborhood oriented government was part of Mayor Brown’s policy the recognition of Super Neighborhood 41 was supposed to end the confusion of which jurisdiction he was living in, that he lived in Houston, Texas and not Missouri City, that since the City lined ended at Fondren Road, which divided Houston from Missouri City, and continued to voice his personal opinions regarding the dividing line and zip code between Houston and Missouri City until his time expired. Council Members Galloway, Wiseman, Ellis, Parker and Sekula-Gibbs absent.

Right after the council presentation - not one member of the Houston City Council bothered to flinch, and here's the untold moral - I almost flipped Mayor Brown and the remaining councilmembers upon exiting the chambers. Right after this, that was when I attended a meeting for the River Oaks Democratic Women on the same evening, only to leave early because of a concern if the ROADWomen gatherimg would have made a str8-but-not-narrow unmarried male like myself become gay.