By Julia Ferrante
Tampa Tribune (Florida)
Copyright 2007 Tampa Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. — Chris Cooper had just gotten out of the shower when he found his girlfriend choking.
Nancy McGhee, 35, was gasping for air and motioning toward her neck with her hands.
“Nancy, you all right?” he asked, according to a Pasco County Sheriff’s Office report. She fell to the floor.
Cooper called 911 at 9:15 p.m. Pasco emergency dispatcher Jennie Montanino answered. Untrained to instruct Cooper in the Heimlich maneuver, Montanino asked a supervisor to help. No one answered. She asked again. Two Emergency Medical Dispatchers refused. She asked again.
Six minutes into the call, shift supervisor David Cook stepped in after complaining about dealing with a “hysterical caller,” others on the shift said. Cook instructed Cooper to perform the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge a piece of steak, but it didn’t work.
Eleven minutes after the call, paramedics arrived at the couple’s Tower Road home. McGhee was dead.
What happened the night of March 24 prompted Cook to take early retirement and has left another trained dispatcher’s job hanging in the balance. It also has friends and relatives of McGhee dumbfounded and Pasco emergency management officials wondering whether they need to change their policies for EMDs.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is murder,” said Olivia Cresong, a friend of McGhee’s. “That supervisor, that was his duty to help her boyfriend save her life.”
McGhee, a mother of four, had lived with Cooper for about three years. She recently changed jobs to become a deli worker at a Publix in Land O’ Lakes, said Cresong, whose brother is the father of McGhee’s children.
Dan Johnson, the assistant county administrator for public services, said he, too, is puzzled by the dispatchers’ refusal to help. Although officials think Cook’s and dispatcher Maureen Thomas’ actions were an anomaly, they are investigating procedures.
‘I’m Not Getting On’
In a report to Thomas O’Brien, an emergency manager with Pasco, Montanino says she asked for an EMD to instruct Cooper in the Heimlich maneuver, and Cook said, “I’m not getting on with a hysterical caller.” When she asked again, Thomas said, “I’m not getting on.” The third time she asked, Cook got on the phone. After instructing Cooper with no luck, he slammed the phone on his desk.
After finding out McGhee had died, another communications officer, Michael Grier, recalled Cook saying, “She choked on steak and must have bitten off more than she could chew.”
The incident haunted Montanino.
“I finished work, and for the two days I was off, I kept thinking about this incident,” she wrote. “Could we have made a difference if EMD instructions were given before the caller was at the height of his hysteria? No one can answer this question I keep asking myself.”
Mike Ciccarello, acting assistant chief for Pasco County Fire Rescue, said Cook and Thomas are to blame, not the system. “We want people to feel comfortable that if they call Pasco County, they are going to get help,” he said.
“We’re embarrassed by this situation, obviously, but we discovered the problem, and it has to do with people making bad decisions.”
Pasco has 29 dispatchers, including 18 trained in EMD. The others are slated to complete a 32-hour training course this month. EMDs learn to ask set questions to determine whether a medical procedure should be performed before paramedics arrive, Ciccarello said.
Because of a steady turnover rate, it is not unusual to have dispatchers answering phones before they have completed the training, although supervisors are supposed to be present.
Dispatchers are not required by law to have EMD training, personnel director Barbara De Simone said.
“Their job is to do dispatching, but obviously [EMD] is beneficial,” she said.
Hillsborough Requires Certification
Hillsborough County dispatchers who handle medical calls all have emergency medical dispatcher certification, said emergency management spokesman Dennis LaMonde. About 130 dispatchers work in four locations throughout the county, he said.
New dispatchers are hired and put through a six-month training program before they answer an emergency call, he said. Before they get certified, “they answer administrative lines,” he said.
County dispatchers handle emergencies in the unincorporated parts of the county, LaMonde said.
When someone calls 911, dispatchers ask whether the emergency is medical. If it is, the call is switched to a dispatcher who is certified.
Cook’s 18-year tenure included promotions and a voluntary demotion. On March 5, he signed a letter from O’Brien acknowledging that he had fallen asleep on the job twice during one shift.
Thomas has been on medical leave for a couple of weeks. She called De Simone on Wednesday, however, and said she wanted to find out her punishment and “get it over with.” A decision is expected this week.
Johnson said the Pasco incident is the worst case of disregard for duties he can recall.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in 30 years,” he said. “That’s their job to maintain composure. When everybody else is falling to pieces, they do their job, and they do it well.”