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Georgia Woman Finds 911 Call Placed on Hold
TY TAGAMI
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
A woman who called 911 had to wait on the phone while her house was burning down, authorities in DeKalb County confirmed.
The allegation first surfaced on the Web site of CBS Atlanta (WGCL-TV). The news station reported that the Lithonia area resident had to call her security company in order to get help. The news station did not identify the woman, saying only that she lived on "Kingway Block."
But Capt. Eric Jackson, spokesman for the DeKalb Fire Department, told the AJC that a house on Kings Way Walk burned down early Wednesday, and that the department was investigating the resident's claim that she was put on hold.
The 911 center is overseen by the county's public safety director, a member of county CEO Burrell Ellis' cabinet.
Ellis' spokeswoman said the caller was not put on hold. Rather, said the spokeswoman, Shelia Edwards, the woman was put into a "queue."
DeKalb has a handful of call takers for roughly 730,000 residents, so the 911 center can sometimes be overwhelmed, Edwards said.
"You've got eight people there and you can have more calls coming in than people can handle," she said.
Edwards said that when people call 911, they may get a recorded message telling them not to hang up.
"They go into this holding tank that's called a 'queue,' " she explained.
Edwards said the woman called from a cellphone at 12:05 a.m., then hung up. But the center then received 19 calls from her neighbors and dispatched firefighters at 12:06 a.m. They left their fire station within two minutes and arrived at the scene 10 minutes later, Edwards said.
Asked how someone should respond if they don't have time to wait in a queue --- say, someone has broken into their home --- Edwards said she'd look into it. She called back moments later and gave Public Safety Director William "Wiz" Miller's advice: "He said, essentially, they should get to safety and then call back."
Two adults were home at the time of the fire, according to CBS Atlanta.
Jackson, the fire department spokesman, told the AJC that the home was "heavily" damaged, but that no one was injured.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 15, 2010
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FF Nick on
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"They go into this holding tank that's called a 'queue' "
From Dictionary.com....
queue
/kyu/ Show Spelled [kyoo] Show IPA noun, verb,queued, queu·ing.
–noun
1.
a braid of hair worn hanging down behind.
2.
a file or line, esp. of people waiting their turn.
3.
Computers. a FIFO-organized sequence of items, as data, messages, jobs, or the like, waiting for action.
–verb (used without object), verb (used with object)
4.
to form in a line while waiting (often fol. by up).
5.
Computers. to arrange (data, jobs, messages, etc.) into a queue.
hold
1 /hoʊld/ Show Spelled [hohld] Show IPA verb,held; held or (Archaic) hold·en; hold·ing; noun
58. on hold, (Yes. there were 58 definitions so I just took this one...)
a. in or into a state of temporary interruption or suspension: The project will be put on hold until funds become available.
b. Telecommunications. in or into a state of temporary interruption in a telephone connection: I'm putting you on hold to answer another call. Compare call waiting.
Looks like Dekalb County has made the media again... In another unpleasant way.
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Permalink Reply by Firewriter on
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Wonder if they use the them from "Jaws" for those folks on hold.
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Fire departments with dispatching problems? No way!?
I also wanted to add (since I forgot earlier)
She said she was put on hold, they say she was put in queue.
If they made human contact with her initially, then she was put on hold. If she got an automated answer then told to wait for an available dispatcher, that's a queue. On hold nonetheless but that's the difference between the two.
Sounds to me that the 911 Center was overloaded with calls or understaffed. Either way a bad situation for the John Q. Public. Budget cuts may have reduced their dispatch staff as well. Now that is just IMHO, not fact. Hopefully an investigation will clear up things and see what needs to be done to remedy the problem.
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