BALTIMORE, Md. – “Stop whining.” That’s what a 911 dispatcher said to a distraught teen who called after she saw her father get hit by a car.
The dispatcher has since been disciplined for the way he talked to the traumatized teenage girl who just watched her father and his fiance get critically injured.
Dispatcher:”Ma’am! Ma’am! Please stop yelling! Stop yelling please! So two people were struck?”
Caller: “Yeah, they both laying, they just laying.”
Dispatcher: “OK. Let’s stop whining. OK? Let’s stop whining. It’s hard to understand you.”
Caller: “My father’s laying on her… and they’re just laying there. They’re just laying there. there’s nothing.”
Dispatcher: “Is there someone else there I can talk to because it’s so hard to — ”
Caller: “It’s only my little brother! It’s only my little brother and I’m talking better than him right now!”
Anne Arundel County fire officials are investigating.
“We think the dispatcher, in his effort to ascertain information from the caller, used a poor choice of words,” Fire Capt. Russ Davies said.
The choice of words got the operator pulled off the phones.
“As a result of this, the dispatcher has been moved to a position in the department where he will not have contact with the public,” Capt. Davis said.
Emergency crews got to the crash by tracking the teen’s cell phone.
The teen’s father later died but his fiance survived.
They are still looking for the car and the hit-and-run driver who killed the girl’s father.
Officials said the dispatcher did not properly handle the call but his performance did not delay the rescuers getting to the victims.
