A Volusia County, Florida 911 dispatcher is facing a 5-day suspension after video revealed she was distracted by her personal cellphone while the person she was training was handling a call relating to a man suffering a heart attack.
58-year-old Bob Hill died of a heart attack on September 4 while he was participating in a game of racquetball with friends. 15 minutes passed before an ambulance arrived on scene due to the emergency vehicle being sent to the wrong location by the trainee who took the 911 call.
WKMG obtained video footage from the call center and it shows Certified Training Officer Shauna Justice preoccupied with her personal cellphone as the caller provided the accurate cross streets of his location but incorrectly identified the name of the facility where the courts were located.
The caller reported the name of the Nova Community Center in Ormond Beach as the “Ormond Rec Center.”
Dispatcher: 911, what is your emergency?
Caller: Hey. We need some help. We’re at the Ormond Rec and one of our friends collapsed at the racquetball court. I don’t know if it’s a seizure or he passed out or what.
Dispatcher: Is that a park somewhere?
Caller: Yeah. It’s the Ormond Beach Recreational Center, like Ormond Rec. Corner of Granada and…
Dispatcher: I’m listening. Granada and where?
Caller: Actually, it’s Nova Road and Wilmette in Ormond Beach.
The trainee looked up the “Ormond Rec Center” and sent units to 176 Division Avenue, the location of another facility called the South Ormond Neighborhood Center. The cross streets were a location for the Nova Community Center and Park, another recreational facility.
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson stated:
“We messed up. She was very remorseful about what happened, very caring about it. She admitted to what her mistake was.”
He added that it was a “serious mistake” that “could have been avoided.”
According to WKMG it’s unclear if the mistake made by the dispatchers contributed to Hill’s death.
UPDATE: As I was getting ready to post this up it has been reported that Shauna Justice pulled a gun on WESH 2 reporter Claire Metz when the latter arrived at her home to follow up on the story. Justice was arrested after the incident today at around 1:30 p.m.
Metz walked up to the door without a camera or microphone and Justice answered with a gun in her hand cursing at Metz to leave her property. “The gun was no more than a foot or two from my head, and Ms. Justice held it on me until I backed away to our truck,” Metz said.
The reporter added that the Sheriff’s deputies told her that Justice had been very distraught about all the people coming to her home to ask about the incident and that Metz must have been the last straw. Metz added that she felt obligated to report what happened to the police in fear of what might have occurred if someone came to Justice’s house after her, but most importantly she said she wanted to get Justice help.
Metz reports that supervisors stated that Justice was not only using her cell phone but was also chatting up others in the center, violating any number of policies while not paying attention to the crisis during the 911 call.
