NEW ORLEANS — Nobody knows if 73-year-old Linda Frickey's life could have been saved after four juveniles carjacked her Monday, dragging her and ultimately severing one of her arms.
City records show that a 9-1-1 call was made within moments after the attack and that responses times were within national standards.
“In moments like that, every second feels like a minute. Every minute feels like an hour, so we don't want to devalue that experience in any kind of way,” city spokesman Beau Tidwell said.
A timeline of the events provided by the city shows the first 9-1-1 call received at 1:36 p.m., with NOPD officers dispatched two minutes later and arriving at the scene on North Scott Street at 1:43 p.m.
Witnesses at the scene said it seemed like an eternity. One man said he was unable to get through when calling 9-1-1, but city officials said it’s possible that the call wasn’t immediately answered because call takers at the Orleans Parish Communications District were handling other calls for the same crime.
Tidwell, at the city’s weekly press briefing Tuesday, addressed the length of time before the first officers arrived.
“That's a seven-minute gap,” he said. “That obviously feels like a tremendously long time while you're they're on the scene and for anyone who's gone through a horrific incident. But in terms of response time, OPCD and the first responders did exactly what was expected of them.”
With Frickey bleeding profusely but, according to witnesses, still breathing, an ambulance didn't arrive until 1:47 p.m.. That's 12 minutes from the first 9-1-1 call, exactly the cutoff for the national standard known as response time compliance.
The city said two factors may have delayed the ambulance's arrival: the original call reported the carjacking but not the injury and, subsequently, the NOPD needed to declare the scene safe for paramedics.
Frickey was working at her job at a Mid-City insurance office when she was carjacked. WWL-TV was told that the company is keeping that branch office closed in light of the tragedy, perhaps permanently.
