NEW ORLEANS — Earlier this week a woman posted to the social media app, Nextdoor. She says her husband was having a heart attack and after calling 911 multiple times and ambulance never arrived. She says she and her son drove her husband to the hospital.
The Orleans Parish Communications District, or OPCD, became aware of the social media post and conducted an investigation into the incident.
Executive Director of OPCD, Tyrell Morris explained to us what happens when anyone calls 911. Morris says OPCD uses a computer system from the International Academy of Emergency Dispatch, or IAED. The call taker uses that computer system to ask questions and input the answers they’re given by the person who called.
“A series of questions will appear the call taker will ask those questions in order verbatim as written and once the system determines it has enough information to formulate and prioritize a response it sends it over to the dispatcher,” Morris said.
Morris says depending on the answers, the computer system will determine the level of emergency. If it’s not determined as life threatening, the computer system may give the call a lower priority.
Morris says in the case of the Richardson’s, they called with a symptom of arm pain.
“The system determined there were no immediate life threats present and the call was prioritized as a non-emergency low acuity call,” Morris says.
Morris says this call did reveal a need for change, though. OPCD has now asked the IAED to update their computer system to recognize certain symptoms as chest pain, which could be an indicator of a heart attack and thus result in a higher priority response.
“Things like arm pain, neck pain, things we are learning may be signs of cardiac issue are not currently present on that list,” Morris says.