A Prairie Village family settled a wrongful death lawsuit against Kansas City, Missouri, for $4,125,000 due to a delayed 911 response.
Cathryn McClelland suffered cardiac arrest, and her eight-year-old son called 911. The call was mishandled, leading to a delayed emergency response.
Cathryn's brain was deprived of oxygen for too long, leading to her death. Experts testified she likely would have survived if the call had been handled correctly.
As part of the settlement, KCPD agreed to implement "Cathryn's Code," a quality control measure to randomly check 50 911 calls each month.
According to the source:
Cathryn McClelland, a 40-year-old nurse, was getting her two young children ready for day camp on the morning of July 18, 2019, when she collapsed from cardiac arrest.
Her 8-year-old son picked up Cathryn's cell phone and called 911.
The call connected with a tower on the other side of the state line in Kansas City, so it was sent to KCPD's 911 Call Center.
"I'm only a child with my little sister, and my mom is lying on the ground, and my dad's out of town," the boy told the call taker.
"He did everything right. He acted heroically. He was clear and concise. He gave all the correct information to the call taker," said Frank McClelland, the boy's father.
The 911 recording indicates the boy told the call taker he lived in Prairie Village on Belinder Avenue less than a minute into the call.
A few seconds later, he told the call taker the house number was 7347.
"And from that point forward, they should have had the call transferred to Johnson County Emergency Communications, but instead, they transferred it to the Kansas City, Missouri, Fire Department, which doesn't have jurisdiction here and couldn't send the appropriate emergency responders," McClelland said. https://www.wrtv.com/news/us-news/family-receives-4-million-settlement-after-911-call-delay-leads-to-womans-death#google_vignette (Oct. 04, 2024).
Commentary
According to the source, the 911 operators were trained to make the call transfer. The failure to perform as trained led to the settlement.
Training is a necessity. However, being trained doesn't always mean the appropriate behavior will occur. A trainee may have the knowledge they must do something, but not do what they are supposed to do in a particular situation.
That is why it is important to perform drills. The value of drills is that it puts the trainee into a situation in which they have to react - usually quickly.
The takeaway is that safety training is important, but performing drills is necessary so employees can learn how to react instinctively.
