Nurse argued, and woman died

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 6

Nurse argued, and woman died

NZPA-Reuter Dallas A man has filed a $U5315,000 lawsuit against the City of Dallas after his stepmother died while an emergency service telephone operator argued with him instead of sending an ambulance.

Larry Boff said he was seeking |USIS,OOO in compensatory damages and ?U5300,000 in punitive damages, blaming the Dallas Fire Department for his stepmother’s death. On January 5 Mr Boff telephoned the fire department to get an ambulance for his stepmother, Lillian, aged 60, who was having difficulty breathing. But a nurse hired by the department to screen the calls, Billie Jane Myrick, aged 42, instead argued with Mr Boff for three minutes and insisted on talking with

his stepmother, according to a Fire Department transcript of the conversation. When asked why she was not sending an ambulance, she replied: “Sir, we can only come out on lifethreatening emergencies, 0.K.?” “Well, this is a life-threat-ening emergency,” Mr Boff said. Mrs Myrick then referred Mr Boff to her supervisor, Fire Captain Don Greene, who told him. to answer the nurse’s questions. “All right, what are they before she dies? Would you please tell me what the hell you want?” said Mr Boff. “Well, I tell you what, if you cuss one more time, I’m going to hang up the telephone,” retorted Mr Greene. Because he insisted on speaking to Mrs Boff, and her stepson desperately

trying to make it clear she could not talk, Mr Boff hung up and got his roommate, Dennis Fleming, to call back again six minutes later. He ran into the same problems, with Mrs Myrick, and only when she was told that the two men thought Mrs Boff was dead did she send an ambulance. Twelve minutes after Mr Boff began his emergency call, the ambulance arrived. Paramedics pronounced her dead. A Fire Department official, Mike Jones acknowledged that Mrs Myrick and Mr Greene had handled the call incorrectly and an investigation was being done. Another supervisor, Lelani Starks, conceded that use of profanity was usually a sign of a crisis adding: “I take it as an indicator that

something is really wrong.” Since the incident, Mrs Myrick had received counselling over the way she handled the call, a day’s leave with pay, and one week’s holiday to reconsider her work with the department, Mr Jones said.

She had returned to work and handled the calls until this week when the incident became public as a result of the lawsuit. Mr Jones said that Mrs Myrick had been reassigned to clerical duties because the news media attention, “has created unbearable pressure on her.” She would return to her dispatcher duties once the publicity had died down. Mr Greene had been routinely transferred to another job in the Fire Department and would not be disciplined, Mr Jones said.