Emergency call delay upsets boy’s mother

Press, 26 July 1989, Page 4

Emergency call delay upsets boy’s mother

PA Gisborne A desperate Gisborne mother whose small son was choking on a marble could not be put through to the St John Ambulance service even though the 111 call she had made was answered. The woman’s former husband managed to free the marble but she does not accept the explanation by Telecom that it was an unusual problem caused by the system being overloaded. The woman, who asked not to be named, said her son, aged 3, had gone red in the face and she feared he had stopped breathing. She held him upside down and slapped his back but could not dislodge the marble. She rang 111 and the call was answered by an operator at Napier. The operator said to her several times that she could not get through. By this time her former husband had taken the boy and pressed his ribs, finally inducing him to vomit up the marble. She said she was on the phone for “a good three minutes.”

Telecom’s director of public services at Palmerston North, Mr Mac Odell, confirmed there had been a problem and said it was because of the system being overloaded. “In these situations it is not long before a line comes through,” he said. Three minutes seemed an “awfully long time.” He doubted she had to wait that long.

“I believe the emergency passed during that time so there is no need to pursue the matter.”

The woman said .she was not satisfied with Telecom’s explanation. “Does there have to be a death before they pull their finger out? It could have been my little boy,” she said. “Their attitude is not good enough.”