Johns Creek Woman Dies While Waiting for Ambulance

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Medical professionals in Fulton County's Emergency Medical Services community are stunned at a series of errors that led to the death of a Johns Creek woman on Saturday. 39-year-old Darlene Dukes called 911 with a respiratory problem, and an ambulance didn't arrive for more than hour.

WABE's Odette Yousef reports.

Dukes called from Wales Drive in Johns Creek, from a cell phone. But a Fulton County operator sent a Grady EMS unit to an address in Southwest Atlanta, on Wells Street.

Dr. Ian Greenwald says the dispatcher's computer should have shown that the call was coming from North Fulton, not 27 miles south.

GREENWALD: While the patient who's having extreme difficulty breathing can't actually phone it and say where they're calling from, ideally the dispatcher can see which cell tower they're calling from and triangulate the call

Greenwald, Medical Director of Rural Metro ambulance service, says Dukes's case is serious.

GREENWALD: In cases where the address cannot be verified, that represents a fundamental problem with the system.

Dr. Eric Ossmann, Medical Director of Grady EMS, agrees:

OSSMANN: This is not one employee who made a mistake. This is failure of oversight, failure of administration on the part of the Fulton County Communications Center director.

That would be Alfred Rocky Moore, whom Ossmann has faulted before for cutting county funding for ambulance services. Moore did not respond to interview requests by airtime.

In Dukes's case, the mistakes continued, even after the Fulton County operator got the right address.

Reg James is with Rural Metro:

JAMES: It appears that once Fulton County determined the call was to Johns Creek, they responded with the appropriate first responder fire agency and police department, but the call was never made to the Alpharetta dispatch center to have an ambulance sent.

Under an agreement that went into effect only the day before, the city of Alpharetta now dispatches ambulances to Johns Creek and several other north Fulton cities. But for them to do that, Fulton County's dispatchers have to transfer information to them.

Alpharetta dispatch was not told of Dukes's call until first responders arrived, and called the Fulton dispatcher back, asking where the ambulance was.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.