GILROY
– The investigation of a potentially fatal emergency response
mistake is focused on a longtime Gilroy Police Department
dispatcher who may have neglected to transfer a call for help to
the California Highway Patrol and rescue personnel.
-see the end of the story for the 911 call transcript
GILROY – The investigation of a potentially fatal emergency response mistake is focused on a longtime Gilroy Police Department dispatcher who may have neglected to transfer a call for help to the California Highway Patrol and rescue personnel.
Assistant Chief of Police Lanny Brown said Wednesday that after reviewing tapes of two phone calls made by the witness of William Iwanaga’s accident on Buena Vista Avenue Tuesday, the evidence warranted a formal internal investigation by the police department.
Brown said his decision to move toward a more formal inquiry of the dispatcher was also based on the CHP’s claims that a call from the Gilroy police dispatcher was never made.
“There is no evidence indicating that the call was transferred to CHP,” said Brown, who has yet to formally interview the dispatcher.
Brown, who is acting police chief in place of vacationing Gregg Giusiana, made copies of the dispatch tapes available to the media Wednesday. It is believed Iwanaga suffered a heart attack or stroke before losing control of his vehicle.
The dispatcher, whose name the police would not release, is still actively working Gilroy phone lines. The man was described by Brown as “conscientious and one of the best dispatchers at the GPD.” He has not been placed on administrative leave.
The call
A female motorist, who police also will not identify, called Gilroy police on a non-emergency line Tuesday at 10:48 a.m. The caller reported a runaway truck that nearly hit her as she drove by the Buena Vista and No Name Uno Avenue intersection.
The police dispatcher took down the location of the incident and told the caller he would “get somebody right on it.” However, before he could transfer the call to CHP, as required by procedure, the dispatcher and caller lost the connection.
Whatever the dispatcher did next is what’s under investigation. Since he had the location of the incident but no caller remaining on the line, procedure would have required him to phone CHP himself and ask units to be sent out to investigate.
“This is not the kind of employee I can imagine just hanging up on the call,” Brown said.
However, if the CHP’s claims that no call came into their dispatchers turns out to be true, it is difficult to imagine any other explanation. In formal interviews, the police dispatcher will have to answer specifically what he did after he recognized the female caller had lost contact. The dispatcher, Brown said, has the right to representation from a lawyer or someone from the union.
“Now that this is a formal investigation, I will have to review the 911 tapes of the CHP,” Brown said. “But I have no reason not to believe (CHP Capt.) Bob Davies when he tells me he’s looked into this and found no record of a call from us. I have to shoulder this and take ownership of this as though it happened at our level.”
CHP Sergeant Dave Hill confirmed the highway patrol received no calls from the GPD dispatcher regarding the Iwanaga incident.
A fatal mistake?
Paramedics did not arrive on the scene until a few minutes after noon, more than an hour after Iwanaga’s truck nearly hit the caller. Crews finally were sent to the scene after a 911 call was made by the caller’s husband, who also drove along Buena Vista and noticed the white GMC pickup had veered off the road and had run over a chain link fence on the northwest corner of Buena Vista and No Name Uno.
It’s difficult to determine whether an earlier response would have saved Iwanaga, a 75-year-old retired strawberry farmer. Since the caller did not see Iwanaga driving the vehicle, it is logical he suffered the heart attack or stroke shortly before the phone call.
Had the witness called 911 or had the dispatcher contacted CHP as he said he would, nonparamedic units would likely have been the first to respond since there was no injury accident being reported. The CHP units would then have called for paramedics once they discovered Iwanaga. CHP officers are trained emergency medical technicians and could have delivered CPR to Iwanaga even before paramedics arrived on scene.
County coroners were still working on Iwanaga’s autopsy as of Thursday morning. It could be days or weeks before the cause and time of death is determined.
City Councilmember and medical doctor Peter Arellano said a victim who has been without pulse or breath for three minutes or less has a good chance of being revived without suffering brain damage.
“When you get past five minutes of no oxygen to the brain, brain tissue dies,” Arellano said. “Sometimes people get revived, but they hardly ever recover because they were out for too long. When you discover someone and then revive them (up to 10 minutes later), you always hope they weren’t out of oxygen for too long.”
No matter what the scenario, city and police officials are reeling over the idea that medical help could have been at the scene nearly one hour sooner.
“In the hallways morale is OK,” Brown said. “But for this one dispatcher, I know he’s not feeling real good over this. They take ownership of their calls. Even when they do everything right and a victim doesn’t pull through, it can be tough on them and they can question everything they did.”
City Administrator Jay Baksa spent Wednesday afternoon briefing City Councilmen about the incident via telephone.
“We just got the basic information, enough not to get blind sided by you guys,” Councilman Bob Dillon said, referring to the local media. “It’s my understanding a mistake was made. We need to figure out whether this was a system failure or one with personnel.”
Although a severe electrical storm Monday night put normal GPD radio communication out of commission, Brown said he was not aware of technical problems with the department’s telephone system. He called it “a stretch” to assume the storm may have a connection to the emergency response delay.
As part of the internal investigation, Brown will analyze the amount of staff and the number of calls that came into the GPD dispatch at the time of the Iwanaga incident. Brown said he did not recall Tuesday morning call volumes being extraordinary.
Depending on what the internal investigation reveals, City Council could be brought directly into the thick of things.
Excerpts from the call for help
The first call comes in at 10:48 a.m.
Female caller: “Hi. Umm, I was just driving down – umm, I don’t know if you know where Buena Vista and that sort of (inaudible) road there is?
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah.”
Female caller: “And I swear to God I almost stopped for a stop sign there and this Chevy truck came out of nowhere and just nearly ran into my car and there’s no driver in it.”
GPD Dispatcher: “There’s no driver in the truck?”
Female caller: “Yeah, there’s no driver in it. Umm, I stopped for a minute because I just couldn’t stop shaking and you know …
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah. I would too.”
Female caller: “… so I got your number.”
(The caller and the dispatcher spend the next minute or so pinpointing the location of the incident.)
(Toward the end of the first call:)
GPD Dispatcher: “So it ran off the road into the field, then?”
Female caller: “Yeah. It came right across the road from that I don’t know there’s some sort of business yard.”
GPD Dispatcher: “OK. I think I know where you’re talking about. That’s why I was questioning you so much, because of the area. (Portion of recording was deleted to keep from disclosing party names.)
Female caller: If you want my phone number, you’re welcome to call me.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Sure. Well you know, just in case something major league happens, and I thought you might want to know. You know if some goofy thing happens, I just might let you know.”
Female caller: “(Inaudible) the person is on the side of the road and just out of the car. I guess I should have looked. I didn’t even think of that.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Well you never can tell. If something major league happened out there, I’ll let you know. We do appreciate your calling, and I’ll get somebody right on it.”
Female caller: (Phone apparently dies out)
GPD Dispatcher: “And … you’re gone?”
First call ends at 10:50 and 50 seconds.
Second call comes in at 1:18 p.m.
Female caller: “Hi. I don’t know if it was you who I spoke to … about that white truck.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah. It turns out it looked like a fatality.”
Female caller: “Yeah. I thought you guys were going to have someone go out there.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah. I gave it to CHP.”
Female caller: “And they just didn’t go out?”
GPD Dispatcher: “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened.”
Female caller: “Is that normally … I’m just concerned. I’m concerned because you know I went and my husband was in the area and said he checked on it and he said the truck is still there and he ended up calling 911. Umm, I don’t know, I mean I’m just surprised that no one went out there.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah. I heard them sending on it. I don’t know, may be they were out of position or something. But umm yeah I heard the call.”
Female caller: “So I guess the best procedure to follow is just to call 911 in those instances.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yes. Without a doubt, without a doubt it is. Because you get CHP when you call 911 anyway.”
Female caller: “So you called it in? And then is that normally what they’d do is send an ambulance out?”
GPD Dispatcher: “Accidents with no circumstances, they send a unit to check on them first because 99 percent of them are nothing.”
The caller and dispatcher continue talking about when to use 911.
Female caller: “… Like I had said, there’s somebody on the side of the road for all I know. So I kind of just assumed that someone would be out there right away.”
GPD Dispatcher: “It sounds like somebody might have had a heart attack before they went off the road or something.”
Toward the end of the second call
Female caller: “(The heart attack) must have just happened because he was able to avoid a tree and a big sign and he was out of control when he went in front of me. He didn’t break or anything. He was definitely out of control. I guess I should have, I don’t know, I just thought someone would be there right away to investigate it.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Sometimes it takes a little longer than you think. Never feel bad about calling 911, never, unless it’s something completely superfluous.”
Female caller: “So if it was 911 do you think they would have gone out right away and checked it out?
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah. We were running stuff, too. I heard them dispatch it though.”
Female caller: “Oh right, when you called it in. Or you mean just recently? Was that 11:45 (a.m.)?”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah somewhere in there.”
Female caller: “It was about an hour later when 911 was called.”
GPD Dispatcher: “Yeah.”
Call ends at 1:22 and 44 seconds.
