Incident raises questions about dispatch system
By Greg Kane
The Record (Stockton, California)
Copyright 2006 The Record
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
STOCKTON, Calif. — Sixteen-year-old Suzana Tapou rushed outside and persuaded a neighbor to call 911 just moments after her mother collapsed in their north Stockton home.
A half-hour later, the ambulance still hadn’t arrived, and 47-year-old Katinia Minoneti Paea Finau soon would be declared dead.
American Medical Response dispatchers who received the Oct. 21 medical call confused Finau’s Keyser Drive address in north Stockton with Kaiser Road, a rural stretch 12 miles away near Collegeville, according to a recording and transcripts obtained by The Record. Now the woman’s children wonder whether their mother could have been saved if emergency workers had arrived within the 71/2-minute standard required by San Joaquin County.
“Maybe she would still be here with us for the holidays,” said Finau’s 20-year-old daughter, Kalolaine Peneueta.
San Joaquin County officials are investigating the incident, county Emergency Medical Services administrator Dan Burch said. AMR spokesman Doug Moore referred all questions about the case to the county, saying that the company is “cooperating fully with the investigation.”
It’s not clear whether a quicker response would have saved Finau’s life. The report from the county Sheriff-Coroner’s Office lists her cause of death as cardiac arrest and indicates she had no pulse upon arrival at St. Joseph’s Medical Center but does not say whether the delay was a factor.
An autopsy was not performed, because autopsies are forbidden in the Tonga native’s culture, Peneueta said.
The Stockton Fire Department, which is tangled in a lawsuit with the county over which agency should control 911 ambulance dispatching, launched its own investigation in the days after the incident. Chief Ron Hittle claims AMR did not have updated street maps in its computer system and therefore could not find Keyser, which is in a recently built subdivision.
He said firefighters have been sent to other incorrect addresses since May 1, when AMR began dispatching for some areas, because of confusion about street locations.
“This is just one call of many,” Hittle said.
Burch said he believes AMR’s Lifecom dispatching center in Stanislaus County “started with the latest commercially available geographic database” and has updated the information continually since. There are no federal, state or county standards requiring dispatchers to update those databases, Burch said.
The Stockton Fire Department was the primary 911 ambulance dispatcher before an exclusive five-year contract awarded by the county earlier this year gave the duties to AMR. Police in Stockton, Lodi and Manteca continue to send medical emergency calls to Stockton Fire, however, creating a system with two ambulance dispatchers.
A Stanislaus County Superior Court judge denied San Joaquin County’s request to force Stockton to relinquish dispatching duties last month. The dispute is likely to go to trial in the spring or summer, said Stockton Assistant City Attorney Michael Rishwain, who represents the Fire Department.
The Fire Department was an unsuccessful bidder for the 911 ambulance contract.
Peneueta said her sister, Tapou, and their mother were alone in the home the afternoon of Oct. 21. Finau collapsed while Tapou was in another room doing laundry, Peneueta said. When the teenager found her mother moments later, she ran outside to get help.
A nearby nurse rushed into the house to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation while another neighbor called 911 on his cell phone, Peneueta said.
The California Highway Patrol took the call, then directed it to Lifecom. According to records, an AMR dispatcher contacted the Collegeville Fire District at 12:16 p.m. about a “man down” at the 2500 block of Kaiser, near Highway 4 and Mariposa Road in east Stockton.
For the next 12 minutes, the dispatcher confirmed the address to Collegeville first responders, who couldn’t find the house.
Then, at 12:28 p.m., the dispatcher called off Collegeville after learning the man calling 911 was near March Lane.
At 12:38 p.m., 10 minutes after the Collegeville call was canceled, an AMR dispatcher called Stockton Fire’s dispatch center asking if it had a listing for a street spelled Keyser, according to records. Stockton Fire paramedics arrived at the home at 12:44 p.m. It’s not clear whether Finau died at home or after she was taken to the hospital.
The subsequent Stockton Fire investigation showed that the AMR dispatcher didn’t have Keyser Drive in her computer system, Hittle said. A miscommunication between the caller and the dispatcher led paramedics to be sent to Kaiser Road, he said.
Burch did not say when the county expects to complete its investigation into the incident. Hittle believes the problems won’t be resolved unless Stockton Fire is allowed to resume dispatching all 911 medical calls in the county.
Peneueta, who still lives on Keyser Drive with Finau’s five other children, said no one in the house is eager for the investigation’s results.
“There’s no reason to explain it to us now,” Peneueta said. “My mom’s already gone.”