By Tim Puko
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
PITTSBURGH — Overlook Street and Overlook Drive are about 8 miles apart on opposite sides of Pittsburgh.
It turned out to be an important distinction for Rose Primer and her family.
They live on Overlook Street, a small street in the North Side. But when Primer began choking Thursday afternoon, a 911 dispatcher sent an ambulance to Overlook Drive, the winding, mile-long road around Schenley Park.
Primer, 56, is fine, her family said Tuesday. But it took 13 minutes, almost twice as long as it should have, for city paramedics to reach her, according to Pittsburgh officials.
“I wasn’t watching the clock, but I know it took a long time. It shouldn’t have taken that long to get someone here,” said James Smith, Primer’s brother. They also live with their 80-year-old mother, who is on dialysis. “What happens if it’s not my sister having this, but my mom? My mom might not have 13 minutes.”
Allegheny County officials are blaming the mistake on a dispatcher, the latest problem for the county’s new 911 system. A $10 million computer upgrade failed to include thousands of landmarks’ names when it went live Aug. 8. And there have been several high-profile mistakes made since April 2009.
“This could have happened with the old system,” city Public Safety Director Michael Huss said when asked about whether there’s a pattern of problems. “It’s a combination of two streets named the same. ... I see it as a mistake, not a system problem or anything like that. Any time you have humans, you’re going to have problems like this.”
The city actually has three roads named Overlook — there’s also Overlook Court in the North Side’s 25th Ward, according to county property records. City officials will change at least one of those street names, probably within a few weeks, Huss said.
Several other streets share names, too, and city officials try to change them as they discover them, he added.
County officials dispatched the call to Primer’s home at 1:06 p.m. Thursday, Huss said. As the dispatcher entered the caller’s information, she had a choice between the different streets named Overlook, and the Primer family had given her the right name, county Emergency Services Director Bob Full said.
The dispatcher — whom officials did not identify — had a spotless performance history, and supervisors aren’t sure why she chose the wrong street, Full said. She has been disciplined and will get extra training, but Full declined to provide further details while the worker mulls an appeal.
“I truly believe this call would have happened the same way — it has nothing to do with the new CAD (computer-aided dispatch). I know everyone is looking at the new CAD and saying the new CAD caused this,” Full said. “I haven’t seen (any trend) yet. And, certainly, I’m (looking) for any and all those kinds of things.”
Dispatchers’ union chief Rick Grejda agreed that the computer system apparently was not the cause, but declined further comment until the dispatcher can talk with her supervisors.
Six minutes passed before dispatchers realized they sent an ambulance to Schenley Park when they should have gone to Perry South. Paramedics arrived at 1:19 p.m., meaning it only took the nearest ambulance seven minutes to get to Primer.
Primer could not be reached for comment.
She had a vitamin stuck in her throat, but could breathe a little, Smith said. Paramedics worked on her briefly, then took her to a hospital for X-rays. Smith assumed the vitamin eventually dissolved and worked its way free.
“They went way out of the way, all the way across town,” said Primer’s mother, Laurene Primer. “If it would have been real bad, she would have died.”
Republished with permission from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.