Victims Suffer Unnecessarily After NYC’s 911 System Crashes

A chaotic day of 911 glitches caused many individuals to suffer undue injury and harm while they waited for EMTs to respond to their frantic but unreturned 911 calls. One 96-year-old woman waited for more than an hour for an ambulance at her home in Queens, New York. A relative says that he found the woman facedown between two beds in her room, and deciphered that she had fallen and could not get up. He then called 911 to request medical response teams, and had to wait with her for an hour and ten minutes before the ambulance responded.

Last week, there was a 33-minute delay in getting an ambulance to an intern who collapsed only moments before an event with the City Council Speaker. The City Council Speaker eventually had to call the Police Commissioner and the Fire Commissioner on their private cell phones before the job was upgraded to a priority and the ambulance arrived only moments later. Dispatchers say that there was a glitch in the NYC’s 911 system crashes that caused a delay in the response team. Boylan was taken to a Jamaica Hospital where she underwent tests. She was eventually hooked up to an IV and was unable to speak as of Monday night. The victim was still unable to speak when she was last contacted.

Despite the glitch, the family is still upset that the call was classified as a “sick” call which takes the low priority with the emergency response teams. Staff at the home for seniors says that they made repeated calls to 911 asking for an ambulance, but the dispatchers kept responding that the system was down. The call wasn’t upgraded to a priority for over an hour, and when it finally was the ambulance arrived in less than five minutes. If your or a loved one suffered undue harm because of the failed 911 calls, then you need to contact an attorney promptly for more information. Hire a New York City personal injury attorney today!