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Again, I don't believe it's a decision she's paid to make. What she's paid to do is to take calls to the 911 system, and dispatch the appropriate emergency response unit (police, fire, medic). There should NEVER be a time when someone trusted with this type of responsibility should make a decision NOT to take it seriously. Let's look at a few possible scenarios:
Scenario #1
There a party of teenagers, and they are drunk and high. One teen has a bad reaction to some drugs and is frothing at the mouth. Another teen, freaking out, calls 911, but is OBVIOUSLY drunk and/or high, so the disaptcher determines this to be a party prank and ends the call. The first teenager dies because of that decision. Oh well, she made a judgement call...
Scenario #2
An elderly couple lives on their own. The man has a stroke and falls over. The woman gets to the phone and calls 911, but in her senility, can't really get her point across. The 911 dispatcher assumes someone is pulling a prank becuase the caller "won't put someone else" on the phone. The man dies. Oh well, she made a judgement call...
There is absolutely NO tolerable excuse for an emergency dispatcher to make a judgement call at all, ever. Their job is to DISPATCH someone, not judge the situation. Even is it isn't law, and even if some companies do not have policies that prevent this, this is a perfect case to make those things happen. If you can't trust 911 to respond to an emergency, the whole system is pretty much shot to hell.
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