A Florida optometrist was unable to reach 911 when one of his clients went into convulsions because the emergency operator was busy ordering pizza
BarkGrowlBite | January 20, 2016
Frances Francois is a dispatcher at the Broward County (Florida) 911 emergency call center. Last September 11, Frances was very busy, busy that is placing a pizza order with Popeye’s Pizza that took more than 8 minutes. Here from 10 News is a partial transcript of her order:
FRANCOIS: “Let me have one slice of cheese pizza.”
RESTAURANT: “All right.”
FRANCOIS: “Let me have a lunch special, a pizza lunch special with two cheese pizza and a Coke.”
RESTAURANT: “All right.”
FRANCOIS: “Let me have the lunch special, two pepperoni and a Coke.”
(The call later continues with her asking for pricing on some of the items and asking other people what they wanted at certain points.)
FRANCOIS: “Let me have a tuna mini on white bread, provolone cheese. Let me have onions and tomato, salt and pepper and oil and vinegar. How much is that one?”
(The order came out to about $45.)
While Frances was busy with her lunch order, a Fort Lauderdale optometrist was frantically trying to call 911 because one of his clients had gone into convulsions. He tried twice without any luck. Another person present during the emergency then dialed 911 from her cellphone, but her call was also ignored, ringing for one minute and 15 seconds until she gave up. Before they could get through to the emergency call center, the convulsing client recovered.
The Broward County 911 call center is run by the sheriff’s department. Because Frances had no discipline history during the 12 years she has worked at the 911 call center, the Sheriff only handed her a written reprimand.
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