By D.L. Bennet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — An Oregon consulting group has been picked to review Fulton County’s embattled 911 system and recommend ways to improve the service that delayed help to a Johns Creek woman who later died.
Emergency Services Consulting, based in Wilsonville, Ore., will start next week and have 60 days to deliver a report to Fulton County Manager Zachary Williams. He announced the selection Monday.
The firm will earn $49,000 for the task. Williams made the choice Monday using authority that allows the manager to award contracts valued at less than $50,000 without going to the county commissioners.
The commissioners are expected to discuss emergency services Wednesday.
Williams said he hoped a full airing of all issues related to 911 would enhance public confidence in the operation, which has suffered since the Aug. 2 death of Darlene Dukes of Johns Creek.
“I wouldn’t be standing here ... if I didn’t think we could get better,” Williams said. “There are opportunities for improvement.”
North Fulton Commissioner Lynne Riley applauded Williams for swift action. “We are taking this very seriously,” Riley said.
Fulton’s 911 center came under scrutiny after the death of Dukes, a 39-year-old mother of two. She dialed 911 on Aug. 2 at 1:01 p.m. gasping for breath from a blood clot in her lung.
She waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive. County officials fired 911 operator Gina Conteh for misdirecting help to Atlanta instead of Johns Creek. She has appealed her termination. Her appeal hearing was first set for Aug. 28 but likely will be delayed at least 30 days.
Police officers and firefighters could not keep Dukes alive. She was proclaimed dead at Emory Johns Creek Hospital at 3:01 p.m., according to police reports.
Williams stressed Monday that the case was an isolated human error, not evidence of a systemic breakdown.
Still, problems with 911 and ambulance response are not unusual in Fulton.
Last year, the commissioners were considering scrapping one of their two ambulance providers after complaints that response times weren’t being met.
Rural Metro Ambulance Service defended itself by blaming the county 911 system. The firm sent the county a 29-page report that said ambulances often were slowed by dispatchers who routinely delayed routing calls and made other errors.
The firm kept its contract.
Nothing ever came from the company’s report. In fact, commissioners struggled to recall it.
Still, board members and others are looking back at the 29-page document in the wake of Dukes’ death.
“We should have paid more attention to it, sure,” said Commissioner Tom Lowe. “I keep running this thing through my mind and worrying about it. We’ve got people in charge that we depend on. Some aren’t doing their jobs.”
The company, which serves all of north and south Fulton outside Atlanta, must respond to emergencies as quickly as eight minutes at least 90 percent of the time, according to the contract. Other less urgent calls can be handled in as many as 20 minutes.
The company’s report detailed 19 calls that were either dropped, delayed or misdirected by 911 operators and dispatchers that made it appear that ambulances were slow to respond. Instead, the company noted calls that were made to 911 but not routed to the ambulance company for as long as 50 minutes.
The company also noted that the creation of new cities in north and south Fulton — some of which have chosen to handle their own 911 calls — have created another complication for a system already prone to errors.
“These deficiencies have resulted in widespread fragmentation and inconsistency in communications performance and clinical service delivery,” the report reads.
Commissioner Bill Edwards, who started the debate because of complaints in his south Fulton district, said he took it with a “grain of salt” because it was produced by a company he already thought was underperforming.
Edwards said he thought Fulton 911 worked well and that Dukes’ death was an isolated mistake.
“We are not dealing with technology [on Conteh’s mistake],” Edwards said. “We are dealing with human error. We are not putting any disclaimers on this. The lady died.”
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution