More States Are Hiding 911 Recordings From Families, Lawyers and the General Public (propublica.org) 114
Rhode Island is one of about a dozen states that prohibit the release of 911 recordings or transcripts without the written consent of the caller or by court order. The goal generally is to protect the privacy of callers in what may be one of the most stressful moments of their lives. From a report: But Rhode Island's restrictive law also keeps families in the dark about how the state's 911 system has responded to calls involving their loved ones, and it has left the public oblivious to troubling gaps in how the system is performing, according to an investigation by The Public's Radio and ProPublica. In March, the news organizations reported on the 2018 death of a 6-month-old baby in Warwick after a Rhode Island 911 call taker failed to give CPR instructions to the family. The lapse came to light after a family member who took part in the 911 call requested a copy of the recording.
In June, the news organizations reported on the death of Rena Fleury, a 45-year-old woman who collapsed while watching her son's high school football game in Cumberland last year. Four unidentified bystanders called 911. But none of the 911 call takers recognized that Fleury was in cardiac arrest. And none of them instructed the callers to perform CPR. The 911 recordings for Fleury were never made public. An emergency physician who treated Fleury testified about what happened during a state House committee hearing in March. Across the country, recordings of 911 calls for accidents, medical emergencies, mass shootings and natural disasters have provided insight into the workings of public safety systems and, in some cases, revealed critical failings.
In June, the news organizations reported on the death of Rena Fleury, a 45-year-old woman who collapsed while watching her son's high school football game in Cumberland last year. Four unidentified bystanders called 911. But none of the 911 call takers recognized that Fleury was in cardiac arrest. And none of them instructed the callers to perform CPR. The 911 recordings for Fleury were never made public. An emergency physician who treated Fleury testified about what happened during a state House committee hearing in March. Across the country, recordings of 911 calls for accidents, medical emergencies, mass shootings and natural disasters have provided insight into the workings of public safety systems and, in some cases, revealed critical failings.
Not sure why they would (Score:4, Interesting)
As a rule 911 shouldn't be instructing people who aren't trained to perform CPR to do so. Most of the time it is more likely to result in injury even if done correctly and shouldn't be attempted by someone who isn't properly trained. Also, it opens the individual up to liability for that injury in many states. Of course the liability issue is worse for trained medical professionals, in many cases a doctor is both obligated to help by ethics rules AND liable for anything that goes wrong. People attempting to save someone's life or help in an emergency should be immune to liability for their efforts imho but not every state legislature agrees.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually yes, it's a major concern for the paramedic companies and municipalities these days unfortunately. Even with mandated insurance in place a single liability suit can fold a whole regional response effort.
People with injuries who get moved even "to save their lives" have sued after the fact, etc. It's not even uncommon. Liability concerns are absolutely front and center for the companies offering such services.
"eh?"
Re: (Score:1)
I did not say that. Responders are operators, they are tasked only with lives. The COMPANY that makes their employment possible and the insurance underwriting and legal compliance teams, they have varied additional concerns.
Learn to read please before you assume I'm insulting your profession.
Still, CPR (Score:4, Informative)
As you point out, if they're dying, no big deal.
And also if they are about to die.
But if the woman who dropped at a soccer game has heat stroke, pounding away on her chest isn't doing her any favors and might do some real harm. Everyone's adrenaline is up, pulses can be hard to find (especially on obese people),
Current instructions for the general public (e.g.: during mandatory CPR training for driving license, at workplace, etc.):
Skip the pulse check (indeed, hard to find. You might be loosing precious minutes while trying to search for a way to detect it),
check the respiration (much easier).
If victim isn't breathing, proceed to CPR anyway. It's called a "cardio-respiratory arrest" for a reason: if victim has stopped breathing, chance are high that they'll go into cardiac arrest extremely soon afterward.
And in the off-chance you're dealing with an un-noticed obstruction of the airways, the CPR has a chance to dislodge the obstruction (think of it as a very unoptimized Heimlich manoeuvre)
I'll add that CPR is pretty long odds in the best of cases. The number that sticks in my head at the moment is 9% nationwide (USA), but I might be misremembering and I'm too lazy at the moment to look it up.
Your ballpark numbers probably includes *all* CPR, including in-hospital - which paradoxically, despite having better trained personnel, have worse odds (Hint: there's a reason the victim is in the hospital to begin with).
If I remember correctly, the chances "on the street" are a bit higher, closer to your personal 1-in-7 experience.
When done by a bystander it goes EVEN HIGHER (somewhere short under half of the time). It's not that Joe Random 6-pack is better at performing CPR than a trained fire fighter like you. It's more that Joe Sixpack happens to be right next to the victim, whereas it might take between 10 to 15 minutes until a professional like you manage to arrive at the premise. And in such emergency, time is the most important factor: every minute counts. The shorter the time until action is taken, the better the odds.
Which is the whole debate of TFS: if CPR was immediately performed by the bystanders, even badly, it would have had a higher chance than waiting for you pros to arrive.
Do CPR if you think the victim is close to death.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, you do. There's a specific technique for that. I've been certified and expired already for a decade now, so it's not new.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"Given the choice between death and injury, most people will take injury every time.
In the few minutes it can take for paramedics to arrive, someone might already be dead. Having the 911 operator walk through the steps can (and does) save lives."
It also causes injuries and even deaths. Which is more prevalent is hard to say because as someone else pointed out the success rate for those actually trained to properly detect a heartbeat and administer CPR is less than 10%. So you administer CPR and the person d
Re: (Score:2)
Also, it opens the individual up to liability for that injury in many states. Of course the liability issue is worse for trained medical professionals, in many cases a doctor is both obligated to help by ethics rules AND liable for anything that goes wrong.
Completely wrong. Good Samaritan laws [wikipedia.org] are in place for exactly that reason.
Re: (Score:2)
And what are those laws? Specifically, please explain the ones in my own jurisdiction?
Also, this is America, where you can be sued by anyone for pretty much anything, at any time. Even if a court were to find that you were protected by a Good Samaritan law, that doesn't mean you wouldn't incur a financial hardship in defending yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
In theory you could be sued for *not* engaging in even the most basic CPR-type lifesaving directed by 911.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe if you were a 1st responder. In the U.S., there is no general duty to assist.
Re: (Score:2)
Not every place has Good Samaritan laws.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, a suit need not be successful to cause severe financial hardship for the defendant.
That's why we need Samaritan laws that kill those suits before they get started.
Re: (Score:2)
Good Samaritan laws apply everywhere. The problem is that 911 operators aren't doctors and thus can't instruct how or when to take medical action. Everyone should know to perform CPR if someone is down, not everyone does, nobody is obligated to.
911 is a service, not the ambulance or emergency doctor on call and I wouldn't want anyone to just lookup my calls without consent.
Re: (Score:2)
Good Samaritan laws vary by state. However, first aid provided for cardiac arrest is pretty much universally protected from liability unless you do something incredibly negligent, like using a hammer to perform it.
Re: (Score:2)
CPR should definitely be attempted by anybody. Doing nothing is worse than a broken rip.
Here is what the American Heart Association has to say about this: Don't be afraid.
https://cpr.heart.org/AHAECC/C... [heart.org]
Re: (Score:2)
"CPR should definitely be attempted by anybody."
CPR should NOT be attempted if the heart is working, especially if it is working but weakly making it hard for someone who isn't trained to detect. Every EMT/Paramedic I've ever known has been consistent on this point, you will absolutely wreck a body performing CPR correctly and it is a last ditch effort that fails 9 times out of 10. Do not attempt CPR unless you are confident their heart isn't beating and help will not get there in time, so confident that yo
Re: (Score:2)
CPR should be applied for cardiac arres, yes. But current medical guidelines make it very clear that bystanders should apply CPR already when cardiac arrest is only suspected. The risk of applying CPR to a person not in CPR is very low while not applying CPR is often deadly. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
You are incorrect - or, at least, incorrect based on our current understanding of cardiac arrest treatment.
CPR instructions provided by 911 dispatchers are associated with lives being saved.
Current AHA guidelines for Pediatric Basic and Advanced Life Support specifically call for chest compressions to be performed even if the infant has a pulse at a rate too low to sustain life. Chest compressions are unlikely to damage an infant's body, since much of their rib cage is still cartilage
Re: (Score:2)
"I'll wait. Point me to any judgement made against a Good Samaritan acting in good faith, following reasonable procedures or acting on the instruction of a 911 dispatcher."
You'll wait a long time. The burden of proof for your claim is on you so do your own homework. It is going to be hard to find since almost all such cases are settled with confidentiality requirements. Of course the qualifiers you listed are an attempt to bypass the biggest flaw in protections which are the "reasonable" mark. Reasonable is
Re: (Score:2)
The burden of proof is, actually, on you. You're alleging that you're opening yourself up to risk here. I'm simply asking for even a single example where this has happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Non-paramedic here, who had the joyful experience shortly after my 19th birthday of finding myself alone with a screaming child, a gibbering mother, and an inert body which had formerly been her husband.
Since this was a decade and a half before mobile phones, the next 3/4 of an hour were rather stressful.
I knew, from mountaineering first aid guidelines, what to do. In theory. I discovered that it is easier to get a seal doing mouth-to-nose than mouth-to-mouth. I discovered that a corpse c
Re: (Score:2)
I'd suggest you call 911 and tell them you need his address so you can kill them. They'll send someone around to give you the help you clearly need.
Re: (Score:2)
If the person is INSTRUCTED to perform CPR by what a reasonable person would find to be a competent authority (911), then it would tend to reduce liability IF 911 owns up to it.
Agreed about shielding from liability. Samaritan laws are a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, it opens the individual up to liability for that injury in many states.
No, it does not. Giving first aid help in good faith is never punishable.
Not giving it: is!
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest you read up on Good Samaritan laws across the US.
Oklahoma, for example, only protects against liability when the first is performed for cardiac arrest or to staunch blood loss. Any other kind of first aid not protected. That means if you see someone choking in Oklahoma and perform the Heimlich maneuver, you aren't necessarily protected from liability if an injury occurs. Ditto for if you come across someone with a broken leg. Affixing a split, or carrying them to get further aid, can result in you
Re: (Score:1)
That's not what they teach in class. I've been certified for 40 years. Started in high school.
There are certain things you must to to determine if they are down. If you perform CPR on someone that their heart is beating they're still fine. You'll break the cartelege in their chest, however that's no big deal.
You are not allowed to cut them open, however. You can clear an airway if you can get to the obstruction.
If you've had a heart attack and I talk a guy through how to start CPR, that may be what saves yo
Maybe a 911 calling app (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Illegal in many states, incl RI.
Which law is that? This isnt the officials recording it, its the caller doing so.
who would administrate the app, each state deciding individually?
You see a necessity for government involvement everywhere, dont you, even when it takes a really stretched imagination to even shoehorn it in!
Re: (Score:2)
I assume that even 2-party recording states have provisions excepting 911 calls. Why do you think they have recordings on their end? Otherwise, the dispatch center would answer "911. Your call may be recorded for training and evaluation purposes. Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed. If you have an emergency, press 1."
Re: (Score:2)
I believe the wording in most instances is that both parties must be 'aware' (and possibly consent) that they are being recorded.
Making a second copy that they didn't know about wouldn't be an issue since everybody was aware that they were being recorded, even if they didn't know exactly who was recording.
Re: (Score:2)
2 party laws notwithstanding, you still have to get around the ever-tightening rules that Google and Apple has laid out for 3rd party recording apps. Those same rules killed off more than a few killer apps in the last few months and some uses for it are legal.
911 Calls Shoudln't be Public (Score:5, Interesting)
Outside of evidence in court I can't see any reason for a 911 calls to ever be made public. Most of them are pretty routine calls, and the others can be pretty significant. The live recording of someone being murdered or something of the like. Other than in court I don't see any reason this information needs to be public where some fucktard can post it to youtube for the family of the victims to come across over and over.
Note to self, add fucktard to user dictionary. You have been using it a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm trying to see the issue here. In my mind, the following section doesn't actually support the author's premise:
"In June, the news organizations reported on the death of Rena Fleury, a 45-year-old woman who collapsed while watching her son's high school football game in Cumberland last year. Four unidentified bystanders called 911. But none of the 911 call takers recognized that Fleury was in cardiac arrest. And none of them instructed the callers to perform CPR. The 911 recordings for Fleury were n
Re: (Score:2)
But having access only during a court hearing with expert testimony explaining every second of the call stops the friends and family from espousing on social media that if the untrained idiots at 911 had just told them something, they could have saved Bob after his decapitation by jet-engined chainsaw. Because reasons and science and someone they knew at school survived dropping a brick on their foot.
That's the real reason people are upset about a non-problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Ask and you shall receive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Aog-6mFPcY [youtube.com]
Would hate to see the fuel consumption on that.
Re: (Score:2)
Much the same view. Are those the only options? (1) No access, (2) the caller and their lawyer, or (3) the entire world? [xkcd.com]
Obviously the caller and any lawyer they have should have access, and the emergency responders. If they were calling about a crime, prosecutors and similar should have access for hopefully obvious reasons.
The family of the person involved is a bit trickier. Generally yes, but edge cases are a nightmare in policy. Should someone in divorce proceedings who is stalking their soon-to-be-ex
Re: (Score:2)
It seems reasonable to me that they're made available to an inquest - not least because forcing a coroner to get a court order is merely a delaying tactic.
Re: (Score:2)
Perform CPR with your gun.
Re: (Score:2)
A sufficiently powerful gun placed on somebody's chest and fired away from them could theoretically compress the heart enough for CPR.
911 operators are doctors now? (Score:4, Interesting)
But none of the 911 call takers recognized that Fleury was in cardiac arrest.
Do we really expect 911 operators to make medical diagnoses over the phone? While talking to untrained people who happened to dial 911?
FFS...
m
Re: (Score:2)
What are you even talking about? "Do no harm" is part of the Hippocratic Oath, which doctors take. Nobody at 911 is a doctor.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you expect an EMT to be a doctor? Do you expect someone with no pulse to sit there, get picked up by an ambulance, and dragged to a hospital to be declared dead? Or do you think it's worth doing something a bit sooner?
Re: (Score:2)
Being a doctor is too high a bar to be able to assist someone medically in an emergency. We're far better off trusting an EMT or registered nurse to save a life with an on-the-spot diagnosis rather than waiting until a doctor sees the victim. In fact, we're even better off having complete amateurs attempt to help via remote instruction, which is why it is attempted.
This is the concept of the first responder, and 911 operators also fit into this mold. The quicker you can apply basic lifesaving procedures,
Re: (Score:2)
Do some research on what has gone into protocols for 911 Dispatcher Directed CPR (sometimes called 'DLS' or "Dispatch Life Support"). This isn't just a random person answering a phone and winging it. There are very specific protocols - questions asked of the caller, instructions given to the caller to assess the patient, the same question sometimes asked in multiple ways to ensure a consistent answer. CPR instructions are also given with a very specific formula. Dispatchers undergo speci
revealed critical failings (Score:1)
Now you know why information cannot be released to the public. But without the demand for transparency in public services, the secrecy will only grow, and services will degrade. Oh well...
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, I the bill's author has a point about “tabloid journalism." The media companies are not doing this out of their desire for public service; they want content of people in their worse moments.
Re: (Score:1)
Such is life... Secrecy defaults to abuse. We shouldn't have to depend on spies and whistleblowers to get at the truth when things go wrong.
And, absent of facts, people will just make things up with all that fancy "deep fake" stuff.
Reduce the volume of 911 calls (Score:2)
Aside from the current questions at hand, "Make calls public", "Are 911 operators giving the right advice", a big problem with the existing system is the number of non-emergency calls to 911.
“This means more than 257,000 calls to 911 were not emergencies in 2016,” said San Francisco Department of Emergency Francis Zamora, referring to the latest statistics available. San Francisco dispatchers receive about 3,500 calls a day, about a 1.2 million a year."
http://www.ktvu.com/news/abuse... [ktvu.com]
People who
Re: (Score:2)
But, but, but, I asked for mustard on my McBarf burger and they gave me ketchup. That IS an emergency!!!one!
Re: (Score:3)
And how would these services work? What happens when I call "my" 911 service from the opposite side of the country where I live, will it have any clue how to get in touch with the public safety agencies where I physically am? What about when I use someone else's phone? Will I even know what number to call, given that with multiple competing services you can't have just one number for everything? Before you talk about tying it to the phone line in use, think about what I just said about using someone else's