Family upset with 911 dispatcher after death of father

At 89, Ken Ervin would never have called 911, unless he absolutely needed help, his family said.

The World War II Navy veteran had carved out a life with his wife, Bera, in Odessa, where he spent his days keeping bees and growing an organic garden; giving away honey and vegetables. The couple had lived in Odessa for 28 years.

All that ended late on the night of Oct. 10 when Ervin began having severe abdominal pains. When Bera called for help, it never came, relatives and neighbors said.

The couple's daughter, Meg Pylant, said the 911 operator asked too many questions before determining that Ervin's problem wasn't an emergency and said an ambulance could be sent to the Odessa home, but it was several miles away and it would be coming without lights and sirens on. It could take an hour to get there.

Hillsborough County emergency officials say that's true, they got the call and the dispatcher didn't think the abdominal pains represented a life-threatening situation. Such a call would have required a non-emergency ambulance and one wasn't immediately available, they said. The wait would be at the most an hour. The call ended when a Gladys Lee, a neighbor, told the dispatcher that she would take Ervin to the hospital.

Lee, who also is a retired nurse, said that's what happened. She said she grabbed the phone from Bera Ervin and told the dispatcher to forget it, that she would take Ervin to the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa.

Ken Ervin died the next day from an aortal aneurysm, Pylant said. It was one day before the couple's 69th wedding anniversary.

"We are very upset about their response to this," Pylant said, talking about the 911 call. "They used very poor judgment. My mom was in a panic. My dad was hollering in pain. He was doubled over, screaming."

She said her parents weren't the type to call for help.

"They are people who don't use the system unless they absolutely have to," said Pylant, a registered nurse. "I realize they (911 dispatchers) have to screen their calls but to hear somebody screaming in background ... you just don't blow it off and say it's not an emergency."

At the hospital, there was nothing to be done, she said. He was given morphine and died just before 6 p.m. the next day.

"Dad wanted to live to be 100," she said. "He had a desire for life and living. He was still driving. He was still active.

"He was a little guy with a huge heart," she said. "He never said much; he had a dry sense of humor. He was the most honest of men. He made things from scratch; he gave people tons of honey and always gave away vegetables to everybody. He was workaholic, never stopped from sun up to down trying to get things done."

Lee said she often checked on her elderly neighbors. She came over that night to help, she said.

"I saw that he needed to go to hospital," Lee said. "I told his wife to call an ambulance."

Bera Ervin was on the phone with the dispatcher for an unusually long time, answering questions, Lee said.

"I understand they need to ask some questions," she said. "When they said they could not send an ambulance, I grabbed the phone."

" 'This is a person who is very sick,' " Lee recalled telling the dispatcher. " 'He needs to go to the hospital now.'."

Lee said the dispatcher said the condition did not sound life threatening.

"He had stomach pains," Lee said. "He was screaming. How can that not be a life-threatening condition? It was aggravating to me. I said, 'Look, I'll take him to the hospital.'."

The recording of the 911 call confirms much of what Lee said. Ken Ervin could be heard groaning and vomiting in the background.

The dispatcher told both Bera Ervin and Lee that stomach ailments typically aren't life-threatening situations and that a non-emergency ambulance was being dispatched as they spoke. The dispatcher said the unit that was being sent was located near Bearss and Florida avenues, less than 20 miles away.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokesman Ray Yeakley said dispatch did get the call late Sunday night, but that he was unaware of any "red flags" over it. An official complaint had not been filed, he said.

He said the call was canceled because dispatchers were told the patient was going to the hospital in a private vehicle.

Yeakley said he wasn't aware of the specifics of the call, but that typically a complaint of abdominal pain is not a life-threatening situation. Such calls require a response from a basic-life-support (BLS) ambulance and not an advanced-life-support (ALS) unit. He said a response by a BLS unit could take longer than if an ALS ambulance was needed, particularly, "if no BLS unit was available," he said.

"Abdominal pains typically are not considered life threatening, but you don't know," he said. "This turned out to be something much more severe."

He said occasionally such calls end this way.

"This is not the first time that this has happened," he said.

Fire Rescue operations manager Becky Widdoes said that abdominal pain seldom requires a heightened emergency response.

The level of response "depends on what the caller tells us," she said. "We ask if the patient is conscious and breathing; how old is the patent and if the caller is with the patient.

"We ask if the patient is completely alert and if he or she is over 50," Widdoes said. "We ask them to describe the pain and if they have passed out or nearly passed out."

Even, she said, if the callers say they will take the patient to the hospital, the dispatcher always advises them "that if the condition worsens to call back for more instructions."

kmorelli@tampatrib.com(813) 259-7760