'Nobody was picking up:' Durham woman calls 911 during emergency, no one answers
Imagine calling 911 during an emergency – and having nobody answer the phone.
That's what happened to Melissa Price Kromm when she called 911 from Southpoint Mall after watching an elderly man fall and split his head.
"I called 911, and I just stayed there on the phone for at least like 5 minutes," she said. "I was worried that nobody was picking up. so I switched over to the Durham non-emergency number, and no one picked up there either. I switched back to 911, and nobody was picking up at all."
She says she was able to flag down mall security, who got EMS to the scene.
"It was really scary," she said. "I kept thinking, like, what if this was my child I was calling 911 for? Does 911 not work in Durham now?"
Staffing issues and delays in service at Durham Emergency Communications Center
For months, WRAL News has covered staffing issues at the Durham Emergency Communications Center that lead to delays in service.
The latest numbers from the Durham Emergency Communications Center show about 26% of the positions are vacant. That number is actually down from past months, but people tell WRAL News calls here still aren't getting picked up quickly.
Data from January through November shows the 911 center did not hit its goal of answering 90% of calls in 10 seconds at all this year.
A high point was April, with about 87% of calls answered, and a low point was September, at only about 82% of calls answered in the target time.
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams explained that in a situation when multiple people are calling 911 for an incident, they may not all get through immediately.
He says the city may need to get creative in its recruitment and retention; the pay study for city employees will also be complete soon.
"We may have to activate more neighborhood watch programs, and the city may have to get involved with that. We have to look at potential work-from-home options," he said
Williams also said he believes Monday night's vote to end the ShotSpotter contract will put more pressure on 911 operators, since the technology notified police without a 911 call needed.
In the month of November, the call center answered almost 25,000 calls.
"We may have to activate more neighborhood watch programs, and the city may have to get involved with that. We have to look at potential work-from-home options," he said.
Durham's Emergency Communications Center has 60 operational positions, and of those, 40 are filled.
There are 20 administrative positions, and of those, 19 are filled,
That's a total of 80 positions, with only 59 filled.
One metric Durham's data doesn't include in that total is ten additional part-time positions that are filled.
Williams says the pay study for all city employees should be complete soon, and pay may be a part of the answer to this issue.
