WRAL Investigates

'Nobody gets a break,' employee says of overworked Durham 911 center

A toxic work environment has created an ongoing staffing shortage at Durham's 911 center, which has led to delays in responding to emergency calls in recent months, according to a person who works at the center.

Posted Updated

By
Sarah Krueger
, WRAL Durham reporter
DURHAM, N.C. — A toxic work environment has created an ongoing staffing shortage at Durham's 911 center, which has led to delays in responding to emergency calls in recent months, according to a person who works at the center.

Durham frequently had to route some 911 calls through the Wake-Raleigh 911 Center because it lacked the staff to handle the calls, but city officials said two weeks ago that Durham was halting that practice and would handle all of its emergency calls.

An employee who talked with WRAL Investigates on the condition of anonymity said Durham continues to be overloaded and isn't prepared to take all 911 calls.

"Everybody’s so exhausted. There’s just nothing left," the 911 worker said. "We are all hands on deck, 24/7. Nobody gets a break."

Callers are often put on hold or rolled over to a non-emergency line, which until recently didn't have the software to isolate the caller's location so that information could be passed to first responders.

"At any point in time, we have calls holding because there is no one to answer the phone," the employee said. "911 is the first face of an emergency, and if you can’t trust that system to be there for you … that just makes a delay in response."

One Durham resident complained to city officials in April about delays in emergency services. According to emails obtained by WRAL, the man said he and another person called 911 after seeing a woman get thrown out of a moving car on Chapel Hill Road, but no ambulance showed up. So, after waiting for more than 20 minutes, someone drove the woman to a nearby home for help, the man said.

"I am extremely disappointed with the performance of the City of Durham's Emergency Services during this incident. I am worried that the City of Durham missed an opportunity to assist a resident in distress and connect that resident with services to which could have assisted her," the man wrote in an email.

Randy Beeman, director of the 911 center, blamed the delay on staff trying to sort out if multiple calls about the incident were duplicative. An ambulance was dispatched but was canceled when word came that the woman was no longer at the scene, Beeman wrote in an email.

The 911 center employee said that 19 people who worked at the center quit in less than two years, putting Durham in a staffing hole out of which it has never climbed. About 30 percent of the positions at the center remain vacant.

"HR has done nothing about it. The department has done nothing about it. Internally, nobody has done much of anything," the worker said. "Our center itself is crumbling, and frankly, I’m terrified to be there when it happens because there’s nothing I can do but just hold on for dear life at this point."

Assistant City Manager Bo Ferguson said "staffing levels are at their highest point" so far this year, having recently added four call-takers, with plans to add two more in July.

"Serving the public and answering 911 calls promptly remains the top priority for the Durham 911 center," Fergsuson said in an email to WRAL. "The turnover rate in 911 is lower than it has been at almost any time in the last five years. Our focus on training and filling vacancies is intended to address the factors that are most frequently cited as concerns from our staff."

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