RICHMOND, Va. — With his car broken down on the shoulder of Chippenham Parkway with trucks and other vehicles zooming by, Pouncee Nelson was in need of help. On Jan. 10, at the advice of roadside assistance from AAA, he called Richmond 911 to see if officers could respond and put out flare flights.
But he said no one answered.
“It went to a recording. It said, ‘stay on the line, all operators are busy,’ and I stayed on the phone for 10 minutes. No one ever came to the line," Nelson recalled.
He then hung up the phone and called Virginia State Police, but before the agency was able to get an officer on the scene, a tow truck had arrived to bring him to safety.
“It was a real disappointing, disappointing evening that that happened, and like I said, we could have been killed," Nelson said. "I just hate to think of a situation if someone had been having a heart attack or accident, where you really needed that medical attention immediately to save your life, and you dial 911 and this is what you get.”
Taylor Fuqua, a spokesperson for Richmond's Department of Emergency Communications (DEC), said DEC received 19 911 calls during the timeframe of Nelson's call, and several of them were for "serious incidents."
For seven of those calls, Fuqua said it took more than two minutes for an operator to answer.
Nelson's experience is not unique. City Councilmember Sarah Abubaker shared with CBS 6 a recording of an automated message that she said one of her constituents received after calling 911.
The message said in part, “You have reached the Richmond 911 Emergency Call Center. You have not been placed on hold or sent to voicemail. We are experiencing a high volume of emergency calls at this time.”
Abubker played that same recording at a public safety committee meeting in March after DEC Director Stephen Willoughby claimed that callers "never" get sent to voicemail — a remark that Abubaker dismissed as "semantics."
“They say it’s not voicemail, but it’s an automated response and they’re still being putting on hold. You can call a rose by any other name. It is voicemail," she said.
During that meeting, Ryan Clarke, who said he works at Richmond 911 and is a member of a union, said operators are stretched thin right now, partly due to a change that took effect in July of last year that required DEC to take control over medical calls — something that used to be handled by the Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA).
Clarke called it a "huge change" that staff were not properly trained for.
“Our members, they feel overwhelmed, they feel unprepared, they feel stressed out going to work. That’s all kind of leading to a level of service that’s impacting the citizens of the city, and it’s not as good as we could be," Clarke said. "This change has added to an already overwhelmed workload for 911 call takers who already face understaffing and increased responsibilities."
Before July 2024, DEC would transfer medical emergency calls, such as reports of heart attacks and cardiac arrests, to RAA so that its staff could triage the calls and determine what types of response and services were appropriate. But not even a year after the change was implemented, RAA wants to take that responsibility back.
RAA CEO Chip Decker told councilmembers that the authority's personnel have the more appropriate medical background to properly assess and prioritize medical emergency calls. He said errors in categorizing these kinds of calls have only increased under DEC's management, which in turn impacts RAA's response times.
Between July and December 2023, Decker said there were 85 reported "upgrades," which meant first responders arrived on scene of an emergency to find the patient's condition was more serious than initially categorized. Between July and December 2024, after DEC began fielding medical calls, RAA reported 209 "upgrades."
"I need DEC to get it right. They have to answer the phone, they have to pick the right event type, then they have to follow it down to the right determinant," Decker said.
Meanwhile, DEC argued that the switch helped save time by eliminating the step of transferring medical calls to another agency. DEC officials said there's been a one-minute reduction in how long it takes to code a call, meaning pre-arrival instructions have been able to begin sooner for people in crisis. Eliminating transfers also reduced the risks of calls being dropped, they said.
Additionally, by centralizing resources, DEC Deputy Director Jackie Crotts said citizens no longer have to talk to multiple communications officer which will "reduce frustration" for callers.
"EMTs and paramedics taking 911 calls is an antiquated way of doing business and delivering service. For instance, police officers and firefighters haven't answered 911 calls or emergency calls in the City of Richmond in 30 years," Willoughby said.
When Abubaker asked for data about how many callers receive the automated message and how many calls have been categorized incorrectly, Willoughby did not have that information.
Fuqua told CBS 6 that the average percentage of callers who hang up before an operator can answer is 6% so far this year. It was 13.5% in all of 2024.
Councilmembers said they're requesting more data before making a decision on how to move forward regarding the management of medical emergency calls. Following the public safety meeting, Stephanie Lynch said she was left with a "question mark" as to whether the city made the right move back in July.
In a statement to CBS 6, Abubaker said, "For years, RAA played a central role in answering medical 911 calls — a system that, by many accounts, worked well. It's unclear why we would move away from something that was reliably serving the public... If returning to the previous model results in faster, more accurate responses and better patient care, then that's the direction we should move in. This isn't about turf -- it's about getting results for the people we serve."
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky| Facebook| Instagram| X| Threads| TikTok| YouTube
