A North Carolina woman was horrified after she called 911 during an emergency and no one answered. Melissa Price Krom saw a man fall at Southpoint Mall in Durham and immediately dialed for help after realizing he’d split his head. However, no one came to his rescue, WRAL reports.
No one was answering Melissa’s calls.
When she called 911, the number simply rang and rang and no one ever picked up regardless of the fact that she stayed on the line for a while. She then tried dialing the regular police but that rang out, as well.
“I called 911, and I just stayed there on the phone for at least like 5 minutes,” she recalled. “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.”
Thankfully, a security guard was able to help.
After finally coming across a mall employee, they managed to contact EMS, who rushed to the scene to help the man.
However, the situation still left Melissa Price Krom shaken as it could have ended much differently.
“It was really scary. I kept thinking, like, what if this was my child I was calling 911 for? Does 911 not work in Durham now?”
How could something like this happen?
Sure, many businesses close over the holidays, but 911 is one service that keeps going 24/7/365… or she thought.
As it turns out, there are serious staffing issues at the Durham Emergency Communications Center — roughly 26% of positions are currently vacation, WRAL says — and that’s leading to calls being missed or picked up late.
According to Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams, if more than one person happens to be calling 911 simultaneously, not all calls may be answered. However, they hope to recruit more operators 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.
