911 dispatchers come to rescue
SLIPPERY ROCK — Out-of-the-box thinking by three Butler County emergency dispatchers early Thursday morning helped find a mother in distress.
Victoria Crawford, an epileptic suffering a series of grand mal seizures, was unable to speak, so her 8-year-old son Ivan called 911 about 4:45 a.m.
“He was a good little 911 caller,” said dispatcher Tracie Nanna of Harmony.
But apparently, Ivan didn't know his address.
So the three-member overnight emergency dispatching team — with about four decades experience combined — set about getting help to the child and his mother as quickly as possible.
Dispatcher Eric Butler of Saxonburg said his heart went out when he realized the distress call he'd taken was from a child about the same age as his own daughters.
“I have three kids so as soon as I heard this little kid saying, 'I need help,' Pretty much everything else stopped to exist for me,” Butler said.
“He was very calm and very well composed. It was almost difficult to hear him.”
Ivan was able to explain the situation to the dispatcher and name the road he lived on. But he did not know his exact address, and he had called from a cell phone that prompted a map to appear on the dispatcher's screen.
But, according to the map, there was no buildings in that area.
“The spot that it picked was an open field,” Butler said. “It's fairly unusual for something like that to happen.”
Butler knew only the child's name, that there were two younger siblings in the home and that the mother was mumbling in the background and therefore breathing.
“I was a duck,” Butler said. “Calm on the surface, but under the water I was paddling my behind off ... we live and die by addresses, and I wasn't sure how we were going to find this one.”
Fellow dispatchers Nanna and Cheryl Evans of Butler set about helping Butler by alerting the Slippery Rock ambulance to the eminent call and contacting Verizon to get the billing address of the incoming number.Verizon, they said, was working on it. Meantime, everyone set about trying to find the boy and his mother.They ran the telephone number to see if it had ever been dispatched before. No luck.Butler asked the boy to search for mail or a prescription bottle that might have his address. Again no luck.All the while, Butler's fellow dispatchers still were answering all of the county's emergency calls, which included a structure fire in Oakland Township.“This was a first, and we were shooting from the hip for ideas,” Butler said.Then Nanna came up with the winning idea: Mom's license plate.Eric coached the boy to walk to his mother's SUV and read back the plate number. The dispatchers then were able to run the number, come up with the address at Madison Grove Apartments on Grove City Road, send an ambulance and convince an officer who had only one minute left in his shift to stay over to help the boy.There was a round of sighs and high fives.“The clouds truly parted and the good Lord above gave us the ability to get the ambulance where it needed to be,” Butler said.Crawford, an epileptic, said she only recently started having the seizures so it's a fairly new phenomenon to her family. And on this occasion, both her husband and 9-year-old daughter were out of the house for the night.“I have no idea what would have happened if Ivan hadn't gotten help,” Crawford said. “I am proud of him and thankful to the dispatchers.”Crawford was taken by Slippery Rock ambulance to the Grove City Medical Center and released later the same day.“This was good thinking on the part of the entire crew,” said emergency services director Steve Bicehouse. “They worked together, and they worked with the child.”Evans, team supervisor, stressed teamwork is an important part of their job everyday.“Our whole job is to use our resources and teamwork,” she said. “People should know, if you call 911 we will get you help. We'll call on whatever resources we have and get you help.”
