WEST CHESTER, Ohio — A woman in West Chester is asking for answers after 911 dispatchers hung up on her twice during a medical emergency.
Alyson Montgomery was shopping at the Lowe’s store on Tylersville Square Drive Saturday when she started having a seizure.
“I started slipping in and out of consciousness,” she said.
She used an emergency SOS feature set up on her cell phone, which called 911 and contacted her emergency contacts. Montgomery said she used the feature to dial 911 twice, but dispatchers hung up on her both times.
WCPO obtained the 911 calls and heard dispatchers ask for a response several times.
“If you can hear me, push a button or I'm going to have to disconnect,” a dispatcher said on the call.
Montgomery said she pressed a button, but the line disconnected.
“I made sure the phone was near my mouth so I could be breathing in it,” she said. “The phone got disconnected and at that point, my heart sunk.”
West Chester Township spokesperson Barbara Wilson said in a statement that dispatchers made multiple attempts to get feedback from Montgomery with no response.
Wilson confirmed that because of that, officers were not dispatched after Montgomery’s two calls. Wilson also said the geographic coordinates from her calls came back as an address on a different street.
“That does concern me a lot because that means either my phone or their system is not working correctly,” Montgomery said.
Montgomery’s emergency system sent the correct address to her emergency contacts by text.
Twelve minutes after her first 911 call, an employee called 911 themselves. Police arrived two minutes after. Medics arrived three minutes after the police.
“Within six minutes of the emergency call connecting with dispatch, emergency help was at the scene administering care and 15 minutes later the patient was at the hospital,” Wilson said. “We know every second counts in response and are committed to always provide the best response and service.”
Wilson said West Chester hopes to work with the patient to better collect information about the device she was using and how emergency communication from the device is intended to work.
Montgomery wants to ensure something like this doesn’t happen to anyone else. She’s pushing for more emergency training for store employees and accountability from West Chester.
“Things could have went a whole lot worse,” said Montgomery. “That's very scary, not just for me because I'm a mother.”
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