CINCINNATI — When asked how Kyle Plush should be remembered, Civil Rights Attorney Al Gerhardstein smiles.
Then, he tells a story. A story about how the teen once worked on a school project to connect your phone to emergency dispatchers through an app. A story that would eventually turn the attorney's smile into a frown.
In 2018, Plush's phone was stuck in his pocket. The 16-year-old used voice activation to call 911 twice, giving his location to dispatchers despite not being able to use his hands.
He was dying.
“Tell my mom I love her,” Plush said in one of those calls.
No one found him until it was too late. He suffocated in the back of his family’s van waiting for help, crushed when the backseat flipped up on him while reaching for tennis gear.
“He was a problem solver,” Plush's dad, Ron, said at a Cincinnati City Council meeting earlier this year. “And we knew he would have wanted us to do everything possible to save lives by making the City of Cincinnati emergency response safer.”
Kyle Plush (Photo provided)
It’s been six years since Plush's death, when Gerhardstein began representing his family. Investigations looked into the failure, and Plush's family sued the City of Cincinnati. Their $6 million settlement included a plan for improving the city’s 911 system. A plan the family's attorney says is working — despite challenges.
“There was a problem with morale,” Gerhardstein said. "This is a very hard job. It burns out a lot of people, and the City of Cincinnati has tackled that directly.”
Gerhardstein said dispatchers are now given better access to mental health resources, which includes a new peer support program. And this week, city officials filed a report detailing some of the work done in the wake of Plush's death. WCPO reviewed the report and found there’s been a real change in the Cincinnati dispatch system — including extensive training and reclassification of some calls.
But the progress report, required as part of the settlement, says Cincinnati’s communications center still struggles to recruit and hire staff. The center has hired more employees since February, according to the report, but they are still 21 people short of their goal.
“Every 911 center across the country — you can go to almost any of them — is struggling with finding the people who will dedicate their lives to listening to people on their worst days,” said Andrew Knapp, director of Hamilton County’s Communications Center.
We spoke with Knapp because he's been in this field since 1988, and he works with Cincinnati officials regularly. He said he’s seen an improvement in the city's 911 services as well — echoing what the family attorney told us.
“Everyone should be proud of that," said Gerhardstein.
