Mother's struggle reaching 911 highlights emergency response problems


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HERRIMAN — When Ashley Olsen found her two-year-old son Landon blue-faced and gasping for air while suffering from a severe asthma attack Thursday afternoon, she called 911.

She didn’t expect what she heard next.

Olsen received a hold message. Now in a panic and with her husband at work and other child asleep, Olsen raced outside and starting knocking on her neighbors’ doors for help. She dialed again only to receive the same message.

“At first I thought, ‘This isn’t 911,’ so I hung up, called again and it was the same recording that went over and over and over,” Olsen said. “I ran outside, tried knocking on people’s doors to come and help me.”

Luckily in her and Landon’s case, she was connected to a live operator after about 30 seconds. The dispatcher instructed her how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until emergency responders arrived, and Landon is recovering well.

Geana Randall, of the Valley Emergency Communications Center, said people do receive a hold message when there is a high volume of calls. However, 90 percent of calls are answered by a live operator immediately.

The call center covers a large portion of the Salt Lake Valley. To completely avoid this situation, Randall said the center would need unlimited resources.

Olsen’s experience, however, has left her rattled.

“My situation was extremely scary,” she said. “But just bothers me to know that if I was in danger, if there was something where I couldn’t keep calling back, if I did hang up, do I know that they’ll call me back?”

Randall said that it’s a good reminder that 911 should only be dialed in an emergency to avoid creating hold messages.

“If you do call 911, the reason you call is to stop a crime, save a life or put out a fire,” she said.

Contributing: Carter Williams

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