911 Call From ER Highlights Problems

Receiving a 911 call from a hospital emergency room isn’t all that unusual, but in Los Angeles such a call helped spark a federal investigation into conditions at Martin Luther King Jr. – Harbor Hospital that could lead to a shut-down. A 43 year-old woman came into the hospital earlier this year, and lay bleeding on the floor for 45 minutes, despite 911 calls from the woman’s boyfriend asking for help or a transfer to another hospital. Dispatchers referred the caller to the hospital staff for assistance, but did not send an EMS unit. County and federal investigators are investigating the hospital’s problems. Read more and listen very carefully to the 911 calls (interpreted from Spanish) here. Also read this spoof of the incident.