Ambulance Delay Probed

Columbus (Miss.) 911 officials are investigating an 8-minute response delay for an ambulance after a police request from the scene of a shooting. E911 director Dan Pittman said a miscommunication by both dispatchers and police officers may have caused the delay. Pittman said the dispatchers were swamped that evening, and the radio dispatcher may not have heard the first request from the officer for an ambulance. But a Columbus Dispatch newspaper story is confusing on Pittman’s second point, with the article saying, “But Pittman said part of the problem was that the dispatching CPD officer may not have followed radio protocol as closely as he should have, calling in his initial ambulance request over a police frequency without radioing his call directly into 911.” Read the full story here.