EMS Incident Raises Jurisdiction Questions

A man who suffered a heart attack near Dallas-Fort Worth airport last month didn’t receive a prompt EMS response because dispatchers didn’t know which agency should respond, the victim’s wife says. The man died later at a hospital after an ambulance took at least 14 minutes to arrive. The area of Highway 183 near the airport is alternatively the jurisdiction of the airport police-fire department or the city of Fort Worth. The family has logging tapes that show some confusion over the location of the incident, and is asking for an investigation. Read more and listen to the 911 calls here, and listen particularly to how the original calltaker obtains the 911 caller’s location, and to how dispatchers trade location information during later phone calls.