Leon Price, a Pennsylvania 911 dispatcher, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after not sending an ambulance to the home of an ailing woman who later died.
Kelly Titchenell dialed 911 urgently to request that an ambulance be sent to her mom Diana Kronk (54 years old).
“My mom, she’s really bad. She hasn’t been out of bed in three days. She’s turning yellow and she’s laying in the bed making noises,” Titchenell said.
She says she was shocked by the 911 dispatcher’s response.
Price was astonished when Titchenell stated that her mom had to go to the hospital. “willing to go to the hospital.”
“She will be, because I’m on my way there. She’s going or she’s gonna die,” Titchenell told Price.
Price responded that they couldn’t force Kronk go to an ambulance and said to call 911 back once Titchenell arrived at her mother’s home.
“How ‘bout calling us back to make sure she’s willing to go before we send resources out there in case she says no?”Price stated.
Titchenell made this call while driving to Sycamore, where her mom lives. When Titchenell arrived, her mother was already in serious condition. Titchenell was without cell service, so she couldn’t call 911.
“I just figured, we’ll let her rest. Get her help the next day,” Titchenell said.
But the next morning, Titchenell’s brother Robbie found their mom dead from internal bleeding.
“We were begging for help, and for somebody to be on the other end of that phone and decide that he’s god for that day, that is unacceptable,” Robbie said.
“We feel that if emergency services were dispatched, as we allege they should’ve been, that Diana Kronk would’ve survived,”Dave Russo, Greene County District Attorney, said.
Officials say they are now looking into the county’s emergency call policies.