BURNET, Texas (KXAN) – Cheryl Wood remembers it was like any other morning.
She arrived early for work at Mama’s Home Cooking off Highway 29 in Burnet to make sure the restaurant was ready before opening. She said she grabbed some food before her hostess duties began.
“I started eating, and I was eating the rice, and the rice got stuck in my throat, and I tried to drink water, and it wouldn’t come up,” she said.
Wood recalled panicking and going over to a co-worker, motioning that she was choking.
“She asked me if she needed to call 911 … I shook my head, ‘yes,'” she added. “It seemed to take forever.”
In an audio recording obtained by KXAN investigators through a public information request, the 911 dispatcher is heard searching for an address to send EMS.
“Where are they? Is it going to get worse for me before they get here?” Wood recalled wondering.
Officials with the Highland Lakes Regional Emergency Communications Center said the call that March morning was delayed 2 minutes and 21 seconds. It reflects the initial challenges faced after the City of Burnet switched dispatch services.
City moves to regional dispatch system
“The number one job that we do every day is just making sure that when a citizen calls, they get the help that they need,” said Stacy Marberry, the director of Highland Lakes Regional Emergency Communications Center, which is in nearby Marble Falls.
The center dispatches for more than a dozen agencies. Since February it’s dispatched police, fire and EMS for the City of Burnet. Before that, the city relied on the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office for calls.
She added the choking call happened early on in the transition and there was a delay notifying first responders because of conflicting address data displaying on the 911 map.
“The call taker was attempting to validate the location was correct by business name, because her 911 map was plotting to a different location,” Marberry explained, adding that can happen with certain calls as a registered address or owner may be different from the actual location of the call.
The City of Burnet approved the agreement late last year to be part of the regional communications center for at least 3 years at a cost of about $600,000. The police chief explained in an email to KXAN that the switch has meant upgraded technology, including real-time mapping and navigation, a records management system and data sharing with other partner agencies in the Hill Country.
“The change has impacted our ability to measure our performance better and ensure we are responding appropriately to a variety of calls in our community. Rest assured if you call 911 in the City of Burnet the call will be answered and officers will be dispatched in a timely manner,” said Chief Brian Lee with the police department. “The newer software has more capabilities and for administration we can run several reports on officer’s activities, calls for service, response time, and several other metrics we can use to ensure we are delivering quality service to our community.”
Since April, KXAN investigators have been hearing concerns about 911 call delays and confusion after the move to a regional communications center. The tips point to instances of emergency crews going to the wrong locations and dispatchers having trouble verifying addresses.
“The confusion and delays that we have had, we have addressed internally,” Marberry said. “With a big project like this, there’s lots of data involved, and there’s programming that happens on the 911 district side, there’s programming that happens internally with our own technology. There’s mapping data locally that has to be adjusted, So, and all that, you know, is human error sometimes.”
She explained dispatchers had specific training, including riding along with police, fire and EMS so they could see where things are located in Burnet. Typical sites including grocery stores, schools, churches and government buildings were manually entered into their system to make them easier to find.
“Right away we ask what the address of the emergency is, so we have the address. The next question we ask is, ‘OK, tell me exactly what happened.’ And from there, the dispatcher is able to pick the right chief complaint … a collision, stroke, childbirth,” Marberry said. “Right away… the call is being dispatched to responders, and those subsequent questions that we’re asking, those are the questions that are showing up on their mobile devices so that they can have accurate patient information prior to their arrival.”
Marberry explained 911 calls that come to the regional communications center are answered 98% of the time in fewer than 10 seconds. She added the center has seen a 30% increase in emergency calls since Burnet joined.
The City Manager of Burnet said there have been on-and-off discussions about the possibility of a regional dispatch system for a number of years, but previously it was cost-prohibitive. He added that the switch will mean saving money over time, and they’ve already reduced software costs by about $40,000.
“While the cost savings are significant over time, the decision to transition to the City of Marble Falls was ultimately not about cost savings. We truly believe that a regional dispatch center is in the community’s long-term best interests and we knew that even though it may cost us money in the short-term, it was the right decision for our community,” Burnet City Manager David Vaughn told KXAN investigators.
Know your location
While the City of Burnet is no longer using the county’s dispatch services, the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office has also seen an impact. Records obtained by KXAN show Burnet County Sheriff’s Office dispatchers have transferred over 3,000 calls between February and August to the regional communications center in Marble Falls.
“If you’re on a cell phone, it depends where the tower is, it will route it to the closest law enforcement facility, which happens to be us in a lot of these cases. So, we’ll still have to forward them from here to Marble Falls, and also vice versa,” explained Captain Mike Sorenson with the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office.
Officials with the regional dispatch center said almost 90% of emergency calls they get are from a cell phone and emphasized the importance of callers knowing the address where they are. The sheriff’s office explained it has worked closely with the team in Marble Falls to streamline protocols and educate the community about the change.
“They’re concerned about the possible delay from us having to forward a call from our agency to the Marble Falls agency,” Sorenson said. “I don’t think there is any risk to the public.”
Wood said help eventually arrived and she didn’t need to be taken to the hospital. She explained she’s grateful she could still breathe while she waited.
“If I couldn’t breathe, I’d be dead. It’d be that simple,” she said.