A 911 dispatcher was charged with manslaughter after refusing to send an ambulance for a woman who later died. Experts say there's 'never a time not to send an ambulance.
The criminal charges against a 911 dispatcher for refusing to send an ambulance to a patient is "one of the rarest cases" some emergency services experts have ever seen.
The dispatcher, 50-year-old Leon Price, was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Price refused to send an ambulance in July 2020 when Kelly Titchenell called 911 on behalf of her mother, 56-year-old Diania Kronk, who Titchenell said was "jaundiced, incoherent and bleeding from the rectum," a civil complaint filed by Titchenell said. Both criminal charges and a civil suit have been filed.
Price repeatedly asked Titchenell whether Kronk was "willing to go" to the hospital for treatment, The Associated Press reported. But experts told Insider that an ambulance should have been sent to Kronk's home regardless.
"This is probably one of the rarest cases I've ever seen," said Bill McDonald, an emergency medical services expert and executive director of McDonald Public Safety Consulting. "There's never a time not to send an ambulance because you don't know what's going on."