A 911 operator put a desperate woman on hold during a bad fire. The woman was bedridden and her bedroom was on fire.
While help was delayed and time unnecessarily wasted, the outcome probably would've been the same given the severity of the conditions.
For full article, including 911 call transcript, please see:
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Note that the operators had to request the victim's location repeatedly. I thought the whole purpose of E911 (which we taxpayers pay for $1/month surcharge on our phone bills) was to give the 911 operators instantly all the information they need, so they wouldn't have to waste time asking about an address.In Bell System days, customer training was such that calls were not supposed to be answered until the operator was ready to handle them. Better to let it ring than answer "please hold".