Wife Dies After Police Hang Up on 911 Call

A Los Angeles police 911 operator hung up on a deaf man who used a special communicator to report that his wife was having difficulty breathing, and the woman died before paramedics arrived more than 15 minutes later, authorities said Tuesday.

Police said they were investigating the March 8 incident in Northridge and will review department procedures for handling 911 calls from the deaf on telephone-teletype links known as TDDs.

Capt. Forrest Lewallen, in charge of police emergency communications, said the operator made a mistake in hanging up and caused about a 10-minute delay in response time.

Sylvia Linden, 80, died of heart failure while her husband, Irving Linden, 79, waited in vain for a response from the 911 operator, not realizing that she had not received his message, said their daughter, Joyce Groode of Chatsworth.

Help arrived after Linden got through to the Fire Department using a regular seven-digit telephone number.

Pauline Annarino, development specialist for the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness, said the incident shows the need for better training for 911 TDD operators. “The system they have is not working,” she said.

Lewallen said the paramedic supervisor told him the woman would have died, even if help had come promptly. “The 10 minutes was not a factor in life and death,” he said.

Groode disagreed, saying: “The 10 minutes . . . might have saved my mother’s life. We feel the people that operate the system were not trained properly.”

Lewallen said the operator, whose name was not released, has an excellent record and remains on the job, but could face disciplinary action.

Linden called 911 using a TDD, or “telecommunications device for the deaf.” When attached to a standard phone, a TDD can send typed messages to similarly equipped phones.

Groode said her father called 911 after his wife, also deaf, awakened him because she was having trouble breathing.

Lewallen said that because of the Linden incident, he has ordered operators to automatically call back all disconnected TDD calls and, if communication is not reestablished, to send a patrol car to the address.