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Kelly Titchnell called 911 when her mother was suffering after days of heavy drinking. She made a desperate plea for medical help to a Pennsylvania dispatcher: “She’s going to die” without immediate help, she said.
But instead of immediately sending an ambulance for Diania Cronk in the summer of 2020, the dispatcher asked for more assurances that Titchennell’s mother would be willing to be taken to a hospital half an hour away.
“She’s going to be because I’m on my way there, so she’s going or she’s going to die,” Titchennell told a Greene County, Pa., dispatcher as he drove to his mother’s friend’s home, according to a recording of the 911 call received from The Washington Post.
Still, Leon “Lee” Price waited and asked Titchnell to call 911 back after he arrived at the house to make sure Cronk was willing to go in an ambulance. “We really have to make sure she wants to go,” he said during the call.
EMS arrived well after the call ended, Titchnell told The Post. Titchnell found his mother naked on the front porch, slurred and bleeding. Cronk, 54, died of internal bleeding the next day.
Now, about two years after Cronk’s death, the 911 dispatcher has been charged with manslaughter, according to Greene County officials. Price, 50, of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, also faces charges of reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, according to the Associated Press.
The charges represent a rare case in which a 911 dispatcher has been charged in connection with someone’s death after failing to send help. Price, who was arraigned on June 29 and released on bond, faces the charges after Titchennell filed a federal lawsuit last month in the Western District of Pennsylvania against the Greene County dispatcher and two 911 operators who allege that “callous denial of public emergency medical services. Lawrence E. Bolind Jr., the attorney who represents Titchnell in the federal case, told The Post that Price’s hesitation during the nearly four-minute 911 call was a “deliberate act.”
“I believe in my heart that if he had sent an ambulance, my mom would still be alive,” said Titchnell, 38, of Mader, Pennsylvania. “It shouldn’t have been his decision. He should have sent an ambulance and let the professionals decide whether or not to go to the hospital.
A message left at a phone number listed as Price’s home address was not immediately returned Friday. It’s unclear if Price has an attorney.
Although Price’s employment status with the county remains unclear, Marie Millie Jones, an attorney for the county and 911 supervisors named in the federal case, told The Post that “Mr. Price is a member of the collective bargaining unit and the district follows the necessary procedures under the CBA. It was unclear whether Price faced any discipline for the 2020 incident. Jones told the AP that her clients do not believe they are responsible for Cronk’s death.
“It is unfortunate that this woman has passed away. Of course, from a personal perspective, it’s very difficult,” Jones said. “I will not comment on the details of her circumstances.”
Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo said in a news release that an investigation into the case by county detectives found that “911 operators violated protocol and their own procedures by refusing to send an ambulance to assist Ms. Cronk.” .
“According to the investigation, she was denied medical services when all three ambulances were ready to be dispatched,” Russo said.
A manslaughter conviction carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, according to Pennsylvania attorneys.
The charges in rural Pennsylvania come weeks after a 911 dispatcher in Buffalo was fired after a Tops supermarket employee trapped in a deadly mass shooting there in May was jailed. Erie County dispatcher Sheila E. Ayers was initially placed on administrative leave after Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the supermarket, told the Buffalo News and WGRZ that she called 911 and whispered to the dispatcher in hopes of informing authorities of the mass shooting . grocery store rollout. But instead of helping at a time when she was “scared for my life,” Rogers said, the 911 dispatcher turned her away in a “very unpleasant tone.” Ayers was terminated last month after eight years with the Central Erie County Police Department.
Although criminal charges against 911 dispatchers are rare, they are not unheard of. In 2008, a 911 dispatcher in Detroit was sentenced to a year of probation and lost her job for not taking a boy’s call seriously when he told the operator his mother had collapsed. Cheryl Turner, 46, was found dead hours after Sharon Nichols hung up on Turner’s young son in 2006 and accused him of playing games. The dispatcher testified in the case that she could not hear the child.
Cronk worked in home health care and loved taking care of others, her daughter said. Cronk, who had five grandchildren, enjoyed cooking for her family and friends, especially her famous baked rigatoni with pepperoni.
“She wanted to make sure everyone else was OK,” Titchnell said.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Titchnell was vulnerable because of her autoimmune diseases, she said. She also suffers from fibromyalgia, a chronic neuromuscular disorder for which there is no known cure. Although she and her mother lived together in Mather — a small town more than 50 miles south of Pittsburgh — Cronk spent more time at her friend’s house in an effort not to bring the virus into the Titchennell home.
“I panicked and didn’t want her to come and go. That’s why she stayed there for a long period of time,” she said. “I didn’t want her bringing the germs back here.”
Titchnell knew her mother’s drinking had increased during the early part of the pandemic, causing her to lose weight and her “yellowing,” she said. But a text message from her brother that their mother was “in bad shape” prompted the daughter to go to where Cronk was staying in nearby Sycamore, Pa., according to court records.
On July 1, 2020, Titchnell called 911 and was connected to Price. Cell phone service where her mother was staying was not good, so she called 911 before arriving, Titchnell told The Post. At the beginning of the call, she explained that her mother was suffering after days of heavy drinking and insisted that an ambulance come to pick her up.
“I can’t get her in my car. … She can’t even move,” Titchennell said, according to the 911 call.
During the conversation, Price repeatedly told Titchennell that Greene County could not force Cronk to go by ambulance if she did not want to. At that point, Titchnell told The Post she was confused about what was happening.
“I didn’t understand because usually if you call 911, they send help,” she said. “It really didn’t make sense to me.”
After Titchennell told the dispatcher that her mother was “not in the right frame of mind right now” to make that decision, Price bluntly told Titchennell that “no emergency services will be provided” without confirmation from Cronk that she will go to the hospital, according to court records.
“Can we at least try?” Price asked by Titchennell.
When Titchnell said she was 10 minutes away from her mother’s friend’s home, Price suggested she hang up and call 911 back to “make sure she wants to go before we send resources over there.”
“I’m sorry,” Titchnell said.
“No, don’t be sorry, ma’am,” replied Price. “Just call me when you get out, okay?”
Bolind told The Post that Price “never notified the police, never notified anybody to follow up” about Cronk’s condition.
“At some point Ms Titchnell believes a decision was made that for whatever reason she believes they didn’t want to waste resources to go to where her mother was staying,” he said.
An autopsy later concluded that Cronk died of internal bleeding.
Russo, the district attorney, told The Post that the next month of the investigation should determine whether additional charges will be filed against Price or the county.
“No one should be denied emergency services in Greene County or anywhere else,” he said. “Everyone should have equal protection and access to medical treatment.
Titchnell described the past two years as hell for her and her family. While she hopes for accountability, she said, she thinks about one of the questions she would ask the dispatcher if they had to speak again: “What would you do if this what happened to your mother?’
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” she said.
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