INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis woman is sounding the alarm after she was in a biking accident and couldn’t get through to 911.
Carrie Petty said that now, she is hoping to see changes made so this doesn’t happen again.
“I was praying,” Petty said. “I’m making a deal with God and I’m like this, ‘Oh my gosh this really could be it’.”
It’s a situation Petty said she never thought she’d be in. She and her husband Chris were riding their bikes on a trail behind their house near 86th Street and Fall Creek on Sunday, June 4.
That’s when she said she accidentally clipped the back of her husband’s tire and went flying over her handlebars. Petty hit her head, shattered her wrist and broke bones in her arm. She also injured her ribs and knee.
“[My husband] called 911 and he just stopped and turned white,” she said. “And he said, ‘Carrie I can’t get through’.”
Petty said her husband called a second time, got a recording and began using his shirt as a tourniquet on her arm before running to get help.
Eventually, Petty’s husband found a neighbor who also called 911. That neighbor couldn’t get through the first time, either. He tried again and got a 911 recording.
The third time he called, the neighbor finally got through on a satellite phone, making for a total of at least four separate times Petty’s calls for help went unanswered.
Petty was eventually rushed by ambulance to St. Vincent’s after lying in a pool of her own blood waiting for help.
“Nobody else needs to lie on pavement for 10 minutes bleeding out and not knowing what’s next,” Petty said. “I was wondering ‘Is anybody coming to help me?'”
FOX59/CBS4’s Jenny Dreasler went to the Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency (MESA) 911 Communications Center in Indianapolis on Wednesday to get some answers.
“We don’t want this to happen again,” said Mark Brown, director of the 911 Communications Center. “We are going to do a complete investigation on it.”
Brown said the dispatch center aims to answer calls within one minute, but admitted that the dispatch center is short-staffed and still looking to hire about 30 people.
Nevertheless, Brown said his team is looking into every aspect as to why Petty’s calls for help didn’t go through.
“We’re looking at that too, to make sure that we had enough staff on hand. So, we’ve pulled all of our slates,” said Brown. “We’re doing our due diligence to make sure we’ve covered every avenue and we’ve looked at everything. I was always told anything that was man-made is bound to fail and can fail. So, we’re looking at the call system. We’re looking at the staffing and everything we possibly can.”
As for Petty, doctors said she is expected to fully recover after getting one rod, a plate and multiple pins in her arm. Now, she is calling for more funding for MESA to help the dispatch center and hopes her story raises awareness.
“My city is better than this. Indianapolis, Marion County: we are better than this,” Petty said. “We are much better at taking care of people in our city than this, and I don’t want anybody to have to go through this again.”
Brown said he will be getting back to FOX59/CBS4 in the coming days with the results of exactly what happened in Petty’s situation.
In the meantime, Brown said he urges everyone to stay on the line with 911 and don’t hang up. He added that if you do hang up, you’ll get put back to the back of the call queue.
Brown also said that he’s hopeful the passage of Senate Bill 43 back in April will bring some relief.
The law, signed by Governor Eric Holcomb, would block local residency requirements for dispatchers, meaning 911 call centers can hire dispatchers who don’t live in the county they would serve. The law goes into effect in July.
In the meantime, anyone looking to apply for a position with Indy’s 911 dispatch center can click here for more information.
