Authorities Empty-Handed After 911 Call

By: Donna Willis | NBC4i.com
Published: January 16, 2008

[dateline] -- A woman calls for help after falling in a local park.

She doesn’t speak English.

A man takes the phone and it goes dead.

Authorities wasted manpower and hours of precious time before figuring it likely was a hoax, NBC 4’s Tacoma Newsome reported.

It’s hard to estimate the total amount of time and effort spent on last night’s fruitless search.

There were ladder trucks, EMT vehicles and a helicopter. And all were in vain -- but police can't take chances on an emergency call.

Westerville Police converged on Sharon Woods Park a little after sundown Tuesday. They were responding to a call from a woman who supposedly fell on or near a trail.

A language barrier added to the challenge of finding the woman. Then an English-speaking male picked up the phone and it suddenly goes dead.

The Metro Park Police checked the trails before police arrived and retraced their steps. The found nothing, Newsome reported.

"We have to follow up on every lead. We certainly wouldn't want to leave someone in the park all night that was injured,” said Westerville Fire Battalion Chief Don Blakley.

Police used a handheld GPS system to trace the call. After nearly an hour, authorities determined the call originated near the center of the park. When no victim surfaced, the three-hour effort was called off.

“Had the person been injured, it would have been a different scenario,” Blakley said. Luckily in this case, no one was injured, and it had a good outcome."

Franklin County currently does not have the pinpoint technology that allows law enforcement to automatically zone in on a cell phone -- technology that likely would have saved local authorities much lost time and effort, Newsome reported.

The technology is already being used in nine other counties in Central Ohio, including Union, Marion, Delaware, Morrow, Knox, Licking, Fairfield, Hocking and Fayette. Franklin County's pinpoint should be available sometime next month.

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