A Kansas City family says they no longer have faith in the 911 system after they heard an automated message when they called for help. Simone Grantham said that her four-year-old nephew Nathan suddenly fell unconscious and started having seizures. The family immediately called 911, but instead of speaking to a dispatcher, they received a recorded message asking them to hold.
"We literally have a four-year-old baby unconscious, seizing on the floor, and we can't get ahold of 911," Grantham told KCTV. "It was scary."
The family hung up and tried calling their local police station directly but received another automated message. Grantham said that's when they decided to drive Nathan to the hospital themselves.
"We got him in the car he had a seizure in my arms," Kajaun Johnson, Nathan's dad, told the news station. "I told him, 'Stay with me. We are going to get through this and get you there."
Luckily, the family got Nathan to the hospital in time, and he is going to make a full recovery. The family told the station they were shocked to be put on hold when calling 911 and said they no longer have confidence in the 911 system.
"I was dumbfounded. It was crazy! Because how are you an emergency line? In an emergency, we can't get a hold of you," said Grantham.
An investigation by KCTV found that the average wait time during the last four months of 2020 was more than 20 seconds. In one case, a person had to wait more than 12 minutes to speak with an emergency dispatcher. The station found that on the day Nathan's family called 911, another person was on hold for nearly four minutes.
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