Mt. Carmel Police angered by misuse of 911 lines, gawking during train vs pedestrian crash | News

Mt. Carmel Police Chief Jeff Besing is none too pleased with the actions of some area residents during an emergency situation on Friday afternoon when a man was struck by a train.

Here's a statement he released.

On Friday afternoon, the Mt. Carmel Police Department responded to a very serious accident which involved the responses of the Mt. Carmel Fire Department, Wabash General Ambulance Service, Wabash County Sheriff’s Office and the use of Air-Evac medical helicopter. During this incident, our dispatch center received approximately. 98 phone calls (both on the 911 and business lines) from the public asking how long the train was going to block the crossing, or why was the train stopped or simply asking “Is something going on.” One guy called 911 three times complaining that we had the railroad crossing blocked too long. He was instructed that we were working an emergency and to not tie up the 911 lines unless it was an emergency but he called back repeatedly.

On top of all the unnecessary phone calls, the amount of spectators at this scene was unreal. The helicopter would not land at our landing zone because of all the people standing by their cars at the Southgate location because of safety issues so we had to divert the helicopter to another landing zone which wasted important time getting this patient to the helicopter and to the hospital. A lot of the spectators at Southgate were from the traffic being backed up which is understandable but yet they still got out of their cars standing around trying to see what we were doing which created the safety hazard for the helicopter.

Not to sound completely negative, I would like to thank the gentleman and his wife who was a nurse for allowing me usage of their GPS unit to get the GPS coordinates for our landing zone.

Now to my point: when we are dealing with emergencies such as the one last Friday, our dispatchers are extremely busy getting the necessary emergency units dispatched that they don’t have time answering “unnecessary” calls from the public asking why the train is stopped etc. In addition to the emergency that they were handling, we also had another accident and a domestic situation called in.

I would like to remind the public that when you dial 911 for a non-emergency issue, you can actually be charged with a criminal offense. And when you dial 911 or our business lines to ask unnecessary questions, you are only tying up our dispatchers and the phone lines that we need to answer “true” emergency calls. Also if you happen to get caught in traffic at an emergency scene, please stay in your vehicle so you don’t put your safety at risk or create a safety issue for the emergency responders etc.

It is human nature to be ‘nosy’ during incidents like this, but by doing so you are only creating more problems for the emergency responders who are trying to do their job and help those in need.

-From Mt. Carmel Daily Register