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911 Dispatch Procedures Called Into Question

BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP — Katie Kaufman will likely be stuck on her couch for the next few days with a leg injury, but her family says that’s OK, consid...
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BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP -- Katie Kaufman will likely be stuck on her couch for the next few days with a leg injury, but her family says that's OK, considering all she's been through.

On Tuesday, the mother of two was at her house in Bear Creek Township. She got out of the car and forgot to put it in park. The car started to roll into the garage and pinned her in the doorway.

She was able to call 911 in Luzerne County and told a dispatcher she needed an ambulance and couldn't walk.

This was at 6:12 p.m. She lay on the driveway injured and afraid to move.

"The 2-month-old baby was in the back seat crying, her son was out of the car, the dog was running around. She needed help," said Michele Kaufman, Katie's mother-in-law,

Katie was able to call her mother-in-law, who got to the house to help.

They were afraid to move Katie into a car, fearing they might injure her even more.

About 40 minutes later, there was still no ambulance.

"It's unusual that so many of us arrived before the ambulance did, when there was a company literally down the road," said Kaufman.

An ambulance did eventually show up, but it came from 35 minutes away in the borough of Luzerne.

If you look on a map, you can see far that is from the Kaufman's house in Bear Creek Township, while the nearby White Haven ambulance company was never called.

The 911 center says it followed protocol.

The Luzerne County 911 director says each municipality gives the 911 center a list of ambulance companies to call in case of an emergency.

For Bear Creek Township, the 911 center is told to call Bear Creek ambulance and Plains Township first.

If they can't respond, dispatchers will call Trans-Med Ambulance in Luzerne borough.

That process can take 15 minutes.

Trans-Med ended up responding, but that company is more than 20 miles away from Kaufmann's home.

The crew didn't get there until almost an hour after Kaufman called for help.

The Kaufmann family says they feel lucky that the only real damage is to the car and Katie's knee, but the family also says they want some questions answered: like why an ambulance from Luzerne came, when there was an empty ambulance sitting in White Haven?

Kaufman said, "We need to figure out a better system so the response time is less than an hour."

Newswatch 16 spoke with a Bear Creek Township supervisor who said the ambulance protocol has been in effect for years and this is the first time he's hearing of a complaint.

However, the supervisor did say anything that could improve public safety is something the supervisors would consider.

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