911 operator tells caller to 'deal with it', teen dies

A New Mexico dispatcher has resigned after telling a panicked 911 caller who was trying to save the life of a shooting victim to "deal with it yourself."

Matthew Sanchez was reassigned after officials became aware of the call, fire officials said on Monday. But a statement Tuesday evening from the office of Albuquerque's chief administrative officer said that Sanchez has resigned from the fire department.

The call was made after Jaydon Chavez-Silver, 17, was shot in June as he watched other teens play cards at a friend's house in Albuquerque. He later died. Police have not named a suspect and have made no arrests.

In the recording obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, the panicked caller snaps at the dispatcher for repeatedly asking whether Chavez-Silver is breathing.

During the call, the female says, "I am keeping him alive!"

Sanchez asks, "Is he not breathing?"

The caller responds, "Barely!"

She is then heard frantically encouraging Chavez-Silver to keep breathing.

"One more breath! One more breath!" she is heard telling the teen. "There you go Jaydon. One more breath! There you go Jaydon. Good job! Just stay with me, OK? OK?"

The dispatcher then asks again, "Is he breathing?"

The female responded, "He is barely breathing, how many times do I have to (expletive) tell you?"

"OK, you know what ma'am? You can deal with it yourself. I am not going to deal with this, OK?" the dispatcher says.

It seemed from the tape that Sanchez hung up on the caller in mid-sentence.

"No, my friend is dying .," she said as the call ended.

Personally, I always wondered what is expected of 911 operators, as far as the whole "stay on the line" thing goes.

It's not like they get up and get in the car to go over to the incident. It's not like they can do anything except distract the caller and make noise.

I thought their job was to just direct "help" to where it's needed and get as much information as possible so the "help" can arrive informed.

If the 911 operator dispatched help, got all the information, and didn't need anything else and was just asking "is he still breathing?!" just for something to say, they did their job.

I would like to hear the actual recording of the call, just for poops and giggles.
Because

can be said in many ways.

I mean there's saying it like "you can deal with it yourself, you little turd!"
Or "you can deal with it yourself, you know what you're doing."
Or "meh, you can deal with it yourself, you don't need me."

Tonal inflection would be extremely important.

This is crappy journalism. It's pure emotional manipulation:

There can be a huuuuuuuuge difference between "you can deal with it yourself," and "deal with it yourself."

Hanging up on a 911 emergency caller, would that be tonal inflection?

Your job as a 911 operator is to gather information and dispatch services with the appropriate speed and disposition of resources. Wanting to know how someone is breathing simply tells you if they are injured, or hyperventilating and freaking out over whatever has taken place.

If breathing is laboured, (as in this case) you speed up the response. In addition, the info was the victim had been shot. So again you want to know where. If it's the chest, then it could be a punctured lung. If shot in the pinky, could be hyperventilating.

People call 911 for not getting the right McNugget sauce so you sometimes have to be mean to people to get them focused. However hanging up on a life threatening call is simply inexcusable, no matter how bad a day you're having.

The operator in question should be fired immediately, and there should be a determination if the delay in emergency services response to this patient contributed to his death. If so, he should be held criminally and civilly liable.

not sure i agree with you... neither of them are doctors or medics, so neither are qualified to act as such... the ambulance or police cannot get there any faster, regardless of if the victim is breathing or not... and the police would have to secure the scene first anyway, since it was a murder... i think they just need more training on dealing with hysterical people...

At the very least,
gross negligence on the part of the dispatcher.

Yea, that will go on her permanent record for sure.

The operator has resigned, but that might not be the end of the story.

She committed suicide?

It seemed from the tape that Sanchez hung up on the caller in mid-sentence.

911 hung up on the caller
not the caller hung up on the 911 operator

The operator is a male.

No, 911 dispatchers are not M.D.s. They are trained to instruct callers based on potential situations. No, there isn't a contingency plan for every possible emergency but if there is a medical emergency they have 'rolodexes' of questions to ask in order to keep the person alive, CPR, save a limb etc. These 'cue cards' don't come from the Pope, they come from Police, Fire Depts, EMT/EMS and doctors.