Technology failure misrouted hiker's 911 calls

[June 18, 2009]  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A lost hiker who was killed in a helicopter crash after her rescue last week called 911 repeatedly, but was initially routed to non-emergency lines lacking the technology to help locate her, authorities said.

Megumi Yamamoto, a University of New Mexico graduate student from Japan, dialed 911 after getting lost in the Sangre de Cristo mountains when she and her boyfriend became separated. She and State Police Sgt. Andy Tingwall were killed when the helicopter sent to rescue her crashed in stormy weather the night of June 9.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said Wednesday such misrouted calls have not occurred in more than a year, after the installation of technology that uses cell phone tower signals to narrow a person's location to within a 2-square-mile area -- called triangulation.

"We do want to get the 911 system where it works," he said. "We're very concerned that it didn't work right."

In response to a public records request by The Associated Press and other news organizations, the Department of Public Safety on Wednesday released recordings of telephone calls among Yamamoto, the helicopter and state police dispatchers -- including Tingwall's wife.

Shortly after 9 p.m., a dispatcher who had taken over for Tingwall's wife fielded a call from a state police major and she told him, "They just hit the mountainside."

The state police dispatchers had helped to guide the helicopter to Yamamoto by having her tell them whether she could hear the helicopter and from what direction the aircraft noise came from. It took more than three hours from the initial call fielded by a state police dispatcher before the helicopter spotted Yamamoto.

The helicopter landed about a half mile from her in a clearing on higher ground and Tingwall hiked through the darkness to find her and carry her back to the helicopter.

"I think he found me," Yamamoto exclaims, then in the background Tingwall can be heard.

Solano said that regardless of whether the 911 call system worked, Yamamoto was found quickly compared to most lost hikers in the mountains north of Santa Fe. He said he was unsure whether the rescue would have been successful without the call problems.

Despite the phone system problem, the hiker was transferred to a state police dispatcher on her third call -- within about six minutes of her initially trying to reach 911, according to recordings released by the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communications Center.

The state police later sent the helicopter to search for the hiker despite having only a general location, not an exact spot.

Solano said about seven of all the calls Yamamoto made were routed to non-emergency lines at the Regional Emergency Communications Center, which handles all emergency calls for the region. Typically, such 911 calls should be immediately routed through emergency lines.

"If there's any lesson to be learned from this ... it's sometimes we rely too much on technology. We maybe could have started the search and rescue a little earlier," Solano said.

The people answering the non-emergency lines also were trained as emergency dispatchers, according to Solano. A man answering Yamamoto's first two calls apparently had difficulty understanding her because of her Japanese accent. He told her to call 911, but took her cell phone number.

"I am lost. I don't know where I am now," Yamamoto said during her first call. She tried to tell the man she was in the Pecos Wilderness.

The man said at one point: "I can barely understand you. What are you looking for?"

During a later call that was answered by a woman, a man can be heard in the background saying, "I told her over and over to call 911."

After a few calls, the dispatchers realized the calls were being misrouted, but they had Yamamoto keep trying in an attempt to get the calls answered by 911 emergency lines that had the triangulation equipment.

Solano said the investigation is focusing on a suspected technological problem. The communications center will be working with area telephone and cell phone companies statewide to solve the problem, he said. Initial investigations show that the dispatchers followed the proper protocols, he said.

"Everybody was trying the best they could. Nobody was slacking," Solano said.

[Associated Press; By HEATHER CLARK]

Associated Press writer Barry Massey contributed to this report from Santa Fe, N.M.

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