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GREENE COUNTY, Pa. – A 911 dispatcher in Pennsylvania faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter after failing to send an ambulance to a rural home despite a plea to do so. A woman for whom the ambulance was sought died of internal bleeding a day later.
Leon “Lee” Price, 50, faces criminal charges in the July 2020 death of Diania Kronk, 54, based on Price’s reluctance to dispatch medical assistance without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital. The case was filed last week after a Greene County detective completed the investigation, KTLA reported.
In addition to involuntary manslaughter, Price was charged with reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction.
Kronk’s daughter Kelly Titchenell, 38, who made the request on a 911 call said, “I believe she would be alive today if they would have sent an ambulance.”
In the 911 recording, an operator identified by police as Price replied to Titchenell’s description of her mother needing medical treatment by asking if she was “willing to go” if the ambulance were dispatched. The hospital was about a half-hour away from where she was living in Sycamore.
Price repeatedly questioned Titchenell about whether Kronk would agree to be taken to the hospital during the four-minute call.
“She will be, ’cause I’m on my way there, so she’s going, or she’s going to die,” Titchenell told Price as she drove from her home in Mather.
Price said he would send an ambulance but then added that “we really need to make sure she’s willing to go.”
“She’s going to go, she’s going to go,” Titchenell said. “Cause if not, she’s going to die, there’s nothing else.” She said that Kronk was not thinking clearly and that she was her mother’s closest relation. When Price again asked if Kronk would in fact go, Titchenell replied: “OK, well, can we just try?”
Once Titchenell told Price she was about 10 minutes from her mother’s home, Price asked Titchenell to call back after she made sure Kronk would be willing to go if the ambulance was sent to the residence.
“I’m sorry,” Titchenell said, and Price replied: “No, don’t be sorry, ma’am. Just call me when you get out there, OK?”
This undated photo provided by Kelly Titchenell shows her mother Diania Kronk, right, and son Robbie Kronk. (Kelly Titchenell via KTLA)
When Titchenell and her three children arrived at her mother’s home, she said, Kronk was nude on the front porch and talking incoherently. She was able to get her mother to put on a robe while trying to care for her needs.
“She just kept saying she was OK, she’s fine,” Titchenell said. “She’s the mom, you know — she doesn’t listen to her children.”
Titchenell was unable to call 911 from her mother’s residence since she could not locate a landline in the home and cell service in the area was unavailable.
When she eventually left the residence and returned to an area with cell service, she did not call, believing that her uncle would soon check on her and that another contact with 911 would be pointless, according to KTLA.
Her brother discovered the next day that their mother had died.
Titchenell told Price that her mother had been drinking heavily for some weeks prior to her death, and that Titchenell noticed she was “turning yellow” and losing weight. She said the autopsy concluded Kronk died of internal bleeding.
“This is unheard of, to me. I mean, they’ll send an ambulance for anything,” Titchenell said. “And here I am telling this guy that my mom’s going to die. It’s, like, her death, and she doesn’t get an ambulance.”
Price was arraigned June 29 and subsequently released on bail.
Titchenell, on behalf of her mother’s estate, filed a lawsuit against Price, two 911 supervisors, and Greene County in Pittsburgh federal court last month. The lawsuit accuses Price of “callous refusal of public emergency medical services.”
“It has to be very clear throughout the entire state, that when you call it’s not going to be conditioned on somebody on the other end of the phone saying there’s going to be a service provided or not,” said Lawrence E. Bolind Jr., who represents Titchenell in the civil action. “What we’re trying to do here is make this never happens to somebody else.”
The county said they will vigorously defend their actions, in a statement provided by counsel.
Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo, who is prosecuting the criminal case, said he is also looking into whether there was any policy or training under which the county’s 911 dispatchers were allowed to refuse services to callers.
“We all deserve equal protections, and we all deserve access to medical services,” Russo said in an interview. “I have a major concern as to the safety of the community in regards to this.”
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Source: www.lawofficer.com