The Truro News
TRURO, Nova Scotia, Canada -- A police chief in Nova Scotia says he’ll investigate why a dispatcher didn’t act upon a mother’s call for assistance after her infant was accidentally locked in a car.
Ken MacLean, chief of the Truro Police Service, said Friday he’ll consider disciplinary action if an investigation shows improper procedures were taken when Michelle DeBay called to say her three-month-old daughter Haley was locked in a Jeep Cherokee.
DeBay told Global television news that she told a person who answered her 911 call she was frightened her baby would suffocate while trapped in the vehicle, which was parked outside a Truro hospital.
However, DeBay said the response from the dispatcher was to first to suggest she was panicking and then to advise her to call a tow truck.
The mother managed to get her baby out of the vehicle when several people passing by forced open a window.
The Truro police release said DeBay spoke with a police dispatcher and not a police officer during the 911 call.
“Chief MacLean insists that any member would have responded immediately and would have done whatever it took to get the baby out of the vehicle, even if it meant breaking a window,” the release said.
Officers sometimes use a tool called a “slim jim” to unlock vehicles but it is a limited tool which will not work on power-locked vehicles. “If, in the investigation, it is revealed that the dispatcher was negligent in his or her duty, he or she will be disciplined appropriately,” the release said.
Truro town councillor Diane Bennett-Cook, who chairs the town’s police commission, said she has spoken with the chief about the incident and it appears the officer in charge of the shift was not informed by the dispatcher.
“It’s crucial that our police respond to any life and death situation,” she said. “I think the police department and police chief are fully cognizant of that and are upset the communication between dispatcher and shift was not appropriate. I think it will be dealt with appropriately.”
DeBay told Global television news that she accepted the police explanation, but remains concerned about what happened.
“That’s not a problem with just one person,” she said. “That’s something they have to deal with in the department as a whole.”
“The only thing I want from this is to make sure it never happens again.”