CANTON TWP. (WWJ) - A lawsuit is being filed against 911 operators in Canton Township after a man died of a heart attack while emergency services were shut down.
The suit alleges that an operator intentionally turned off the call system in March 2018 for a period of time because she was having a "bad day" and no longer wanted to answer emergency calls. Meantime, caregivers at the Heartland Health Care Center were trying to call an ambulance for 69-year-old Stephen Greene. According to the lawsuit, they called 911 at least 13 times while the system was shut down.
"They kept calling 911 and nothing was happening. No one was picking up, there was no answer on the other end. They kept calling and calling," Civil Rights Attorney Jonathan Marko told WWJ's Charlie Langton. "In fact, it got so bad they thought that maybe the phone line at the rehab facility was broken, so all these nurses start opening up their cellphones and are dialing 911 on their cellphones. Nobody picked up on the other side."
Greene later died -- and the doctor who reviewed the case said he would've survived had the ambulance arrived after the first call.
"Deciding to turn off the 911 system that hundreds of thousands of people are relying on for safety because you're having a bad day is reckless," said Marko.
The lawsuit alleges gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful death.
Click here to read a copy of the complaint (.pdf format)
Marko is holding a news conference Tuesday to discuss the case. He called it a horrible tragedy for all of Canton's nearly 100,000 residents.
"Not only was Stephen Greene not able to get emergency help but who knows who else tried calling for help while the system was turned off and didn't get it," Marko said. "Somebody could have been breaking into somebody's house, there's domestic violence issues somebody could have been calling about, you know, drunk drivers endangering the lives of people -- all these calls went unanswered and we may never know the full extent of the damage that this caused on the community."
City officials have not yet issued a comment on the lawsuit, which is seeking $25 million in damages.
"Canton, for its part, has refused to give us any of the information that we needed," Marko said. "They have not been giving us answers to our questions that we've been asking them, and that's what forced this family to file a lawsuit and bring it to the public's attention."
The lawsuit names two employees of the Canton Public Safety Dispatch Center.