On March 25, four Ohio telecommunicators—Angie Smith, Kerrie Kimpel, Cora Haytas and Elizabeth “Betsy” Reed—went to extraordinary lengths to locate a patient at the request of his wife, who could not say where her husband was, only that he needed help.

Below, Douglas Clary, director of communications, Springfield (Ohio) Communications Center, shares the story, with his comm center and with APCO:

“It has come to my attention that the four of you have stepped over that line again into the arena of extraordinary. I was going to make light of your accomplishment, just to limit the drama around here, but I just listened to the entire exchange via the recording system, and it is truly an impressive effort by all four of you. I’m referring to the Donna Roberts’ call involving her husband, Charles, who was possibly having a stroke in his pickup truck but unable to tell anyone where he was. There were 40 individual recordings associated with this incident, which spanned almost 45 minutes when the initial call came in at 2159 hrs.

“Since I’m sending this to everyone, here is a synopsis of what happened. Donna Roberts called dispatch and explained that her husband, who has a heart condition and a host of other medical problems, went out for an errand and has been gone for over two hours. She called him on his cell, and he was disoriented and slurring his words. He said he was parked in their driveway, but he was not. Dispatch called the husband, Charles, and tried to get him to figure out where he was but with no success. Dispatch tried to get him to hang up and call 9-1-1 directly, but he was unable to do that. He could only answer his phone.

“The decision was made to call the carrier, and the process of pinging his phone began. The coordinates, latitude and longitude, were determined but it was beyond our mapping system limits. We called County and tried to see if their system would located Mr. Roberts, but it was beyond their system limits also. Dispatch went to Google Maps and inserted the coordinates, which produced the desired results. Mr. Roberts was in Wilmington, Ohio, and that explains why he was beyond everyone’s mapping system. Dispatch contacted the proper authorities for that jurisdiction, and we stayed on the phone with Mr. Roberts until help had finally reached him.

“I called Mrs. Roberts today to find out how her husband was doing and to get permission to repeat this story to other people. The first words out of her mouth were, ‘They saved his life.’

“Mrs. Roberts went on to explain that her husband was still in the hospital recovering. When he was picked up by the paramedics, he had a temperature of 108 degrees. He was delirious (caused by the high temperature) and suffering from a blood infection. She told me that when she first called him, Charles explained that he was inside a house with the groceries he had bought but did not understand why no one was in the house and why it was empty of furniture. She speculates that he must have stopped at an abandoned home and was roaming around inside. He actually left the groceries at the house.

“The Wilmington police told her that the fuel in his pickup truck that he was driving was ‘below empty’ when they finally located him on the side of the road. Mrs. Roberts was in tears thanking me, thanking you, for saving her husband’s life. Mrs. Roberts explained that her husband had worked 60 hours a week all his life and, as of a couple of years ago, his health took a bad turn forcing him to go on disability at the age of 58.

“She wanted me to thank the four of you from the bottom of her heart.

“I will be documenting this incident and placing copies in your files. I thank you from the bottom of my heart because I listened to all the calls you had to handle while attempting to work on this emergency. Very few people understand that the normal flow of crazy phone calls continue to come into the center while you are trying to concentrate on something that really is an emergency. You did a fine job, and you have my admiration and respect.”