Family Faults 911 Failure In Grandfathers Death

Verizons accidental shutdown of the citys 911 system in three boroughs for approximately two hours Friday evening may have contributed to the death of a 76-year-old man in Queens, his family members say.
A Queens Village family says their patriarch, Jasper Grier, suffered a heart attack at around 7:30 p.m. on Friday. But, they say, their repeated calls to 911 never reached a dispatcher: they just received a busy signal.
"Without a doubt," said Devon Marshall, when asked if his father-in-laws death would have been prevented had the 911 system been working and allowed for an emergency response team to come immediately.
Grier, and his wife, Elsie, had been visiting family in the United States since August. According to relatives, Grier was watching his grandkids play basketball in the familys driveway, when he collapsed from the attack. Family members responded by dialing 911.
"I couldnt believe it," said Marshall, about the busy signal. At first, Marshall thought he had misdialed so he had his son Devon Marshall Jr. dial 911. But, repeated attempts over a 45-minute period were to no avail. When Grier stopped breathing, his grandson, Kemar Stephenson, 12, performed CPR, but was unsuccessful. The youngster said he learned the life-saving technique from watching television.
With the family unable to summon emergency personnel by the 911 system, a family member ran to the local firehouse, where emergency personnel were dispatched. Grier was taken to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Human Error
Verizon, the private phone company in charge of the citys 911 system, has attributed the accidental shutdown to human error rather than a technical problem.
According to the phone companys spokesman, an engineer mistakenly included numbers that carry 911 calls in his service upgrade work on a bank. This caused the system to register "busy" signals when residents in the some of the 718 area codes attempted to get through.
City dispatchers, who were unaware of the work being done by the communications giant, realized something was wrong when call volume began to decline at approximately 7:30 p.m.
Backup
System Fails
Verizons backup system, which should have kicked in at that point, didnt respond because it was designed to operate in case of technical error, not human error.
"There are major issues raised by the 911 blackout," said Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., chair of the City Councils Public Safety Committee. "One of these is the fact that the city does not have a 911 backup system. Since the 90s, we have been asking the city to establish one, but the monies that were slated for the systemmore than $100 millionhas been used instead for state troopers.
Officials reacted quickly to the blackout, posting notices on all television channels and broadcasting the alert on the radio. Residents in all five boroughs were instructed to redirect their fire, medical and police emergency calls to either 311 or borough-specific numbers.
The system was back up and running by 10 p.m.
Preliminary estimates show that 80 calls were directed to the 311 line during the outage period. According to reports, no calls were actually missed, but there were major delays in dispatching help to those who needed it.
City officials, who note that there has been no problem with the 911 system since the August 14, 2003 blackout, vow to better-monitor the emergency response line.
"Verizon itself is a major issue," said Vallone. "This is the companys second failure in less than a year.
Thus far, Grier, who was 76, is the only known death possibly related to the 911 shutdown. Family members say no one from the city or Verizon has contacted them.
A father of seven children and the grandfather of nine, Grier was a minister and a farmer in Jamaica.
Elsie Grier, his wife of 45 years, said he was well loved by his congregation.
"If you can get a video at that funeral, then you would know something about him," she said, commenting about the sizable turnout for her husband that they expect will take place on the island of Jamaica.
A memorial service for Jasper Grier is planned for Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Church of God Prophecy in South Ozone Park. His body will then be flown to the island of Jamaica for burial.
"You cant let nothing like this happen again," said Marshall, speaking about the 911 lapse. "Its ridiculous to be calling the 911 system and have it down."