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Newton Falls dispatcher suspended without pay
By ED RUNYAN
NEWTON FALLS
A part-time Newton Falls Police Department dispatcher is suspended without pay for 60 days for failing to dispatch two police officers to an ambulance call for a woman who later died.
Dawn McAvoy, who has served as part-time dispatcher since late 2007, received a call from Dorothy Clonch, 72, of Newton Drive, at 4:56 a.m. April 12 in which Clonch said she was having difficulty breathing.
McAvoy called for the volunteer Newton Falls Joint Fire District ambulance to respond, but after not getting a response, she called on the private ambulance company Clemente- McKay. Clemente-McKay notified McAvoy at 5:12 a.m. that Clonch was in cardiac arrest and transported her to St. Joseph Health Center in Warren at 5:29 a.m., arriving at the hospital at 5:47 a.m.
Clonch was pronounced dead later that morning.
In a letter Police Chief John Kuivila wrote to McAvoy on April 23, he said the dispatcher failed to properly notify the two police officers on duty at the time of the call. Both officers were on a call at the time of Clonch’s call, Kuivila said.
Though McAvoy said she did try to contact the officers, there is no evidence that she did so in tape recordings of the dispatcher’s radio transmissions, Kuivila wrote in the letter.
“It has been found that you failed to dispatch the officers to this call, which is a direct violation of departmental directives and policy and procedure,” the letter says.
There was no answer at McAvoy’s home seeking comment.
Kuivila said the department’s policy is to notify officers whenever there is an ambulance call so that they can respond in addition to ambulance personnel. For one thing, officers carry automated external defibrillators in their cruisers, which means they might have the opportunity to save someone by shocking their heart to get it restarted, he said.
“Whatever it is, we respond to everything,” Kuivila said of calls for service.
“The officers [working at the time] said they didn’t know there was a squad call until they heard the Clemente ambulance coming into town,” Kuivila said.
McAvoy will be placed on a last-chance agreement, meaning that if there is a similar offense within the next year, she will be fired, Kuivila said.