Comment Kelly Titchenell called 911 when her mother suffered after days of heavy drinking. He made a desperate plea for medical help to a Pennsylvania dispatcher: “He’s going to die” without immediate help, he said. But instead of immediately sending an ambulance for Diania Kronk in the summer of 2020, the dispatcher asked for more assurance that Titchenell’s mother would be willing to be taken to a hospital half an hour away. “It will be, because I’m on my way there, so it’s go or die,” Titchnell told a Greene County, Pa., dispatcher as she drove to her mother’s boyfriend’s house, according to a recording of The Call 911 was obtained by the Washington Post. However, Leon “Lee” Price waited and asked Titchenell to call 911 back once she got home to make sure Kronk was willing to go in an ambulance. “We really have to make sure she’s willing to go,” he said on the call. Emergency medical services arrived long after the call ended, Titchnell told The Post. Titchnell found her mother naked on the front porch, slurred and bleeding. Cronk, 54, died of internal bleeding the next day. Now, about two years after Cronk’s death, the 911 dispatcher has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, according to Greene County officials. Price, 50, of Waynesburg, Pa., also faces charges of reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, according to the Associated Press. The charges represent a rare instance in which a 911 dispatcher is charged in connection with someone’s death after failing to send help. Price, who was arraigned June 29 and was released on bond, faces the charges after Titchenell filed a federal lawsuit last month in the Western District of Pennsylvania against the dispatcher, Greene County and two 911 supervisors, alleging “similar denial of public emergency medical services. Lawrence E. Bolind Jr., the attorney representing Titchenell in the federal lawsuit, told The Post that Price’s hesitation during the nearly four-minute 911 call was “a deliberate act.” “I believe in myself that my mother would still be alive if they sent an ambulance,” said Titchenell, 38, of Mather, Pa. “It shouldn’t have been his decision. He should have sent an ambulance and let the professionals decide whether he should go to hospital or not.” A message left at a phone number listed for Price’s home address was not immediately returned Friday. It was unclear whether Price has an attorney. While Price’s employment status with the county remains unclear, Marie Milie Jones, attorney for the county and 911 supervisors named in the federal lawsuit, told The Post that “Mr. Price is part of a collective bargaining unit and the county follows the necessary procedures under the CBA”. It was unclear if Price faced any discipline for the 2020 incident. Jones told the AP that her clients do not believe they are responsible for Cronk’s death. “It is sad that this woman died. Certainly, from a personal perspective, this is very difficult,” Jones said. “I’m not going to comment on the details of her circumstances.” Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo said in a news release that county detectives’ investigation into the case found that “911 operators violated protocol and their own procedures by refusing to send an ambulance to assist Ms. Cronk.” “According to the investigation, she was denied medical services when all three ambulances were available for dispatch,” Russo said. A manslaughter conviction carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, according to Pennsylvania attorneys. The charges in rural Pennsylvania come weeks after a 911 dispatcher in Buffalo was fired after a Tops supermarket employee caught up in the deadly mass shooting there in May hung up. Erie County dispatcher Sheila E. Ayers was initially placed on administrative leave after Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the supermarket, told the Buffalo News and WGRZ that she called 911 and whispered to the dispatcher in hopes of informing authorities about the mass shooting. unfolds in the grocery store. But instead of helping at a time when she was “fearing for my life,” Rogers said, the 911 dispatcher dismissed her with a “very nasty tone.” Ayers was terminated last month after eight years with the Central Erie County Sheriff’s Department. While criminal charges against 911 dispatchers are rare, they are not unheard of. In 2008, a 911 dispatcher in Detroit was given a year’s probation and lost her job for not taking a boy’s call seriously when he told the operator his mother had collapsed. Cheryl Turner, 46, was found dead hours after Sharon Nichols allegedly hung up on Turner’s young son in 2006 and accused him of playing games. The dispatcher had testified in the case that she could not hear the child. Cronk worked in home health care and loved taking care of others, her daughter said. Kronk, who had five grandchildren, loved to cook for family and friends, especially her famous baked rigatoni with pepperoni. “He wanted to make sure everyone else was OK,” Titchenell said. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Titchnell was vulnerable because of her autoimmune disorders, she said. He also suffered from fibromyalgia, a chronic neuromuscular disorder with no known cure. Although she and her mother had lived together in Mather—a small town 50 miles south of Pittsburgh—Kronk spent more time at her boyfriend’s house in an effort not to bring the virus into the Titchenell home. “I panicked and didn’t want him to come and go. That’s why it stayed there for a long time,” he said. “I didn’t want him to bring the germs back here.” Titchnell knew her mother had increased her drinking during the early part of the pandemic, which led to weight loss and “yellowing,” she said. But a text message from her brother that their mother was “in bad shape” prompted the daughter to drive to where Cronk was staying in nearby Sycamore, Pa., according to court records. On July 1, 2020, Titchenell called 911 and connected with Price. Cell service where her mother lived was not good, so she called 911 before arriving, Titchenell told The Post. At the beginning of the call, she explained that her mother was suffering from days of drinking too much and urged an ambulance to come and get her. “I can’t take her in my car. … He can’t even move,” Titchnell said, according to the 911 call. During the call, Price repeatedly told Titchenell that Greene County could not force Cronk to go by ambulance if she did not want to. At this point, Titchenell told The Post, she was confused as to what was happening. “I didn’t understand why usually if you call 911 they send help,” he said. “It really didn’t make any sense to me.” After Titchnell told the dispatcher that her mother was “not in the right frame of mind right now” to make that decision, Price told Titchnell directly that “no emergency services would be provided” without confirmation from Cronk that he would go to the hospital. , according to court records. “Can we at least try?” The price was requested by Titchenell. When Titchenell said she was 10 minutes away from her mother’s boyfriend’s residence, Price suggested she hang up and call 911 back to “make sure she wants to go before we send resources out there.” “I’m sorry,” Titchnell said. “No, don’t be sorry, ma’am,” replied Price. “Just call me when you get out there, okay?” Bolind told The Post that Price “never alerted the police, never alerted anybody to follow up” about Kronk’s condition. “At some point, Mrs Titchnell believes there was a decision made that for whatever reason, in her opinion, they didn’t want to waste resources to go to where her mother lived,” he said. An autopsy later concluded that Cronk died of internal bleeding. Russo, the district attorney, told The Post that the next month of the investigation should determine whether additional charges will be filed against Price or the county. “No one should be denied emergency services in Greene County or anywhere else,” he said. “Everyone should have equal protection and access to medical care.” Titchenell described the past two years as hell for her and her family. While she hopes for accountability, she said, she’s thinking about one of the questions she would ask the sender if they spoke again: “What would you do if this happened to your mother?” “I don’t ever want this to happen to anyone else,” she said.
