Man Dies Waiting for 911 to Come and Save Him

It appears that the city of Pittsburgh is in the national media again for a controversy that is not going to make their public officials proud.

Curtis Mitchell was in severe abdominal pain on February 6, during a heavy snow fall. His girlfriend, Sharon Edge (pictured above), called 911 and was told that help was on the way. Help never arrived, and her boyfriend died 30 hours and 10 phone calls later.

Mitchell's electricity was out during his painful death, and his heat wasn't working either. He waited under a blanket on his sofa during the entire ordeal.

"I'm very angry, because I feel they didn't do their job like they supposed to," said Edge, 51. "My man would still be living if they'da [sic] did they job like they was supposed to ... They took somebody that I love away."

Curtis Mitchell, who was on disability for depression, spent nine days in the hospital in January with pancreatic problems. He was home about a week before he died. Pittsburgh officials have ordered an investigation in to why Mitchell died and found some serious problems with the city's emergency services system, such as the following:

- Since the details of Mitchell's situation were not passed on to new 911 operators during the next shift, they treated each call as a new incident.

- On two occasions, ambulances were within a quarter mile of Mitchell's home but could not get there due to the deep snow over a small bridge and railroad tracks they'd have to cross in order to reach him. He was told that he would have to walk across the bridge to get to the ambulance and the emergency workers were not willing to walk.

- In one case, an ambulance was across the bridge and within 100 meters of Mitchell's home. Once again, paramedics refused to come get him.

"We failed this person," said Michael Huss, the city's public safety director.

Mr. Huss is correct, they certainly did fail Mr. Mitchell, his family and the entire city of Pittsburgh. This is the second major incident to occur in Pittsburgh recently. The other was the beating of Jordan Miles, an 18-year-old honor student, by police officers who thought he had a gun in his pocket. Officers claimed that they mistook a bottle of Mountain Dew to be a gun, but Miles says that he almost never drinks Mountain Dew.

It seems that city officials in Pittsburgh have work to do. They are not doing a good job of taking care of their citizens. The people of Pittsburgh should have these shortcomings addressed.