Greene County, Pennsylvania– An emergency dispatcher has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after he refused to send an ambulance to pick up a woman because her daughter would not indicate whether they planned to go to the hospital or not.
Kelly Titchenell of Greene County, Pennsylvania, contacted a dispatcher in July of 2020 to request an ambulance for her mother who was incoherent and “bleeding from the rectum.”
The dispatcher Leon Price, however, told Titchenell that he would not send an ambulance to the home because it was a “waste of resources” if they refused to go to the hospital.
Titchenell reportedly pleaded with Price but no ambulance was ever sent.
Her mother died the following day.
The family filed a lawsuit last month, claiming that Price overstepped his boundaries in his refusal to send an ambulance which directly resulted in the death of the victim:
“No requested emergency services came that day as a result of Defendant Price’s actions, and as a proximate and/or direct result of the lack of emergency medical care, Diania Kronk died,” according to the complaint.
Almost two years after the incident, officials charged Price with involuntary manslaughter. The sentence comes with the maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine and five years in prison.
While it is unclear whether Kronk would have survived if the ambulance was sent out, the complaint indicated that the ambulance would have at least offered some kind of emergency relief and a “more dignified” death.