LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- When people in Louisville are desperate for help, they call 911. But there are times when those calls for help are put on hold.
Leslie Spillman called 911 when her house caught on fire, expecting an immediate response.
"I run to the hallway and I see flames coming out of the floor," she said. "I scream to my son to get outside."
Instead of being able to tell the dispatcher what was happening, she was put on hold. A terrifying situation was suddenly even more scary.
"I am like, 'Oh my God, I am about to lose my home and everything I own,'" Spillman said. "Then when 911 didn't answer, that panic just tripled."
With not enough dispatchers to answer every call immediately, she was placed in a queue. In shock, distraught and getting no answer, Spillman hung up the phone and sent her son to the nearest fire station a mile away for help.
A 911 dispatcher work station at Louisville Metro Emergency Services. (WDRB File Image)
Audio from 911 shows her son also called 911 as he rushed to get help.
"I just pulled up to the fire department and I think they are coming now," he said. "The house is on fire."
Call logs show Spillman waited on hold with 911 for 2 minutes and 21 seconds before she hung up. What she didn't know was help was already on the way because a neighbor's 911 call got through.
Jody Meiman, executive director of Louisville Emergency Services, said they are working to hire more dispatchers.
"We are short-staffed," Meiman said. "It's a nationwide problem, and we are trying to actively recruit people in."
Metro Emergency Services said it's 25% short-staffed on several positions.
"We offer voluntary overtime for people to come in on their off days to be able to help us on that short staff," Meiman said.
So when a significant emergency happens in Louisville and several people call at once to report it, dispatchers can get overwhelmed
The question is whether people that call 911 can expect to enter this queue.
"It just depends on the time of day," Meiman said. "It depends on the other situations going on. There is a possibility that they could be put in that queue but not an expectation."
So what should you do when an emergency happens and you can't get through right away? Meiman said stay on the line.
"The solution is for people to be patient once they get into the queue and not hang up," she said. "I could put 50 call-takers in there, but if 51 people call 911, one person is going to be put in that queue."
The department said it's best to remain on hold so you can get to the front of the line as quickly as possible.
"It could be a couple of seconds to potentially a minute or a couple of minutes," Meiman said.
Logs obtained via open records request show from Jan. 1 through July 23, 2022, the department answered 361,142 calls. During the same time frame this year, there were 404,636 calls to 911. That's a 12% increase. Emergency services declined to say how many of those calls were placed on hold.
Spillman now realizes she should have stayed on the line.
"I did make that mistake and hung up because I thought I did something wrong," she said.
Even though Spillman hung up on 911, it had a record of her call, and called her back, which is a standard practice.
Meiman acknowledged that it might be tough for someone to hang on the line during an emergency.
"I'm not going to say it's impossible, but you must realize we are going to get to your call," he said.
The National Emergency Number Association, in conjunction with Carbyne, a cloud technology company, surveyed 850 workers from 911 call centers across the country. It found their primary issue is understaffing, which leads to burnout. And 38% of dispatchers felt they were not well prepared to handle active shooter calls. Roughly 75% said the high-stress nature of the job was the major factor in staffing.
All problems surfaced on one of Louisville's darkest days, when a mass shooter opened fire inside Old National Bank in April. Emergency Services was understaffed and overwhelmed by calls. Several people were placed on hold.
Meiman said they are working on solutions.
"We have funding to hire additional 911 call-takers but we can't add them because we can't fill the positions," he said.
Spillman's home was severely damaged in the fire. So, for now, a hotel is home while she waits on renovations. She hopes what happened to her won't happen again.
"I know 911 operators are special people, but let's recruit some people," she said.
Meiman agrees.
"We are hiring," he said. "We want a talented group of people."
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