Fire chief: Training planned after 911 dispatcher hung up

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- All Albuquerque Fire Department employees in emergency situations will undergo additional training after a dispatcher told a 911 caller trying to help a teenage shooting victim to "deal with it yourself."

The department will start giving crisis intervention training to all firefighters and dispatchers next week, fire chief David Downey said Wednesday.

A department spokeswoman said she was not sure whether some employees previously had received the training.

The dispatcher, Matthew Sanchez, should not have hung up on the 17-year-old caller in such a traumatic situation, Downey said.

"It was outlandish. Unforgivable," he said. "You cannot call 911 and be treated like that. You can't do it."

In the recording made public this week, caller Esperanza Quintero snaps at Sanchez for asking repeatedly whether her friend Jaydon Chavez-Silver, 17, is breathing.

"It was upsetting at the time, but I didn't have a choice," Quintero said. "What more could I have done?"

Chavez-Silver later died, police said.

Sanchez had sent an ambulance before hanging up, and it arrived within minutes, officials said.

He resigned Tuesday, and efforts to reach him have been unsuccessful. A message left with Local 224 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, the union representing Albuquerque firefighters, was not returned.

Despite the ambulance's quick response, Downey called Sanchez's conduct "egregious" and said the department has notified the New Mexico agency governing emergency medical licenses. Quintero said she wished Sanchez had done more to help after Chavez-Silver was shot while watching friends play cards inside a home.

In the recording of the call, Quintero is heard saying, "I am keeping him alive!"

Sanchez asks, "Is he not breathing?"

The caller responds, "Barely!"

The caller is then heard frantically encouraging Chavez-Silver to keep breathing.

"One more breath! One more breath!" Quintero tells him. "There you go, Jaydon. One more breath! There you go, Jaydon. Good job! Just stay with me, OK? OK?"

Sanchez then asks again, "Is he breathing?"

Quintero responded, "He is barely breathing, how many times do I have to (expletive) tell you?"

"OK, you know what ma'am? You can deal with it yourself. I am not going to deal with this, OK?" the dispatcher says.

It seemed from the tape Sanchez hung up on the caller in mid-sentence.

"No, my friend is dying," she said as the call ended.

Dr. Jeff Clawson, medical and research director of the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, said records show Sanchez became certified as a dispatcher in February 2012 and was recertified two years later.

"Somebody with no experience at all, it's almost understandable," said Brett Patterson, also of the academies. "But if you're trained and certified, it's not forgivable. That should never happen."

Officials said Sanchez was employed by the Albuquerque Fire Department for 10 years and was a firefighter before being assigned to a dispatcher job. It was unclear why the change was made.

Police said Chavez-Silver was watching a card game at a friend's house when six shots were fired at the bay windows from outside. Witnesses said Chavez-Silver yelled he had been shot, then fell to the floor.

A bullet hit Chavez-Silver in the upper body, and he was rushed to a hospital, where he died, investigators said. His family said Chavez-Silver, a recent high-school graduate, had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force.

No arrests have been made in the shooting.

Terry Tang reported from Phoenix.