911 Dispatcher Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter for Failing to Send Ambulance to Dying Woman

Leon Price, a Pennsylvania 911 dispatcher, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after not sending an ambulance to the home of an ailing woman who later died.

Kelly Titchenell made an urgent 911 call trying desperately to have an ambulance sent to the home of her 54-year-old mom, Diana Kronk. 

“My mom, she’s really bad. She hasn’t been out of bed in three days. She’s turning yellow and she’s laying in the bed making noises,” Titchenell said.

But she says the response from the 911 dispatcher shocked her.

When Titchenell said her mom needed to get to the hospital, Price asked if Kronk was “willing to go to the hospital.”

“She will be, because I’m on my way there. She’s going or she’s gonna die,” Titchenell told Price.

Price responded that they couldn’t force Kronk go to an ambulance and said to call 911 back once Titchenell arrived at her mother’s home.

“How ‘bout calling us back to make sure she’s willing to go before we send resources out there in case she says no?” Price said. 

Titchenell made the call while driving to her mom's house in Sycamore. When she arrived 10 minutes later, her mom was in bad shape. Making matters worse, Titchenell had no cell service and couldn't call 911 back.    

“I just figured, we’ll let her rest. Get her help the next day,” Titchenell said.

But the next morning, Titchenell’s brother Robbie found their mom dead from internal bleeding.

“We were begging for help, and for somebody to be on the other end of that phone and decide that he's god for that day, that is unacceptable,” Robbie said.

“We feel that if emergency services were dispatched, as we allege they should've been, that Diana Kronk would've survived,” Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo said.

Officials say they are now looking into the county’s emergency call policies.

Related Stories