N.C. EMS Response Slowed by Old Maps

May 30--Bob McDonnell could hear the ambulance sirens fading in and out as he and his neighbor Leslie Kirrane performed CPR on his 10-month-old daughter, Brinn.

Brinn had suddenly stopped breathing that Sunday, April 8. McDonnell's brother-in-law called 911 while he, his wife Heather and Leslie rushed to try to revive the baby. Leslie's husband Brian also dialed 911.

But the two responding ambulance crews, one from the Fort Mill Rescue Squad and one from the Piedmont Medical Center EMS, were having trouble finding the McDonnells' street, Second Baxter Crossing in Baxter Village. Their GPS data is often as much as six months out of date, and in rapidly-growing Fort Mill Township, that can make a map useless.

Leslie Kirrane recalls, "I could hear my husband screaming, 'It's three stop signs, then turn right!' but they still couldn't find it. It's very intense when a child's life is hanging in the balance."

Neighbors fanned out across the area to flag down the ambulances, and after a few more minutes the paramedics arrived to treat Brinn and take her to the hospital.

The baby recovered and is perfectly well now, but the McDonnells and their neighbors fear the out-of-date maps are becoming more of a problem as the area grows.

The experience led Heather McDonnell recently to post a comment about it on the Baxter Community message board. At least three other people responded with concerns of their own about public safety agencies being able to find them in an emergency.

"These are important people, and they can't find us as quickly as they should," McDonnell wrote on the message board. "It is very worrisome."

April 8 wasn't the first time local emergency response worried McDonnell. A few months ago her mother went kayaking with a neighbor's father below the Lake Wylie dam. They happened to go on a day when Duke Energy opened the flood gates and they wound up in trouble on the river.

After about three hours of searching, rescue crews found the pair and pulled them out. Then as McDonnell was following the ambulance taking her mother to the hospital, it got lost on New Gray Rock Road heading back to Hwy. 160 West.

"We wound up in a cul-de-sac," she said.

Also last October, she saw someone breaking into another neighbor's car and called the York County Sheriff's Office to report it. A deputy showed up about 45 minutes later to take the report, but the thief was long gone. She said the deputy told her he, too, had trouble finding her house.

These incidents are also troubling to local EMS officials, too.

"The area is growing so quickly, mapping software companies can't keep up," Fort Mill Rescue Squad spokesman Paul King said. "Finding up-to-date maps is almost impossible."

"It's hard to stay on top of it. You're getting new roads weekly in [Fort Mill]," added PMC EMS Director Thomas Hall. "New maps are available every six months."

Local GPS-based maps were last updated in 2006, King said. Typically, King said, dispatchers act as backup navigators for EMS drivers relying on GPS systems. The dispatchers are supposed to have the most up-to-date information about new streets.

"They should be able to talk us into anywhere," he said.

So when a 911 call comes from a street that hasn't been added to the GPS-based maps yet, it is up to the dispatchers to get more information from the caller such as nearby cross streets, PMC's Hall said. That information is then sent to EMS drivers via pagers that display text messages.

EMS crews drive around regularly to familiarize themselves with new streets, and the longer they are stationed in the area the more knowledgeable they become, Hall said. But as long as the area continues to experience rapid growth, finding some addresses in an emergency will continue to be difficult, Hall and King both said.

To see more of the Fort Mill Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to https://www.fortmilltimes.com/. Copyright (c) 2007, Fort Mill Times, S.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.