The call came on June 1, 2016: "I think my dad is dead!"
John Knisley of Plymouth was found unconscious by his young daughter, not breathing and bleeding from the head.
She admits to 911 operators he appears gone.
"You do think he is beyond help?" the operator asks.
"Yes" she replies.
But she also admits she's going off sight and hasn't checked for vitals.
Nonetheless, the ambulance company, which would take nearly half-an-hour to respond, later said in a statement, the call was considered a non-emergency - even as first responders rendering first aid repeatedly called for ambulatory help and never classified the call as such.
"Once again, do we have a location on HVA? They are not on scene," responders tell dispatch.
HVA is Huron Valley Ambulance, which is contracted to provide advanced life saving service to nearly half a million people in Southeast Michigan - Plymouth included.
The 911 call from Maple Street came in at 3:17 pm. Six minutes later first responders make that call asking where their ambulance is.
At first, they are told its already there.
"For Maple Street in Plymouth we are actually arrival," the company tells Plymouth dispatch.
Not true. They aren't even close. Responders make another call to dispatch.
"No one is on scene, we are wondering where you're at?"
"My fire is saying you aren't on scene," says a Plymouth dispatcher.
HVA's dispatcher responds, "Oh I see the problem, okay. They must have pressed 'on scene'."
Plymouth replies, "Okay. So where are you?"
Finally, at 3:41 pm, 24 minutes after the call came into 911: "Show HVA arrival," is announced over the radio.
Paramedics enter, and declare the 63-year-old dead.
In this case, local officials stress there was likely nothing anyone could have done to save John Knisely.
But what if responders found a pulse? Would they still have been waiting for help? And why the communication breakdown? Is contracted ambulance service a risk?
Plymouth's public safety director says "No."
"We have been using it for well over a decade," says Al Cox.
His officers were some of the first to arrive at that scene. He says responding firefighters, while not advanced paramedics, could have transported Knisley in a hurry had they seen the need and tired of waiting.
The chief admits two parts of a three tiered system worked. The third didn't.
HVA blames the delay and miscommunication on a missing radio channel in Wayne County, which does not provide for direct communication between first responders and ambulance dispatchers or the ambulance itself -meaning dispatch centers are wasting valuable time calling each other, as opposed to first responders getting immediate intel.
Plymouth says its not in place because its not been a problem until now.
In a statement, HVA told us, this incident: "Was an example where it didn't work well."
And while they "emphasize that none of this caused or contributed to the patient's death," they are "taking steps to put in place a new radio channel, which will allow for direct communication."
That includes taking this to the state level.
The incident has raised questions in the sprawling suburb about the reliability of contracted ambulance service. Some residents saying one mistake is one too many when lives are at stake.
"I would want them there as quick as possible," said one homeowner downtown.
But the police chief, speaking for the city, says HVA's service has historically been reliable and he supported the continued use of contracted ambulances, as a way of freeing up local resources.
"We want to keep our firefighters here. When you have fire transporting people, you lose those firefighters," he says.
But he adds, getting those ambulances to a scene trouble free, should be the norm.
"You would want as much as you can get for sure."
Finally, while there is no universal law requiring a response time, experts say the first 6 minutes of a medical emergency is critical. After 10 minutes, a patient's chances of survival dwindles. Meaning every second of response and communication, counts.
It should be noted, Plymouth aside, not all agencies we surveyed are in support of contracted ambulance services.
Also, HVA is hardly the only ambulance service in metro Detroit. Other companies we talked to admit these mistakes do happen and say questioning them is important for everyone's improvement.
