May 25, 2013
A county official says a dispatcher followed general protocols when she pleaded with an independent living facility nurse to perform CPR on a woman who later died in California.
The statement came Monday after the facility defended the nurse, saying she also had followed policy.
Kern County Fire Department spokesman Sean Collins says dispatcher Tracey Halvorson had more passion in her voice than normal during the call because she thought she was talking with a registered nurse who was refusing to save the woman's life.
At the beginning of the Tuesday morning call aired by several media outlets on Sunday, the nurse asked for paramedics to come and help the 87-year-old woman who had collapsed in the facility and was barely breathing.
The woman was later declared dead at Mercy Southwest Hospital.
Collins says Halvorson is an experienced dispatcher and has worked for the county center for at least a decade.
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