911 response to fatal SUV crash delayed

Human error was behind a delay getting an ambulance to the scene of an accident that killed a 4-year-old girl this week and injured her grandmother, the New York City fire commissioner said Friday.

The accident on Manhattan's Upper West Side occurred Tuesday when an unlicensed 17-year-old took his parent's car without permission and was driving erratically, authorities said.

Officers tried to stop him, and he fled, making a wide turn onto a street where he struck the girl, Ariel Russo, and her grandmother, police said. The teen has been arrested on charges of vehicular manslaughter.

The dispatcher received the emergency call at 8:15 a.m. but left the desk without seeing it and no one saw it for four minutes, Commissioner Sal Cassano said. Someone else noticed it and sent an ambulance that arrived four minutes after that. The usual response time is about 90 seconds faster, he said.

The city has a new 911 system, and part of it has suffered a series of glitches recently that have stalled computers at dispatchers' terminals, at one point for an hour at a time. Cassano said that wasn't the case here.

"Somebody made a mistake who was handling that call. We're looking into it, we'll find out what happened. If discipline is required, we'll discipline people," he said.

Cassano said he doesn't think the delay happens often. He said it's not clear whether the girl's life could have been saved had the ambulance got there sooner.