Kendra Bazile, along with family friend “Junior,” engage in the second of a four-part series entailing the single-car crash that claimed the life of her son, Jordan Whitley, on January 26, 2024 and the potential for shortcomings on the parts of first responders who responded to and/or investigated the response since the time of the crash.
In Segment One of our feature on the death of Jordan Whitley after two automated 911 calls, we introduced our site visitors to a stellar investigative report by Bess Casserleigh (WBRZ, Channel 2 in Baton Rouge) which focused on potential shortcomings of the EBRP EMS system entailing two automated calls placed from Whitley’s vehicle immediately after he crashed into a tree.
In Segment Two of this fascinating feature, we delve much deeper into Whitley’s mother’s relentless efforts to try and ascertain just what all transpired that fateful morning of January 26, 2024:
Bazile and Junior begin a deep dive regarding Bazile’s efforts to obtain answers regarding the crash that claimed her son’s life on January 26, 2024.
This blog is video in nature, so the only thing we want to add to the above video is support documents which Bazile supplied to us for publication.
First, let’s provide details of the Ford 911-Assist features which were present in Whitley’s vehicle:
Next, let’s draw attention to a segment of the EBRP Communications District’s March 24, 2024 Minutes (which would seem applicable at the time of Whitley’s crash):
Commissioner Kimble stated that there are problems involving dropped 911 calls.
Finally, let’s examine a few highlights of a court-approved analyst who analyzed the 911 calls which originated from Whitley’s vehicle:
At 00:33.733 a ghostly voice says, “Help” followed immediately with a distinct “Me”.
At 00:22.478 a different male voice says, “Help”.
I reviewed the news piece listed above and two parts caught my attention relative to this case. The first was: 1:41 a.m.: Dispatch sent a deputy to investigate the 911 hang-up on Nicholson. I could possibly understand the first 911 operator not realizing the gravity of the situation and recording it as a hang-up. But this call did not generate the dispatch of the deputy. That could only have occurred from the second call when location data was made available. That call with the Sync 911 Assist recording clearly audible to the operator should have generated an immediate response including EMS services being dispatched.
The second part that concerned me was this: The Sheriff’s Office said they were responding to this incident as a 911 hang-up, which according to their policies, “is not classified as an emergency call due to the frequency of unfounded cases.” They say in the past year, they received nearly 15,000 hang-ups and only 26 of those calls were actual emergencies.
While that may be their policy, the second call should never have been classified as a hang-up. It was an automatic response to an accident serious enough to deploy airbags. The operator obviously was aware of that and heard a male voice respond to him yet did not send an ambulance. The Sync 911 Assist device has been around since 2009. Many other auto manufacturers offer similar emergency response systems when the driver cannot initiate the emergency request themselves. This is not new to the market and understanding how they work should be an essential element of 911 training.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the dispatching of a deputy for a hang-up when the urgency was very clear was the wrong response and inadequate given the knowledge conveyed in the second 911 call. There is no way to know if a proper response would have saved Mr. Whitley but it would have increased that possibility. I am also left with the question in my mind as to how many other similar mistakes have occurred and whether those mistakes cost lives.
As we stated at the outset of this series, Bazile is providing us with a very deep dive into just what all she’s uncovered since the crash which claimed her son’s life.
We’re far from done folks as we have two (2) more segments of this series. We know you will not want to miss Segment Three of this fascinating series!