A horrifying 911 bungle may have cost a young boy his life yesterday, sources told The Post.
Firefighters and medics rushed to a call of a 6-year-old boy in cardiac arrest at 277 Ave. C at 9:04 a.m. But they were sent to Avenue C in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan.
By the time paramedics reached the boy’s apartment at 9:22 a.m. — 18 minutes after the family’s 911 call — the child was dead, the sources said. The boy’s name was not immediately released.
A woman who opened the door at the family’s apartment last night said, “We can’t talk about it.”
A next-door neighbor, Nori Evoy, said what happened was “awful,” adding, “He was the sweetest little kid.”
A spokesman for the FDNY said the incident is “under review.”
The NYPD said it received a 911 call from a hysterical woman who had given her address, but not the borough. Cops said that the operator tried to establish the cross streets, but the caller was too distraught to respond. But the 911 computer system automatically traces incoming calls made from house phones, FDNY sources said. The number that came in yesterday was from a 212 area code, and the address given by the computer was in Manhattan. The NYPD dispatcher manually changed it to Brooklyn when the call was relayed electronically to EMS, sources said.
EMTs arrived at the Brooklyn address at 9:10 am — and determined they were in the wrong place.
An EMS dispatcher called the incoming number back and asked the mom where she was. “She said, ‘I’m here, I’m here . . . he’s bleeding from the nose,” and pleaded with them to hurry,” a source said.
The dispatcher finally determined she was in Manhattan.
The NYPD said the woman called 911 again at 9:16 a.m. and told them where she was.
The child was dead by the time paramedics arrived six minutes later, sources said.
The NYPD said the incident was not related to problems that have plagued the controversial Unified Call Taking system, which went online last May.
Under that system, callers can speak only to 911 operators and not to fire dispatchers.
Union opponents of the unified system say it has led to a number of fatal blunders, including a Nov. 7 incident in which three men died in a Queens basement fire after a 911 dispatcher initially ordered six firetrucks to the wrong address. Later that month, firefighters were sent to the wrong address for a Brooklyn fire that killed two toddlers and their father.
The city said the tragedies were caused by glitches that had been worked out.