You only hear about the bad stuff

[Guest guest]

I was talking to one of my friends at work and he was telling me about a

story that happened a couple of weeks ago. We received a called from Conner

Emergency, who currently handles the 911 cellular calls in Cook County, and they

advised that they had a guy on the phone who had no idea where he was but he was

involved in a bad accident. The guy said that he remembered that he was on I-88

and was going to let his friends dog out but they got into an accident and he

friend was thrown from the car. The dispatcher that talked the guy tried all

sorts of different methods to get his location but the guy couldn't remember how

he got off the interstate. He said that he was trapped in the car and the last

thing that he remembered it was around 300 a.m. and him and his buddy were

driving down the road. While the dispatcher was talking with him on the phone

several other people in the room were making phone calls to other departments in

the area to have them check locations off of I-88. One of the dispatchers got a

hold of Sprint and they were going to send a tech out with some equipment that

could find the cell phone as long as we were still on it. Then the guy on the

phone said he saw someone riding a bike by the roadway and the dispatcher told

him to honk his horn. Of course, the horn didn't work but the person did hear

the man yelling for help and then ran over to the scene and ran to a house to

call 911. The other party that was in the vehicle was killed in the accident

and the driver was intoxicated. The thing that bothers me about the news

article is that there is no mention of the efforts of the dispatchers who tried

to find him. I guess we only hear about the screw-ups. I pasted the article to

the bottom of the page.

Marty

NAPERVILLE - A Chicago man who was the driver in a one-car crash that claimed

the life of an Aurora man earlier this month has been charged with reckless

homicide.

Julio C. Ortiz, 23, of the 2400 block of North Luna Street, has been

hospitalized at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood since the accident

that killed 24year-old P. Mahon, who lived in the 1300 block of West

Indian Trail Road.

Naperville police served Ortiz Wednesday with warrants charging the defendant

with one count of reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated drunken

driving, police said. Ortiz's court date at Will County Circuit Court in Joliet

has yet to be determined.

Mahon was ejected from Ortiz's 2001 Nissan Maxima when Ortiz could not

negotiate a curve in the 400 block of Knoch Knolls Road, which is northwest of

the DuPage River in the Will County section of Naperville, police said.

Though the pair were found by police at 8:50 a.m. July 8, they might have

been at the crash scene for as long as five hours, police said. After passing

bicyclists discovered the car and called 911, Ortiz was found trapped inside the

car when rescuers arrived.

The crash occurred when the eastbound car continued straight on Knoch Knolls

Road as the road turned to the northeast. The car hit a large rock and a tree,

and stopped about 150 feet off the road in a wooded area of a residence, police

said.

Mahon was pronounced dead at the scene. Ortiz was initially taken to

Hospital in Naperville before being airlifted to Loyola Medical Center.