Listening to the 911 call of Brent McFarland, as he waits for an ambulance to come to the aid of his choking fiancee, is awful. He screams helplessly, tries to perform CPR, and begs her not to leave him for an excruciatingly slow 12 minutes. But what is arguably just as painful to witness is the ineptitude of the 911 responder, who offers no advice and simply repeats what McFarland says — like a 10-year-old trying to get under his mother’s skin — between bouts of silence. Also terrible are his screams as he runs around trying to beckon the ambulance to his house on his poorly mapped street. (You can listen for yourself here.)
McFarland’s girlfriend died on Sept. 4 in Mashpee, Mass., officially of choking “on a food bolus while intoxicated.” Now, two months later, McFarland is hitting the publicity circuit in his bid to see the emergency response system improved — whether that means getting the city to be more vigilant about street signs, or getting rid of hapless dispatchers and replacing them with people who will offer advice about, say, the Heimlich maneuver when someone is choking. In either case, his greatest weapon is the tragedy of his own phone call, and his situation is a good example of what oversight would be lost if 911 calls didn’t remain publicly accessible records.
There is certainly an argument to be made for keeping them out of the public sphere. After all, 911 calls are records that often capture people in their most vulnerable states. And the media isn’t afraid of playing them — over and over again — for sensationalism’s sake, even when oversight of emergency response is a non-issue. (This one, from 2009, in which a woman screams as her pet chimpanzee tears the face off her friend, comes to mind.) At least four states already exempt 911 calls from their public records acts, and as many considered similar bills this year.
Balance is key with all public records: There needs to be thoughtfulness to meet transparency halfway if the whole system is to work and remain as open as possible. As a professor of mine once said, “There is something deeply un-American about taking public officials at their word.” And if public records get abused too much, that’s all Americans will have. McFarland’s call is definitely a score for the Sunshine camp — but it’s worth remembering that his record should be aired in moderation and that plenty of other 911 calls shouldn’t be used at all.