Confusion leads to calls for change at 911 centers

A scar on Michael Urig's arm is pretty small, but the cut from pruning shears that caused it -- left him in a world of trouble.

"I slipped and they went right into my arm and punctured the artery," he recalled.

He was in rural Hernando County and needed help right away.

"I got the phone out, brought it up here, blood squirted on phone made virtual keypad inoperable," he explained.

So he couldn't dial 911. 

Eventually he was able to scroll through his phone's recent contacts and he did get a hold of his girlfriend. She dialed 911, but the problem was she was in Tampa at the time. Urig tells FOX 13, he doesn’t think the 911 dispatcher who answered the call, did enough to help.

"I think she offered a little bit of assistance -- I think she should've gone the distance," he said.

Did she do enough? You can hear the call and decide for yourself.

"There's a lot of calls coming in to the 911 center at that time and the dispatchers have to prioritize by the level of emergency and based on her initial call there didn't appear to be a significant level of emergency," said Tampa Police spokesperson Andrea Davis.

Still, steps are being taken to ensure a similar situation doesn't repeat itself.

"Now we will add that our list of dispatch center typically the list of dispatch centers is in our surrounding areas not necessarily two, three, four counties away" she added.

And as for simply transferring a call the Tampa Police Department notes, some 911 centers are on their same system like Hillsborough County for example, but not every center across the country is linked in the same way.