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A 5-year-old Detroit boy called 911 twice over about three hours on Feb. 20, 2006, trying to get help for his mother after she collapsed in their apartment. Both operators treated the calls as a child playing on the phone. His mother, 46-year-old Sherrill Turner, was pronounced dead that night.

The boy, Robert Turner, first dialed 911 around 5:59 p.m. from the family's apartment on Spruce Street, telling operator Sharon Nichols that his mother had passed out. According to court records, Nichols repeatedly asked to speak with an adult. When the boy said his mother could not talk, Nichols told him she would send police "to find out what's going on with you," read back the address and ended the call. No ambulance or officer was dispatched.

Robert called again about three hours later, around 9 p.m., and reached a second operator, Terri Sutton. Sutton also demanded to speak with an adult and warned the boy against "playing on the phone," court records show. She sent an officer, but the call was logged as a child playing on the phone rather than a medical emergency.

Officers arrived about 9:30 p.m. and found Turner unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at 9:59 p.m. An autopsy attributed her death to dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart. A medical examiner who arrived after 10 p.m. noted that the body was still warm and that rigor mortis had not set in, indicating she may have been alive when her son first called.

Both operators were fired and charged with willful neglect of duty. A judge dismissed the charge against Sutton during the trial. In January 2008, a Detroit jury convicted Nichols in what was believed to be the first criminal conviction of a 911 operator in the United States for mishandling a call. She was sentenced to a year of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $450 fine. An arbitrator later ordered the city to reinstate her.

The family, represented by attorney Geoffrey Fieger, filed federal and state lawsuits against the city and the two operators. A federal civil-rights claim was dismissed, and a state wrongful-death case was settled in 2012 on undisclosed terms.