[chris]

An Atlanta 911 dispatcher sent fire and ambulance crews to a street five miles away from where a homeless woman lay trapped and dying under the rubble of a house that was being torn down, according to emergency recordings obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Janice Durham, 51, was inside a vacant house on Daniel Street in the Old Fourth Ward on May 7, 2011, when a city-ordered demolition crew began pulling it down, according to news accounts and later court records. Witnesses told authorities they heard a woman moan about an hour into the work.

The first 911 call came in at 11:43 a.m. The caller gave the correct location, Daniel Street, four times, the recordings show. The dispatcher instead relayed "68 Daniel Avenue, Southeast" to Grady EMS, an address about five miles to the east. A second call reached 911 roughly nine minutes later.

An Atlanta fire crew reached the correct address 18 minutes after the initial call, records show, and a Grady EMS ambulance arrived about a minute after that. Durham died at the scene.

Atlanta police said communications supervisors were reviewing the error. "There is always room for improvement," department spokesman Sgt. Curtis Davenport said. A Grady EMS spokeswoman, Denise Simpson, said whether the lost minutes could have saved Durham was a question that might never be answered.

Durham's son, Eric Durham, and the administrator of her estate later sued the city and the demolition contractor, alleging that crews failed to check whether anyone was inside and did not shut off the gas before demolition. In City of Atlanta v. Durham, decided in November 2013, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that the city was shielded by sovereign immunity on the negligence claims because tearing down an abandoned property is a governmental function, while allowing a nuisance claim to proceed.

The recording posted with this thread captures the 911 calls, including the dispatcher reading back the wrong street.