Family disturbed by 911 incident

PROVO — A very ill Scott Aston sat on the floor of his new apartment, a cell phone in his hand.

He had started furnishing the apartment for the approaching day his Dominican wife would become a permanent U.S. citizen. On that day, however, the 30-year-old's future was in jeopardy.

Aston had called 911 and told a Provo dispatcher he couldn't move and was dying.

Then, he waited for the ambulance the dispatcher told him was on the way.

He waited until he died.

The dispatcher misheard Aston's address. Aston lived at 915 N. 500 West. Emergency personnel were sent to 950 N. 500 West, a nonexistent address.

And while city administrators insist they acted honorably, Aston's family members say they weren't told about the 911 call until two months after Aston's body was found.

For four days after the 3 1/2-minute cell phone call abruptly ended, nobody knew Scott Aston was dead. Not the two dispatchers who worked on the 911 call, not the rescue workers who searched in vain for him, not family members who tried to call and who pounded on his door.

On Oct. 5, Aston's sister-in-law called police for help opening the door. A paramedic at the scene immediately linked Aston's body to the fruitless search for a dying 911 caller four days earlier but didn't tell anyone until later.

Nobody would tell the Aston family about the 911 call — or the series of mistakes made by dispatchers — until Nov. 29. And city officials didn't inform the public of the blunder until March 7 — five months after Aston died.

The delays have made family members feel that city officials planned a cover-up. They still want city officials to provide more information about Aston's call for help the day he died.

Provo Mayor Lewis Billings said city administrators moved quickly and acted honorably. Stunned by the two dispatchers' errors, he said they pushed to investigate Aston's death and waited to inform the family until city chiefs had gathered all information they could about what went wrong.

"Keep in mind," Provo spokeswoman Raylene Ireland said, "the family found out about the 911 call from the city itself, and not from just anyone in the city, but the mayor."

She added, "Our feeling was that in the course of time, this would all become incredibly public information."