911 Operator Tells Girl To ‘Stop Whining’ After Witnessing Dad’s Death

A 911 operator has been criticized for his handling of a hit-and-run accident in which he told the teen daughter of the man fatally struck to “stop whining.”

However, it does not appear that he will lose his job.

According to a report from NBC New York, 38-year-old Rick Warrick, his girlfriend Julia Pearce, his teen daughter, and her younger brother were stopped with a flat tire on the BW Parkway in Anne Arundel County when the worst happened.

Warrick and Pearce were outside the car at around 9:15 p.m. He had just gotten the doughnut onto the car when he and Pearce were both struck by a car, which did not stop.

Pearce, 28, suffered two broken legs, a broken pelvis, and a fractured skull, but lay beside her fiancée, urging him to breathe as Warrick’s daughter dialed the emergency number and connected with a male 911 operator.

“Can y’all please hurry up?” she said to the operator.

“Ma’am, stop yelling, I need a location,” he said, to which the daughter replied they were situated along I-295. The rest of the report describes how the controversial remarks unfolded.

“OK, 295, that’s good. We’re located now on a highway. Now that’s a pretty long road,” he says.

The teen then says two people were struck.

“Yes, they both…”

“OK, let’s stop whining. OK, let’s stop whining. It’s hard to understand you… two people were struck, correct?” the operator said.

The teen then said that her father and Pearce were laying “motionless” on the ground. At this point, the 911 operator is frustrated enough to ask if there is someone else there that he can speak to “because it’s so hard….”

The teen cuts him off and says that the only other person is her young brother.

Rick Warrick died at the scene, but it’s unlikely a delay in the call had anything to do with it. Nevertheless, Russ Davis with the Anne Arundel County Fire Department said the operator had used “a poor choice of words.”

“However, what he was attempting to do was to get her attention, to start ascertaining information from her,” Davis said.

“It was pretty clear at that point they didn’t know where they were… There could be a better choice of words.”

This isn’t the first time a 911 operator has come under fire for questionable on-the-job behaviors. In June 2014, the Inquisitr reported on Milwaukee 911 callers, who said they were placed on hold during emergency phone calls.

In the case of the Anne Arundel County 911 operator, do you think he should be fired? Sound off in our comments section.

[Image via Shutterstock]