A Maryland 911 operator told a teen girl to “ stop whining ” as her dad lay dying on the road after he was hit by a car. Rick Warrick and his fiancée, Julia Pearce, were both struck by a car during a hit-and-run accident on Sunday. Warrick, 38, was changing a tire when he was injured.
The teen girl called 911 to get help for her dad and his fiancée, but the Maryland emergency operator was reportedly far less than sympathetic to the girl during the conversation. Fire department officials have admitted that the 911 operator “did not use the best words” when talking to the teenage girl pleading for help for her dying father.
Rick Warrick died ultimately died at the scene and Julia Pearce, 28, was transported to a local hospital with a fractured skull and a broken pelvis. Warrick and Pearce were on the way to dinner in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, with Warrick’s two children when they blew a tire along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The Pearce and Warrick families are appealing to the public for help with finding the hit-and-run driver.
Rick Warrick and his fiancée worked to change the tire while pulled over on a hard shoulder along the Maryland highway. The teen girl and her sibling could do nothing but watch in shocked horror as the couple was struck by an oncoming vehicle. “Can y’all please hurry up,” the teen girl begged the 911 operator. “Ma’am stop yelling. I need a location,” the male Maryland emergency operator responds.
The teen girl then tells the 911 operator that the accident occurred on I-295. “That’s a pretty long road,” the Maryland 911 operator said. The girl once again begs for the first responders to hurry and says that two people were hit by a car. The 911 transcript then notes the staffer as saying, “Ok, let’s stop whining. Ok, let’s stop whining [operator repeats] It’s hard to understand you. Two people were stuck correct?”
Anne Arundel County Fire Department representative Russ Davis also had this to say when questioned about the conduct of the 911 operator by NBC Washington.
“What he was attempting to do was get her attention, to start ascertaining information from her. It was pretty clear at that point they didn’t know where they were.”
Police sergeant Lelani Woods confirmed that Rick Warrick had pulled completely off the road when they were stuck by the hit-and-run driver. Neither the teen girl who called 911 nor her sibling got a good look at the car.
Rick Warrick’s mother, Charmaine Ferrell-Anthony, had this to say to the media when asked about the Maryland hit-and-run.
“Truly, if you have a child, or any children, how would you feel if someone just ran over our child, killed our child, and just kept going? I think the right thing will be to just turn yourself in. Accidents happen and we understand. It was just a tragic accident.”
[Image via Shutterstock ]
