911 operator saves stroke victim with eight-hour call!

In a heroic act, an operator of 911 emergency services saved the life of an elderly woman, who was having a stroke, by staying on the line for eight hours straight so that rescuers could locate her.

Joann Hilman-Payne, a Fire Department of New York dispatcher took a call from Mary Thomas and stayed on the line for eight hours as she was having a stroke and emergency responders were trying to find her address, according to FDNY documents.

The incident happened last Monday when Thomas called 911 at 1 pm.
Rescue workers were first dispatched to an East 71st Street address based on a cellphone tower relaying Thomas' call. But she was not at that location, the New York Post reported.

That's when Hilman-Payne and her boss, Lt Arlene Simmons, sprang into action, according to Emergency Medical Dispatch Capt Philip Weiss, who wrote a letter to the FDNY on Tuesday asking for recognition for Hilman-Payne and her colleagues.
Emergency Medical Technician Hilman-Payne struggled to communicate with the stroke victim, whose speech was badly slurred.

The operator continued speaking to the woman and attempted to keep her conscious.

"Throughout the entirety (Hilman-Payne) worked to keep the patient awake, she never lost her own composure and remained calm while attempting to elicit more information from the patient," Weiss wrote.

Simmons reached out to the Fire Marshal's Office for help with the search, according to an FDNY incident report.

While responders tried accessing a previous patient database, Simmons called a list of people with the same name as the patient.

Dispatchers valiantly tried to find a Manhattan address for Thomas, but it would later turn out she did not live at the location she was calling from, she was actually working in the apartment as a housekeeper.

Weiss reached out to both Verizon Wireless and the NYPD to help trace Thomas' cellphone.

The NYPD stepped in and reviewed information from the call — leading rescuers to several Manhattan addresses with no luck in finding Thomas.

After several other failed leads, Verizon Wireless security was able to pinpoint Thomas' location more precisely at about 8:30 pm via her cellphone signal.
She was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she's being treated in the Intensive Care Unit.