Tuesday, March 21, 2000
4-year-old honored for 911 call that saved mom
BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Camille Goetz looks through a bag of goodies she received Monday night.
(Tony Jones photo)
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FOREST PARK — Never underestimate your child. Ever.
That's the message from Christina Goetz of Forest Park, whose 4-year-old daughter, Camille, was honored Monday night for calling 911 and saving her mother's life.
Ms. Goetz, a former firefighter/emergency medical technician, has a seizure disorder and, due to a change in medication, suffered convulsive seizures the night of Feb. 26.
Summoned by her mother, Camille called 911 and described the situation. One of those who responded was Camille's father, Steve, a firefighter/paramedic with Forest Park. By then, Mrs. Goetz was unconscious. Others treated her.
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WHAT COUNTY'S 911 OPERATOR TOLD CHILD
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Transcript of the conversation between 4-year-old Camille Goetz and a 911 operator.
Operator: 911 emergency dispatcher, Hamilton County.
Child: My mommy's sick.
Operator: Your mommy's sick? Do you know your address?
Child: Well, umm, I'll go tell my mommy.
Operator: Is your mom awake?
Child: Well, I know my phone number
Operator: What's your phone number?
Child: (Gives number.)
Operator: OK, what's wrong with your mommy?
Child: Well, she's very very sick?
Operator: Is she awake or is she sleeping?
Child: She's awake.
Operator: Is she awake so that I can talk to her?
Child: Umm, yea, she's just sick.
Operator: Can you see your mommy now?
Child: I'm in her bedroom.
Operator: Can you go tell your mommy to come to the phone so I can see how sick she is?
Operator: You still there?
Child: I told her, I told her but, but. I told her what you told me to do, but she couldn't come.
Operator: She can't come to the phone?
Child: No.
Operator: Do you know what's wrong with her?
Child: No.
Operator: Is she awake and able to talk to you?
Child: Well, she is awake.
Operator: Is she able to talk.
Child: She's a little sick. She's very very sick.
Operator: What's your name?
Child: Camille.
Operator: How old are your, Camille?
Child: I'm 4.
Operator: You are? You know what, I've got a little girl who's 4, too?
Child: Oh, you do.
Operator: Yes, I do.
Child: Oh, well.
Operator: When's your birthday.
Child: March 17.
Operator: Really?
Child: I'm gonna be 5.
Operator: You're gonna be 5? Wow. Are you in school yet?
Child: No.
Operator: Is there anybody else at your house?
Child: No.
Operator: Just you and your mommy?
Child: Yeah.
Operator: OK, we're gonna send somebody over to help your mommy, OK? Do you want to stay on the phone with me until they get there?
Child: No, bye.
Operator: Camille, Camille, listen to me OK?
Child: OK.
Operator: I need you to open the front door for them, OK?
Child: OK.
Operator: Can you do that to let the police and the ambulance come in?
Child: Sure.
Operator: You can do that for me?
Child: Yeah.
Operator: OK, how bout you go do that and come back to the phone. Can you do that?
Child: Yeah.
Operator: Go on and open the door and come back to the phone.
Child: OK.
Operator: Go on and open the door. I'll wait here.
Child: I don't know if they're there or not.
Operator: OK, why don't you open it up and we'll just wait for them to get there.
Child: OK.
Operator: OK, and you can just stay on the phone and talk to me.
Child: OK.
Operator: Hello?
Child: Hello?
Operator: Hello?
Child: It's me, Camille.
Operator: Camille, are they there?
Child: Well, some firefighters are here.
Operator: Are they with your mommy now?
Child: Well, my daddy works at the fire department and he came here.
Operator: He did?
Child: Yeah.
Operator: Is your mommy OK?
Child: Yeah.
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“Never underestimate your child because they can understand more than you think,” Mrs. Goetz said Monday prior to the Forest Park City Council ceremony, where Camille was honored by the Hamilton County Communications Division.
Because of the Goetzes' line of work, they had talked with Camille about using 911, but had never actually picked up the phone with her.
That night, Mrs. Goetz was in an upstairs loft on the computer. Camille was downstairs.
“I knew something was going to go wrong,” Mrs. Goetz recalled. “I told her to call 911, Mommy's sick. From there on, I don't remember much.”
She fought to stay conscious. “At some point, I can remember voices but couldn't really respond,” she said. Her next memory is of the inside of the ambulance. She calls her recollection “bits and pieces.” She was treated at Mercy Hospital Fairfield and released.
During an interview Monday, Camille was asked what happened when she called 911.
“It made the firefighters come over,” she said.
“I'm ever so thankful to her,” Mrs. Goetz said. “She's a very smart, perceptive child. ... She knows Mommy has something that makes her sick.”
But Camille is also just a normal kid: She loves Mickey Mouse, plays miniature golf with the best of 'em, and solves mysteries on Blue's Clues.
“Camille did an amazing and wonderful thing,” said Tom Rapp, Hamilton County communications supervisor. “By properly using the 911 system, she helped save her mother's life. She truly is a hero.”
Mrs. Goetz is now on a different medication and hasn't had a recurrence.
“Convulsive seizures, if continued, they sometimes stop breathing,” she said, her words slowing. “I don't want to say it, but people die.”
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