Fired 911 operator appeals firing after mishandling call

Fulton County 911 operator Gina Conteh on Thursday will appeal her firing for misdirecting medical aid to a Johns Creek woman who later died.

This marks Conteh’s third time appealing a dismissal in her nearly 12 years with Fulton.

She faces the Fulton County Personnel Board on Thursday, but could anticipate personal litigation from the family of Darlene Dukes, the 39-year-old mother of two who tried to call for help.

“I will have to face her in court one day,” Dukes’ mother Ida Dukes said Wednesday of Conteh, noting the former operator could be targeted along with the county . “We are taking legal action.”

Conteh could not be reached for comment.

Conteh’s error brought intense scrutiny on Fulton’s emergency call center, and county manager Zachary Williams requested an independent audit of the center.

Williams will announce in June what changes Oregon-based Emergency Services Consulting will recommend.

The firm last year pointed to systematic breakdowns at the Fulton’s emergency center, which prompted Duke’s brother Derrick Dukes to say he didn’t care what happened to Conteh.

“The whole system needs to be revamped,” Derrick Dukes said Wednesday from New York.

Conteh, 46, was fired on Aug. 6, four days after botching the call with Darlene Dukes.

Conteh read back the wrong address to the struggling Dukes. Rather than sending help to Dukes’ Johns Creek apartment, Conteh unwittingly dispatched a Grady Hospital ambulance to an address 28 miles away, in southwest Atlanta.

First responders didn’t arrive for 25 minutes because of the error, and an ambulance wouldn’t come for an hour after the initial call, records showed.

Dukes died at Emory Johns Creek Hospital of a blood clot to her lungs.

Conteh has had a string of suspensions for falling asleep on the job and making 911 call errors.

Conteh’s attorney, Rory Starkey, on Tuesday would only say that he expected to present her case to the personnel board and “hope for the best.”