The family of Rien van Kemenade (58) was able to listen to confrontational 112 conversations on Monday evening. Rien died last October after calling 112 unsuccessfully five times. What was heard in the five short conversations? After more than three months, that answer is finally available for the relatives. “There were really a lot of emotions,” says Mart Werts.
A week ago, brother-in-law Mart and son Kevin van Kemenade told their sad story to Omroep Brabant. Rien died after a fall at his home in Helmond. His sister Elly and brother-in-law Mart found him in a large pool of blood. The police briefly assumed a crime, but to the great relief of the family it turned out to be a fatal accident. But that relief was short-lived.
Hung up
The police discovered that Rien had called the emergency number 112 no fewer than five times on the evening of his fatal fall. It did not help. His emergency calls were not acted upon. Because he was unable to communicate due to a previous stroke, the phone was hung up every time.
Kevin, Elly and Mart were received by the detective and the assistant officer on Monday evening at the police station in Helmond. There they were allowed to listen to the 112 calls together. The first call lasted forty seconds.
Sigh and silence
Within thirteen minutes, Rien called three more times, each time the connection was broken after about twenty seconds. In total, in two hours, the emergency number was called five times and he entered the wrong number twice.
“You hear that someone is on the other side, but you actually don’t hear anything at all,” Mart tells Omroep Brabant. ”The first time you hear a kind of sigh, just for a moment. And then it’s quiet.” That first conversation takes a little longer because the 112 operator asks the standard questions again, but they hang up if there is no answer.
scream for help
According to Mart, it is always different employees who answer Rien’s call. ”You then hear them ask who he wants to speak to, so the police, ambulance or fire brigade. And they ask where the emergency is.” But there are no answers for the other four phone calls. “You can’t hear anything at all after the first conversation,” says Mart. “Then you hear the operator say that they are going to close.” As the protocol prescribes.
Mart and Kevin understand that. But what they still don’t understand is that no alarm goes off in the 112 central after multiple calls. “If you call four times in thirteen minutes, it’s a cry for help,” Kevin says. Mart adds: ”That is not possible, that system must indicate that four calls have been made within fifteen minutes. Then all the alarm bells should go off, right?”
A look at 112 exchange
Yet they don’t blame the 112 dispatchers at all, Mart wants to add. “Kevin had a very difficult time yesterday, but the conversations prove that the 112 employee has done everything to get Rien to talk. But he just couldn’t do that anymore.” Listening to the conversations made a big impression on the relatives of Rien.
Kevin, Elly and Mart hope that they can now move on with the death of their father, brother and brother-in-law. “It’s over now, we can’t do anything anymore. It will be very difficult for me and Elly to give it a place because we found Rien in a pool of blood.”
The police have offered to son Kevin to come and take a look at the 112 central. ”To see how they work, a bit of grief processing”, concludes Mart.
Rien’s son and brother-in-law tell their story in the video below: