Chicago Area Family Files Lawsuit Over Missed 911 Cell Phone Call
The family of a Northern Illinois motorcyclist who died in a cornfield after making two 911 cell phone calls authorities couldn’t trace filed a lawsuit Monday against two Illinois counties.
Kurt Regnier, 47, of Capron, died in July 2006 of injuries to his head, neck and chest after a motorcycle accident. His Harley-Davidson veered off a rural McHenry County road into a cornfield where he laid for about four hours before a passer-by found him and notified authorities. Regnier was dead when paramedics arrived.
The suit, which names McHenry and Winnebago counties, alleges both counties had access to technology necessary to determine Regnier’s location from the 911 cell phone calls. It claims both counties were negligent in not setting up the service and upgrading technology. The lawsuit also claims McHenry County collected more than $2 million for the technology upgrades since 1999 but didn’t use the money.
Authorities in both counties have said they could not pinpoint Regnier’s exact location from the 911 calls and could only tell what cell tower picked up the calls.
Emergency systems that have the technology to trace 911 cell phone calls can determine the caller’s location as close as 15 feet, according to Roger Hixson, a technical issues director for the National Emergency Number Association. He said 911 cell phone tracking technology uses either a global positioning system or network triangulation, which monitors how far the caller is from nearby cell phone towers.
To get the technology, a jurisdiction must request the service and come up with a plan to pay for it, such as a surcharge that shows up on a cell phone bill. Under 1999 Federal Communications Commission rules, cellular companies must start the service within months of the request.
Since then, both McHenry County and Winnebago County have requested the service and technology upgrades, according to documents from the National Emergency Number Association. The data did not indicate specifically when the service was requested.
