FCC: Thousands of hotels don’t offer direct 911

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DALLAS (AP) — Tens of thousands of hotels don’t allow
guests to directly reach emergency services when they dial 911,
according to a national survey taken after a 9-year-old girl couldn’t
call for help while her mother was being stabbed to death in a Texas
motel.
The killing of Kari Hunt Dunn in an East Texas hotel room
spurred a petition that has garnered more than 440,000 signatures
demanding hotels and motels be required to enable the direct dialing of
911. Many hotels require callers to dial "9” before 911 or have some
other system, such as calling first to the front desk, which advocates
say can lead to panic and confusion in an emergency.
The petition
got the attention of Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai,
whose office on Monday announced the results of a survey done after
Dunn’s death by the American Hotel & Lodging Association. The
industry group found that about 45 percent of franchised hotels and
motels and 32 percent of independent hotels have direct 911 dialing.
Independent
owners and franchisees comprise the "vast majority" of the estimated
53,000 such properties in the U.S., including hotels using a brand name,
Pai said.
"These statistics are alarming. They show that the
telephone systems at tens of thousands of lodging properties across this
country could fail Americans when it counts," Pai said in a statement
released by his office. "My message to the hospitality industry has been
straightforward: This is not acceptable."
Pai said he was
starting a new round of surveys, this time to vendors of multi-line
telephone systems used in hotels and workplaces, to see whether their
products could easily be configured to allow dialers to quickly reach
911.
He also noted that the InterContinental, Marriott and Hilton
hotel chains were among those now working to change dialing systems and
educate franchise owners about the need to do so.
The National
Emergency Number Association, a group representing 911 call takers and
industry professionals, said it continued to support measures including
automatic notifications to hotel management anytime a guest calls for
help and a ban on routing 911 calls to a front desk.
"The 911
community stands ready to work with Congress, the FCC, and all
stakeholders in drafting and implementing new policies to fix this
problem," the group said in a statement.
Dunn’s estranged husband,
Brad Dunn, is accused of stabbing his wife during a visit with their
three young children in December 2013. Police said the family was in a
motel room at a Baymont Inn in Marshall, Texas, when he attacked his
wife in the bathroom.
Their 9-year-old daughter ran to the phone
and tried to call 911 — four times — but she couldn’t get through. The
girl eventually ran into a hallway and found someone in an adjacent room
who could call 911.
The hotel is operated by a franchisee, though Wyndham Hotel Group owns the Baymont brand name.
Kari
Hunt Dunn’s father, Hank Hunt, started the online petition for what he
called "Kari’s Law," asking that federal government require hotels and
motels to use "8” as a prefix to dial an outside line instead of "9."
The change.org petition had nearly 441,300 signatures as of Tuesday
morning.
"It’s very, very encouraging," Hunt said Monday. "The
number of people that seem to be taking an interest in getting this done
is increasing at a rate that we weren’t expecting."
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Online:
Petition for "Kari’s Law": http://chn.ge/1jolWS1
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Follow Nomaan Merchant on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nomaanmerchant
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