Blue City Nightmare Becomes Reality, Wife Grieves After 911 Does the Unthinkable

One Texas woman is describing a nightmare scenario with her city’s emergency responses on the day her husband died.

Tanya Gotcher of Austin says that she was placed on hold with 911 as her husband, Casey Gotcher, suffered from an ultimately fatal heart attack in May.

Gotcher describes the emergency call on a “phone just ringing, and ringing, and ringing,” Austin’s KEYE-TV reported last week.

Local emergency services left the Gotchers initially helpless in what proved to be a life-and-death scenario.

Tanya Gotcher even considered heading to her neighbors’ house or to a local fire station for assistance, but didn’t want to leave her husband alone, according to KEYE.

Gotcher only finally secured emergency assistance from her father-in-law, who called 911 from an entirely different county.

It took even more time — “another 25 minutes” — for first responders to arrive on the scene of the Gotcher family home, Gotcher said. Casey Gotcher died later the same day, leaving behind not only Tanya, but two sons and a host of family members.

“When you hear the phone ring for 15 minutes and you can’t get to anybody to help you is the worst nightmare that you could have,” Gotcher said.

Gotcher told her story in a campaign ad for Travis County judge candidate Rupal Chaudhari, a Republican. (In Texas, “county judge,” is the title for a position roughly equivalent to what would be known in most of the rest of the country as “county commission chairman.”)

Gotcher isn’t blaming first responders on the scene for the tragedy. She’s criticizing a system that is woefully inadequate at providing for the emergency needs of residents in Travis County, home of the deep-blue Texas capital city of Austin.

Law enforcement agencies across the country have incurred new staffing shortages in the aftermath of 2020’s Black Lives Matter riot movement. These shortcomings apply to auxiliary employees of public safety organizations, such as 911 dispatchers.

Police departments of major cities have ended up woefully understaffed, a development with serious consequences for public safety.

The Austin City Council defunded its police department by $150 million in 2020, going well beyond even more left-wing cities in blue states, according to an August 2020 report in the Texas Tribune, a left-leaning online news site.

Tanya Gotcher is calling on local authorities to ensure that Austin’s emergency services adequately provide the services needed to save life in a timely manner.

“I’m not just doing this for Casey,” the widow said.

“I’m doing this for us, because the next time, this could be you.”