ST. LOUIS — Mike Harris and Mike Ferguson have shared some great memories together at Aviation Field at Forest Park – but now, they can't walk into the dugout without tears filling their eyes.
It’s the last place where they saw their friend and teammate Brian Zanghi alive.
He suffered a cardiac arrest there on June 17. He didn’t survive. He was 48 years old.
Now, his teammates say they’ll never know whether delays by the city’s troubled 911 system or a lack of nearby defibrillators at the city’s largest and busiest public park played a role in his death.
“I don't know if Brian would have had a chance if they'd gotten here in the time frame they should have, but that's kind of the point,” Ferguson said. “We'll never know if he had a chance because they didn’t get here for so long. And if it didn't matter for Brian, it may matter to the next person that needs emergency help.”
Zanghi’s death is the third case 5 On Your Side has covered this year in which friends and family members say 911 delays have left them wondering how differently the situation could have turned out had dispatchers answered their calls for help immediately.
Zanghi’s girlfriend, Treena Sturgeon, contacted 5 On Your Side after a friend sent her the I-Team’s reporting on Ashley Schlesing.
Schlesing is now suing the city after her 36-year-old husband bled to death while on hold with 911 in January. He accidentally shot himself in the leg inside his car.
Then, July 1, 33-year-old Katherine Coen died after a tree fell on her car during a storm. Neighbors told 5 On Your Side 911 dispatchers didn’t answer their calls for help in a timely manner, either.
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“I contacted you because I want this to be known,” Sturgeon said. “I want people to know what's happening. I would like to be able to push the city to do something more about it. But at the very minimum, the people of the city deserve to know what's going on. They deserve to know what their access is to emergency responders.”
A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Safety issued a statement Tuesday, which read:
“The Department of Public Safety is reviewing the details of this incident. We encourage all individuals who call 911 to stay on the line. Calling back to 911 does not expedite the ability of our team to respond to the incident.”
The statement also noted the city has taken steps “to improve our 911 system, in which police, fire, and EMS all possess their own separate dispatches.”
Those steps include:
- Consolidating police and EMS dispatch under one roof
- Creating a new position for new hires to ensure future employees are cross-trained
- Contracting for new software to bring all dispatchers onto the same system
- Cross-training fire and EMS dispatchers
- Raising pay for dispatchers
- Securing $30 million for a new dispatch center.
Mayor Tishaura Jones pledged in 2021 to have all dispatchers operating out of the same building within three months.
Discussions about the construction of a new dispatch center began in 2008 and completion is still years away.
Public Safety leaders held a press conference four days after Coen’s death earlier this month, stating the city is about 40 911 dispatchers short and 10 EMS dispatchers short.
Annual salaries for EMS dispatchers range from $32,000 - $34,000; Police dispatchers start out between $39,000 - $41,000; Public Safety dispatchers (the new position city leaders created for cross training dispatchers) start out between $39,000 - $43,000; and fire dispatchers make between $49,000 - $75,000.
Harris says those salaries should be higher.
“The NFL gave Saint Louis almost $1 billion, and if this is a funding issue, I think it's malfeasance not to direct those resources to where they can do the most good for our community,” Harris said of the settlement the city reached with former Rams owner Stan Kroenke. “And I think upgrading the 911 system and the response of the first responders is a number one priority.”
Harris, the pitcher for the team, said he noticed Zanghi was laying in the grass stretching in between innings on the afternoon in question. Then, he walked to the dugout telling his teammates he couldn’t feel his right hand.
Harris tried to give him his water jug.
“He couldn’t even lift it,” Harris recalled.
Another teammate called 911 at 1:45 p.m.
“It was relayed to us that someone was on the way,” Ferguson recalled.
Nine minutes later, Zanghi got worse.
The team didn’t hear any sirens, so some of them called 911 back at 1:54 p.m. Ferguson was one of them.
“I was put on hold,” he said. “I didn’t even talk to a person.”
A few minutes later, a dispatcher answered Ferguson’s call. The dispatcher asked for directions to the field and said there was someone on the way.
The teammates couldn’t understand what was taking so long. Barnes Jewish Hospital – a level 1 trauma center – was within their eyesight.
“It was just such a horrible feeling of helplessness to basically watch Brian dying in front of our own eyes and we can see the hospital,” Ferguson recalled.
“We were told we needed to stay here so they could come to us,” Harris said, digging his toe into the dirt of the dugout. “It was at least 20 minutes and probably longer before we got a response team here.”
Ferguson said the nearest fire station was less than five minutes away.
As the moments ticked away, other teammates called first responders they knew personally. One of them had a video call with a Belleville firefighter, who directed them on how to give chest compressions.
Another medical professional on the field that day tried to help with CPR, too, Ferguson and Harris recalled.
Harris ran to the Mounted Patrol stable – the nearest building by the baseball field in search of a defibrillator. No one was there, and he couldn’t find an automated external defibrillator, or an AED.
Sturgeon, a doctor herself, went to the stable after her boyfriend’s death to see if they had an AED.
She said she had to explain to the officer what an AED was, and, they didn’t have one there.
“AEDS are in airports and malls and shops, why wouldn't you have an AED in a field where people are active?” Sturgeon asked.
A spokesman for the mayor’s office said recreation centers based in city parks have defibrillators.
Zanghi is survived by his two children, ages 15 and 18. His girlfriend and his teammates said they were the true love of his life – that, and baseball.
“The morning that he died, I came to pitch and he said, ‘Mike, are you ready to throw?’ And I said, ‘Hell yes, Brian. Are you ready to run down all my mistakes in the outfield?’ And Brian said, ‘I got your back, Mike,’” Harris recalled, choking back tears as he glanced over at the space in the dugout where he last saw him.
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