Debra Stevens died around 5 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 24 in Fort Smith, Arkansas while delivering papers because she drove into flood waters... and wasn't able to exit her car. The 911 dispatcher? Scolded her, told her "that will teach you a lesson" and that she wasn't going to die.

“I have an emergency — a severe emergency,” Stevens told the female dispatcher. “I can’t get out, and I’m scared to death, ma’am. Can you please help me?”


Stevens’s SUV was swept off the road and into trees by flash flooding last Saturday as she delivered papers for the Times Record, police said. She used her cellphone to call a family member first, then dialed 911 from her vehicle at 4:38 a.m., as the water rose.

Stevens was on the phone with Reneau for approximately 22 minutes as the water level climbed from Stevens’s feet to her head. She told the dispatcher she could not swim.


“You’re not going to die,” the dispatcher said in audio released by police this week. “I don’t know why you’re freaking out … You freaking out is doing nothing but losing your oxygen in there. So, calm down.”

Stevens said she didn’t see the water on the road. She came up on it suddenly. The water was getting as high as her chest, she said. She could see people in the distance looking at her.

Crying uncontrollably, Stevens asked the woman on the line to pray with her.

“You go ahead and start off the prayer,” the 911 operator said.

“Please help and get me out of this water, dear Father,” Stevens said.

Again, she apologized. She didn’t mean to rude. But she was so afraid.

The 911 dispatcher, Donna Reneau, told Stevens, “This will teach you. Next time, don’t drive in the water.

Stevens insisted she didn’t see the flood waters. She’d worked her paper route for 21 years and never experienced anything like this.

“I don’t know how you didn’t see it. You had to go right over it. The water just didn’t appear.”

Now, 18 minutes into the call, the dispatcher was asking a firefighter whether he could see Stevens’ SUV. “Negative,” he said. There was confusion about her location.

The stranded motorist cried uncontrollably.

“Miss Debbie, you’re going to have to shut up,” the dispatcher said.

The water was rising above the door of her SUV, Stevens said. “Oh, Lord help me,” she cried.

“OK, listen to me, I know,” the dispatcher said. “I’m trying to get you help… I know you’re scared. Just hold on for me because I’ve got to take other calls.”

Stevens screamed. She said couldn’t breathe.

“I’m on the phone with her right now,” the dispatcher said to a rescuer. “She is legit freaking out.”

“I’m going to die!” Stevens said.

“Miss Debbie, you’re breathing just fine because you are screaming at me. So, calm down. I know you’re scared. Hold on for me.”

Stevens is not heard again.

The dispatcher had given 2 weeks notice already, and this was her last shift, and her last call.

Reneau joined the police’s Communications Center in 2013 and went on to train new hires, according to a police department post spotlighting the staffer last year as an “essential member of the unit with experience and knowledge.” In February, the Fort Smith Police Department congratulated her on being chosen “Fire Dispatcher of the Year.”

“Don’t call 911 in Fort Smith,” another person commented under a Fort Smith “Coffee with the Cops and 911 Dispatchers” “They will let you die and tell you to ‘shut up,’ while you beg for help.”

https://www.facebook.com/FSPolice/
https://www.facebook.com/notes/fort-smith-police-department/news-release/2612061358813962/
https://fox6now.com/2019/08/31/woman-drowns-in-a-flood-after-911-dispatcher-scolds-her-during-her-final-minutes-youre-not-going-to-die/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/31/i-dont-know-why-youre-freaking-out-dispatcher-told-woman-minutes-before-she-drowned/
https://www.change.org/p/fort-smith-police-department-imprison-operator-donna-reneau