UPDATED: Alexandria woman has baby on apartment floor & doesn’t get help for more than 4-hours. Husband says he tried to get cops to break down door.
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Watch Gary Nurenberg’s report from Friday at 11:00 PM
9NEWS NOW reporter Gary Nurenberg assisted in the writing of this story
Alexandria police say the department will begin an investigation to determine whether any of its officers walked away from a city apartment, refusing a husband’s plea that police break down his door and check on the well-being of his pregnant wife and one-and-a-half year-old son.
The woman was found inside the apartment about four-hours later, unconscious on a bloody floor, having given birth prematurely to a baby girl, while the toddler wandered the apartment tracking blood on the floor and a bed.
32-year-old Harriet Aboagye, suffering from substantial blood loss, was then rushed to Inova Alexandria Hospital where she and her baby girl were treated.
“The doctor told me my wife almost died,” said Francis Aboagye.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ndoF53vxFc&hl=en&fs=1&]
Click above to listen to initial 911 call.
“The doctor told me she had a seizure before she had a baby,” he told 9NEWS Now in an emotional Friday evening interview.
Francis Aboagye left the couple’s second floor apartment at about 5:30 on the morning of May 26. Harriet had complained of back pain and had made an appointment to see her doctor when his office opened that morning.
Reached at work, Francis was told his wife never made the appointment, so he called home to find out why.
“And nobody responded, so I call 911 to come to my house and check my wife with my one-and-a-half-year (old) boy. So, when they came they knocked on the door and told me … that nobody responded in the house, no TV, no noise, no nothing in the house,” he said.
Aboagye says he asked police to break down the door, but says police were unable to do so because they did not have the proper tools. He left work, and made it home nearly four hours later, finding his unconscious wife on the floor.
Again, he called 911, this time securing an ambulance to take his wife and newborn daughter to the hospital.
Sources familiar with the situation tell STATter911.com that EMS should have been dispatched on that first 911 call, but were not. If, as Francis Aboagye said, police did not have the proper tools for entry, it is unclear why the Alexandria Fire Department wasn’t dispatched to assist.
Alexandria police say they have received no formal complaint, but after our inquiries on Friday are launching an investigation.
Reached after business hours on Friday evening, police were able to provide few details, but confirmed the department had answered a call at the Aboagye’s address.
Police tell 9NEWS NOW that calls to check on the welfare of individuals are taken very seriously.
A police executive says the department is committed to getting answers and will review recordings and other material at the beginning of the week.
