LITTLE ROCK -- The Arkansas Claims Commission has rejected arguments that the state bears any responsibility for the drowning deaths of a Little Rock mother and son, saying that to do otherwise would make the state responsible for supervising every 911 dispatcher and emergency responder.
Jinglei Yi, 39, died in her car in January 2013 after skidding off the road into a pond off Cooper Orbit Road in Little Rock. Rescuers managed to free her unconscious 5-year-old son Le Yang, but he never woke up before dying two years later.
The car didn't immediately submerge, and Yi was on the phone with emergency operators at least for 13 minutes before the vehicle filled with water and sank.
Yi's husband, the boy's father Dayong Yang, had to be restrained by firefighters from trying to go into the water himself to try to rescue them.
Yang, 64, who has since moved to North Little Rock, has spent the past seven years in litigation, including two trips to the Arkansas Supreme Court, seeking to hold authorities responsible for what he and his lawyers said were inexcusable lapses in emergency rescue procedures.
He's only been successful in a 2013 wrongful-death lawsuit against the 911 operator who was on the line with his wife, winning a $17.6 million judgment from Candace Middleton after she never responded to his lawsuit against Little Rock police, fire and 911 officials, who were determined to be immune from suit.
The commission, which describes itself as "the conscience of the state of Arkansas," was established by the General Assembly to give complainants who say they've been wronged by a state agency an opportunity to seek compensation for property damage, personal injury, breach of contract, refunds and other claims.
The five-member commission can recommend to the Legislature whether to award money to compensate the claimants, and lawmakers decide which claims are paid. The only appeal of a commission ruling must go to the Legislature.
Yang filed a claim against the Department of Emergency Management in 2016, which coordinated the state 911 system. The agency is now a division of the state Department of Public Safety.
Monday, the commission denied the state has any responsibility for what happened to Yang's wife and son because no state official was directly supervising Middleton, and "the Claims Commission is unwilling to find that the existence of a 911 coordinator means that the state is supervising every 911 dispatcher and emergency responder," the five-page decision states. It was signed by commission chairman Paul Morris and commissioners Courtney Baird and Sylvester Smith.
Police say Jinglei Yi hit a patch of ice on Capitol Hill Boulevard on a snowy day in January 2013 and lost control of her 2006 Ford Expedition. The SUV skidded about 250 feet down the street before running off the road. The sport utility vehicle went down a hill, struck a tree and entered the water. It floated toward the middle of the pond, filling with water.
The Expedition eventually sank in the pond, less than a quarter-mile from the family's Capital Lake Estates home, according to a police report.
Yi was able to call her husband after she went into the water, then called 911 after talking to him. She spent at least 13 minutes talking to emergency operators as water filled the vehicle, the lawsuit states.
One operator said she could hear the boy crying and screaming until the screaming grew muffled, then suddenly stopped, according to the suit.
The first ambulance to arrive drove by the scene because paramedics couldn't see the submerged vehicle. About 25 minutes after Yi called for help, paramedics found the scene.
Fire and police units didn't arrive at the scene until about 32 minutes after Yi called 911. City officials say they don't know why the first attempt to dispatch them failed.
Emergency dispatchers didn't realize firefighters and police hadn't been dispatched until a paramedic called and asked where they were. Firefighters arrived about five minutes after that call, city officials said, while police got there in about 12 minutes.
The first firefighters to get to the crash were going to go into the water, but a supervisor kept them back because the water was too cold and they did not have the proper gear for the water or to get into the car.
The Fire Department's water rescue team arrived 45 minutes after Yi called for help and, with some difficulty, pulled the mother and son from the back of the submerged SUV.
Yang was twice prevented from going into the water to help his family. Authorities said they couldn't let Yang go into the water himself because then they would have to divert resources from the effort to save his family to rescue him.
Yang's lawsuit, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court seven months after the crash, leveled 20 counts of negligence and inadequacy against the city, police, Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services ambulance service and Middleton.
In their response to the suit, city officials said there is no evidence of widespread or systemic problems. They say they conducted a thorough investigation that called for Middleton to be fired, but she had quit the day after Yi's death before she could be terminated.
Middleton had been a Benton 911 dispatcher for nearly 12 years but had been fired in February 2011 for poor work performance. She worked for Little Rock less than a year after the city hired her in March 2012.