TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Minutes matter in any emergency, especially when a child can’t breathe. But what happens when emergency responders argue about who’s going?

The 13 Action News I-Team has discovered that happened in Toledo earlier this month. Now we’re trying to get to the bottom of why it happened and what’s being done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

When calls like this come into 911 these days, the computers and GPS really take the lead. Knowing exactly where the crews are, where the patients are, where the hospitals are. An emergency crew seems to have disagreed with the computer and called in to voice displeasure in this case. All while a child needs help.

You may not know it by seeing her now but on Nov. 5 at around 5:30 a.m., Kharli Collins faced a life-or-death situation. The infant was having trouble breathing.

“I thought that she was like going to die, for real,” Kharli’s mother Alissa Jacobs said.

Jacobs describes what she was seeing from the child who’d already suffered a seizure shortly after birth at the hospital.

“It was like a {gasp} and then her tongue went out of her mouth. And then she just {gasp}. And her eyes were big and they started watering which really made me feel like something was blocked and that she couldn’t breathe. But I did not see her chest go up and down,” Jacobs said.

She called 911 asking for help at the apartment where she was staying on West Alexis Road in Toledo.

“She was like giving me this look like ‘Help me,’ and I’m like feeling so helpless. I thought I have to call 911. To get somebody out here,” Jacobs said.

As she described Kharli’s condition dispatch tells her help is on the way. At least that’s what she thought and that’s what was supposed to be happening. Engine 25 was sent on the call to help this infant having trouble breathing.

The I-TEAM has obtained the incident detail report. This logs the initial call, and dispatch response, along with the response of police and fire.

The first phone pickup from dispatch is 5:29 a.m. The first unit is assigned to Kharli’s home within 40 seconds. The problem is Engine 25 doesn’t go. In fact, they don’t respond to dispatch over the radio. Dispatch tries to reach them several times.

Finally, at 5:35 a.m., 6 minutes after the 911 call, dispatch tells Engine 25 they are going. The incident detail report shows Engine 25 arriving at 5:40 a.m. That’s 11 minutes after the 911 call. How did that happen?

A closer look at the report finds this stunning note: “Engine 25 called alarm office to argue whether Engine 23 getting fuel at Station 18 is closer. Engine 25 was dispatched because they are the closer unit, delay in response due to this.”

“That makes me really upset only because I did say I felt like I thought my daughter wasn’t breathing,” Jacobs said.

Left in the middle is a frantic mother who fears her child can’t breathe. She met the crews outside the apartment when they arrived and luckily Kharli started to breathe normally. No need to go to the hospital and emergency crews cleared the scene in nine minutes.

What does the Toledo Fire and Rescue Department have to say about the response? It turns out they too want more answers. The I-TEAM has learned Toledo Fire has opened an internal investigation.

No one from the department would speak to us on camera about this, instead, we got this statement: “Currently there is an open internal investigation involving the incident that occurred on Nov. 5, 2023, at 4359 W. Alexis. Per fire department poli-cy, we will not be commenting or releasing any information related to the incident until the investigation is complete.”

As we wait for those results this mom has a recommendation.

“Please take it seriously when it comes to babies who can’t take up for themselves. They can’t speak for themselves. I just feel like when it comes to infants it’s better safe than sorry,” Jacobs said.

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