Woman calls 911, dies

"Matilda "Tillie" Kovanich was in trouble. The 83-year-old widow had begun to bleed profusely. She made it to the phone and dialed 911.

A Seminole County deputy was dispatched to the house, found it locked and left.

And Tillie Kovanich died.

The next day, another deputy was dispatched after neighbors raised a new alarm, and found Kovanich's body in her bedroom, a pool of blood at her feet. When her son got to the house the following day, he found the phone next to her bed, its receiver off the hook.

"To me, it was clear someone had tried to call for help," said son Joe Ruth, 59, of Wheaton, Ill. "I think somebody should have come in here."

There is nothing to indicate that law-enforcement officials knew Kovanich was bleeding or in distress when she dialed 911. She may have said nothing at all.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office would not discuss the case Tuesday, saying it was conducting an internal investigation, which by law must remain secret. The Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office, which conducted the autopsy, cannot say what day Kovanich died, according to Volusia County spokesman Dave Byron. But it has set her official date of death as Oct. 21, the day after she called for help. Her official cause of death has not been released pending toxicology findings, but authorities told neighbors it appears a blood vessel in her leg burst and she bled to death.

Joey Dobson, Baker County sheriff and president of the Florida Sheriffs Association, said that on any given day, the same thing could happen to any Sheriff's Office in Florida: A deputy walks away from the site of an emergency call because a building is locked and it's not clear there's a crisis."

But they sure can break in if they smell a whiff of pot, not can't they. Into the wrong home, too. There isn't any excuse for this, as responders should have fought off just one urge to visit Duncan's and made another attempt to save Tillie.

Sorry, my dear. Society failed you in your hour of need.