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911 Dispatch System Goes Down Multiple Times Monday, FDNY Says

 The EMS dispatch system was down for 30 minutes Monday morning, FDNY said.
The EMS dispatch system was down for 30 minutes Monday morning, FDNY said.
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NEW YORK CITY — The city's EMS dispatch system was down for 30 minutes early Monday, the first of three outages that forced operators to resort to pen and paper to keep track of emergency calls, the FDNY said.

Officials were still trying to determine why the Computer Assisted Dispatch system, part of the broader 911 call operation, was downed about 7:40 a.m., an FDNY spokeswoman said.

The system was back up about 8:10 a.m. and in that time, operators fielded 100 calls with pen and paper, she added.

But then it went down again for 5 minutes hours later, and then again shortly after noon, another spokeswoman said. It was unclear how long the system was down the third time. 

Monday's outages comes amid a swarm of complaints about the 911 system tied to two separate deaths.

In June, EMS crews were delayed by four minutes when responding to 4-year-old Ariel Russo, who was hit and killed by a speeding SUV. Officials said the initial call was lost during a shift change.

Earlier this month, firefighters were delayed by five minutes when a dispatcher struggled to pinpoint the location of a fatal fire in Throgs Neck.

Last week, the Uniformed Firefighters Association pledged to sue the city in an effort to halt the new computerized system.

Representatives for the UFA did not immediately respond for comment Monday.