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A 5-year-old boy called 911 to say his mother had collapsed. The operator told him to stop playing on the phone and hung up. He sat alone with her for 3 hours. By the time anyone came, she was already d*ad. Robert Turner was five years old when his mother collapsed in their Detroit home on February 20, 2006. He dialled 911 and told the operator his mom had passed out. The operator, Sharon Nichols, asked him where his father was. When Robert couldn't explain, she decided it was a prank and ended the call. No police or ambulance were sent. Robert spent the next three hours watching his mother deteriorate. At 9:02 p.m. he called again. The second operator threatened to send police to the house to punish him for playing on the phone and demanded his mother come to the phone. His mother could not come to the phone. She was dying. Police eventually arrived to find Sherrill Turner, 46, already d*ad. Her cause of d*ath was complications from an enlarged heart. A doctor later testified she would likely have survived if help had been sent on the first call. The case became the first in US history in which a 911 operator was criminally convicted for mishandling a call. Sharon Nichols was found guilty of wilful neglect of duty. The prosecutor noted the absurdity of her defence at trial: "Her defence was that she could not hear the child.” If that were true, how could she tell it was a prank call? Robert Turner was six years old when he attended the press conference about his mother's passing. He was wearing a suit.