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Teri Clark immediately recognized her daughter’s phone number when it popped up on her 911 dispatch screen last month.
Clark, a veteran emergency dispatcher in New Orleans, long ago taught her daughter, now 16, that she couldn’t call 911 to talk to mom. Before picking up, she peeked at her cellphone to see whether she’d missed a call from her. She hadn’t.
And so Clark answered her daughter’s 911 call the same way she had answered thousands of others over more than two decades.
“New Orleans 911, what’s the location of the emergency?”
It would be unlike any other crisis Clark had dealt with in her 24-year career — her teenage daughter begging to be rescued from an armed robber as she cowered in a walk-in freezer with her McDonald’s co-workers.
Tenia Hill, a junior in high school, attended classes at Eleanor McMain Secondary School on Oct. 17, a Monday. Then, she put on her uniform and at 5 p.m. went to the McDonald’s where she worked part-time as a cashier.
Clark, 45, had started her shift at the Orleans Parish Communication District at 6:30 a.m. and, even though she was scheduled to get off at 7 p.m., decided to work overtime.
The call came in around 8 p.m.
“I was seeing her number pop up, and in my mind, I’m like, ‘What’s she calling for?’ ”
Clark answered.
“Mama, can you please send a police officer right now to McDonald’s?” Tenia asked, according to an audio recording obtained by The Washington Post.
“Where at?” Clark asked her.
“At my job, Mama!”
Clark knew where her daughter was. Tenia had started working there a week earlier — her first “real” job, not counting her stints as a counselor at summer camp. It had been, at least in part, Clark’s idea. Tenia wanted to go to driving school. Her mother agreed but, wanting to teach her daughter how to earn and save money to achieve a personal goal, told her to work for it.
“I was trying to show her a little responsibility,” Clark said.
The communication district’s computer system also informed Clark of where her daughter was calling from. Still, protocol required her to coax the caller into confirming their location. Clark had done it with thousands of others struck by panic, and she did the same with her daughter.
That doesn’t mean she felt the same way.
“I processed the call like I normally do with any other citizen that’s calling,” Clark said, “but I knew it was my child. I was trying to remain calm.”
It was an unexpected blessing for Tenia. Thinking her mother had already gotten off work, Tenia said she didn’t think she’d get her when she called 911 but immediately recognized her voice. “I felt relieved, and I felt calm because of the comfort of my mama’s voice,” she said.
During the call, Tenia told her mother that a woman entered the McDonald’s and forced the roughly half-dozen employees into the restaurant’s walk-in freezer. Clark said she would later learn that the robber initially ordered Tenia and her co-workers to get on the ground. Looking at each other, they initially thought she was pranking them. Then she pulled a gun and said something like, “You think I’m playing?” before herding them to the back, Tenia said.
From there, the teen called 911.
“When my child told me that they was locked up in the freezer, I guess the mama part of me panicked, but the operator in me knew, ‘Hell, I’ve got to get help to my child,’ ” Clark said.
“I had tears coming down my face, but I still had to do the job,” she added.
The call lasted three minutes and 45 seconds.
Over the years, Clark has calmed parents watching their children bleed out after being shot, given CPR instructions to a mother trying to save her baby from choking to death, and guided women escaping physically abusive husbands or boyfriends they fear might murder them. In all those situations, she said, her goal was to beat back or stave off panic so callers could give her the information she needed to send help.
On the night of Oct. 17, Clark found herself doing double duty — trying to calm her daughter while keeping her own terror in check.
After Clark dispatched police and hung up, she went to her shift manager. She told her that the caller who’d just reported the robbery was her daughter and that she needed to leave. Clark rushed to the McDonald’s, where police were investigating. Officers recognized Clark, told her that her daughter was okay and let her know that Tenia would come out as soon as detectives were done interviewing her.
“But I could see my child inside — hysterical, crying hard,” Clark said.
Twenty to 30 minutes later, police cut her loose. Tenia came out, and Clark held her daughter. That night, the high school student struggled to sleep and, when she nodded off, nightmares tormented her, Clark said. Tenia said she’s scared to go back to work, and Clark said she worried about letting her do so. She hasn’t been back since the robbery and doesn’t like going places generally.
“They took that innocence away from her,” Clark said.
The New Orleans Police Department did not respond to an email asking for updates on the case, but Clark said they haven’t notified her of any arrests.
Clark herself was rattled by what happened. She said she considered retiring but was buoyed by co-workers insisting she did a great job.
Most importantly, she said, mother and daughter have taken solace in each other. They’ve wept together, held each other. Tenia said they’re closer now, that’s she’s found sanctuary in the safety of the person she trusts the most.
“We really just have had each other’s backs throughout the whole situation,” Tenia said.
Her mom said much the same. They’re struggling, but they’re struggling together.
“When she cries, I cry,” she said, adding, “I’m not doing good, but we’re surviving.”