Butler County's emergency services director says a situation like the one in Pittsburgh's Hazelwood section, in which a 50-year-old man died because paramedics did not get to his home for 30 hours, despite 10 calls to 911, would be unlikely to occur in this county.

That should be a source of comfort as area residents — urban and rural — continue to deal with a winter that has been relentless in what it has dumped on the county — and as they wonder what might lie ahead.

Frank P. Matis, who heads this county's emergency services operation, said Thursday that the unlikelihood of a similar situation here is rooted in the fact that Butler County has a computer system that tracks emergency calls. Emergency dispatchers know if there have been previous calls for a particular address.

The problem in Pittsburgh, between the time when the now-deceased man first called for help at 2 a.m. Feb. 6 and when paramedics finally got to his home shortly after 8 a.m. Feb. 7, was that information gathered on each of the calls was not passed down in connection with subsequent help requests.

Thus, the earlier calls and the man's worsening condition were not known to dispatchers.

Although it's unlikely that the Butler 911 center ever would be as inundated with calls as the weather in Pittsburgh produced for that city, the advantage of dispatchers quickly having at their fingertips information about previous calls from one address is invaluable for Butler County dispatchers.

But all of the responsibility for what happened in the Hazelwood case doesn't rest with Pittsburgh's dispatchers. A big issue that must be addressed by Pittsburgh and Allegheny County authorities is the conduct of paramedics who were dispatched to the Hazelwood man's home several times, but never got to him.

In one of those instances, a paramedic told a 911 dispatcher, "If he wants a ride to the hospital, he is just going to have to come down to the truck."

The man lived on a narrow street that was inaccessible because of deep snow.

After getting as close to the man's home as possible, paramedics should have walked the rest of the way, in order to assess his situation.

Instead, they were guilty of an unforgivable lapse in judgment that probably cost the man his life.

In one instance, the man's longtime girlfriend, who was with him when he became ill and who made some of the calls to 911, including the last of the 10, said in one case an ambulance had gotten so close that she could see its lights from the man's porch — yet the ambulance left without its crew helping the man.

Matis said there is no reason to do anything differently here because of what happened in Pittsburgh. He said the unfortunate situation regarding the Hazelwood man might be a discussion point during upcoming 911 supervisor meetings, but there had been no special communications with local staff about that incident.

Ambulances in Butler County are from private ambulance services, whereas the Pittsburgh ambulances in question are part of the city's emergency network.

Matis expressed no concerns about how the private services here might perform if confronted by an emergency similar to what Pittsburgh faced, with many people needing help.

The Hazelwood man's tragic death did not have to happen and, judging from Matis' comments, it probably wouldn't have happened here.