Two central Maine families continue to seek answers from state public safety officials after alleging their loved ones died in accidents after 911 calls for help were mishandled.

Darren Duncan died a year ago today when he was struck by two vehicles in Chelsea.

Amanda Edwards died a week later in a two-car accident in Augusta.

Three weeks before she died, Edwards told her mother how she wanted to be remembered when she passed away. It was an unusual conversation, her mother, Rebecca Renaud, said, considering the girl was a gregarious 17-year-old cheerleader at Erskine Academy.

But "she had read a story about someone who died because of reckless driving and it had got her thinking," Renaud said.

A TALE OF THREE DISPATCHERS

Edwards was a passenger in a car whose driver lost control on wet pavement. It collided with another vehicle on Stone Road in Augusta near the Vassalboro line.

Renaud, of Vassalboro, alleged a lack of communication between 911 dispatchers at the Central Maine Regional Communications Center and Delta Ambulance may have cost her daughter her life, and took away the opportunity for Edwards' organs to be donated.

"It took an ambulance 32 minutes to reach my daughter," Renaud said. "There was no clear communication between (dispatchers and Delta Ambulance)."

Transcripts show three dispatchers in the communications center unaware another dispatcher was handling the same emergency.

Dispatchers from the Central Maine Regional Communications Center made the first call to Delta Ambulance four minutes after the first 911 call was received. An ambulance was sent from Waterville because the Augusta ambulance was busy on another call.

Transcripts show that a Delta employee, who said she had spoken to at least three dispatchers about the same accident, asked a dispatcher if there was "any way ta (sic) have just one of you guys calling me? ...'Cos (sic) that makes it a little less confusing for everybody."

WHY SO SLOW?

Renaud said she sought the transcripts of the 911 call three months after Edwards' death and received them two months later.

She and Edwards' stepfather, Parrish Renaud, then started calling the Department of Public Safety for answers on why an ambulance took more than half an hour to respond to an accident in which a patient was described as "critical."

"(Department of Public Safety legal counsel) Chris Parr has been totally unresponsive," Renaud said. "I know he's busy, and I didn't expect instant gratification by any means. But for months I would call, call, call; I'd e-mail, and (got) nothing."

Renaud said Department of Public Safety officials stopped returning her e-mails after she requested a meeting with Parr; Clifford Wells, director of consolidated emergency communications for the Department of Public Safety; and her private attorney.

Wells said he was unable to speak to allegations made by Edwards' family, citing a "possibility of litigation."

Parr said he was not the correct individual to respond to Renaud's requests, aside from the 911 transcripts.

INFORMATION DRIES UP

"In response to (Renaud's) request, and in accordance in Maine law, we provided the records to her, as well as to the attorney who represents the estate of her late daughter," Parr said in an e-mail. "When Ms. Renaud subsequently contacted my office with questions about the content of the records that the department provided, I referred her to other individuals who I thought would be able to answer those questions."

"There will always be questions," Renaud said. "But, I think I have reached the point where I'm going to get all the answers I'm going to get."

Darren Duncan was leaving Chelsea's Crystal Falls event hall early on Nov. 8, 2008, when he was struck by two vehicles in the middle of Route 17. When rescue crews arrived, he...