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(CNN) - Debra Stevens was working on her normal newspaper delivery route in Fort Smith, Arkansas, when rising flood waters began to reach her truck.
The last and desperate 911 call of the 47-year-old woman who delivered the Southwest Times Record to the front doors arrived at 4:38 in the morning on August 24. It was a 22-minute plea of panic for help with a telephone operator that the Fort Smith Police Department admitted that sounded "sometimes insensitive and indifferent."
"I have an emergency, a severe emergency," Stevens told the person. “I can't go out and I'm scared to death, ma'am. Can you help me please?"
Stevens, terrified, told the person who attended her again and again that she was going to die in the rapid increase of water. He cried and asked repeatedly when help would come. She didn't know how to swim, he said. He had trouble describing his location. He said he didn't want to die.
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"You are not going to die," the telephone operator told him in an audio broadcast by the police this week. “I don't know why you're going crazy… You're going crazy, you're doing nothing but lose your oxygen there. So calm down. "
Stevens said water was falling in his car. Soon he would ruin his new phone.
"Do you really care about your new phone?" Asked the lifeguard by phone. “You are there crying for your life. Who cares about your phone. ”
Stevens said he didn't see the water on the road. It appeared suddenly. She kept apologizing. Water was beginning to reach his chest, he said. I could see people in the distance looking at her. They are probably laughing, she said.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry," Stevens shouted.
Stevens said at one point that he needed to vomit.
"Well, you're in the water, you can vomit," said the dispatcher. "It won't matter."
Crying uncontrollably, Stevens asked the operator to pray with her.
"Go ahead and start the prayer," said the 911 operator.
"Please help me and get me out of this water, dear father," Stevens said.
Again, he apologized for sounding rude, but he was afraid.
"This will teach you the next time you don't drive in the water," the telephone operator replied.
Stevens insisted he didn't see the flood waters. He had worked his paper route 21 years and has never experienced anything like that.
“I don't know how you didn't see it. You had to go over it. The water simply did not appear. ”
Approximately 15 minutes after the call, the operator took other calls. Police said many stranded residents were calling that morning.
Stevens kept crying. The operator tried to describe to the firefighters the location of the stranded woman.
"I'm talking on the phone with her," he said. "It's going crazy."
Approximately 18 minutes after the call, the telephone operator asked a firefighter if he could see Steven's truck. "Negative," he said. There was confusion about its location.
Stevens cried uncontrollably.
"Miss Debbie, you will have to shut up," said the dispatcher. "Can you honk?"
"My horn is dead," Stevens said. "Everything is dead."
Water rose above the door of his truck, he said. "Oh, sir, help me," he shouted. The dispatcher said rescuers were looking for her.
"Oh my God, my car starts moving," Stevens shouted.
"Okay, listen to me, I know," said the telephone operator. “I am trying to get your help… I know you are afraid. Just wait for me because I have to answer other calls. ”
Stevens starts screaming. He said he couldn't breathe.
"I'm talking to her on the phone right now," the operator told a rescuer. "She is going crazy."
"I'm going to die," Stevens said.
“Miss Debbie, you are breathing well because you are screaming at me. So calm down. I know she is scared. Wait for me. "
Stevens is not heard again.
“Miss Debbie? Miss Debbie? ”Said the operator. "Oh my God. It seems that it is now underwater. ”
The call ended at 5 am ET
Rescuers arrived in Stevens' truck about 58 minutes later. They tried to revive it without success.
Fort Smith police said in a statement that they released the audio recording of the call "with great reluctance" after requests from the media.
"The recording contains the audio of the last moments of a dying person, as well as the interaction between her and the 911 operator," the statement said.
"And although the operator's response to this extremely tense and dynamic event sounds insensitive and indifferent at times, sincere efforts are being made to locate and save Mrs. Stevens."
Stevens' first call during the emergency went to his mother-in-law, police said. Then he dialed 911 from his cell phone.
Fort Smith fire and police units were flooded with calls to 911 of people trapped in flood waters, according to the statement. Stevens 'difficulty in describing its location and flooding limited the rescuers' ability to communicate with her, according to the statement.
"I am heartbroken by this tragic loss of life and my prayers are with Debra's family and friends," police chief Danny Baker said in a statement.
“All our lifeguards who tried to save Mrs. Stevens are distressed by the result. For each of us, saving lives is the essence of who we are and why we do what we do. When we don't succeed, it hurts. ”
The Stevens family did not respond to multiple CNN requests for comment.
Police spokesman Aric Mitchell said the 911 operator had resigned on August 9. He was working his last shift the morning of the tragedy.
"The incident will certainly lead us to analyze the policies within our existing Communications Unit, but we have not completed a review at this time to make specific determinations," Mitchell said.
911Arkansas Floods