The 911 operator who refused to respond to an emergency call made by a 5-year old boy was found guilty by a Detroit jury on Friday, and faces up to one year in jail for willful neglect of duty and misdemeanor. Sharon Nichols, 45, will be sentenced on March 11. Another call-operator, Terri Sutton, was found not-guilty on the same accusations.

The verdict was given at around 12:27 p.m. after three hours of deliberations from the jury, at the 36th District Court. Nichols claimed in her testimony she could not hear the boy very well and she thought it was all a prank, but the young boy, now 7, said the operator hang up on him after accusing him of playing games.

The incident took place on February 20, 2006, when Robert Turner, then 5, called 911 after his mother, Sherrill Turner, 46, collapsed unconscious in her home in Detroit. Sharon Nichols took the call, but assumed it was a prank and did not bother to send somebody to check up the situation. The boy’s mother was found dead three hours later, after heart complications occurred.

The audio tapes revealed however that the operator did hear the boy, and threatened him with sending the police over to his house, in an attempt to make him admit he was just making a joke. Unfortunately for the Turner family, she did not send a police car over to check up on the boy. After the first call failed to bring help for his mother, Robert tried again three hours later, when another operator, Terri Sutton, answered the call. Apparently Sutton was also harsh on the boy, but sent a police car over just in case.

Earlier this week, charges against Sutton were dismissed before her case reached the grand jury. Judge Humphries agreed that Sutton, although she was rude to the boy, requested a police car. But it was a different story for Nichols, who now faces one year in prison for ignoring an emergency call. This should be a lesson for all the emergency operators, to think twice before dismissing a call.