A Tragedy That Could Have Been Prevented This story will break your heart and make you angry. You need to read it anyway. What Happens: A Spanish-speaking woman calls 9-1-1. Her daughter is hemorrhaging after childbirth. She's dying. The mother is frantic, desperate, begging for help in the only language she knows. The operator doesn't speak Spanish. The bilingual operator went home sick early. His replacement is running 15 minutes late. Just 15 minutes. What follows is one of the most gutting, frustrating, heartbreaking pieces of short fiction you'll ever read.