A teen girl robbed at gunpoint and ordered into a freezer in McDonald's called 911 — and her mother picked up the phone.
911 operator Teri Clark was working at Orleans Parish Communication District on the evening of Oct. 17 when she recognized the number of an incoming call. It was the McDonald's on South Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, where her 16-year-old daughter Tenia Hill worked.
When Clark picked up the phone, she heard her daughter say, "Mom."
“I went into shock, thinking it was a prank, this can’t be real,” Clark, 45, told TODAY Parents. "In my 24-year career, I've never taken a call from a family member, let alone my child."
Tenia had started her part-time cashier job one week before, hoping to save up for half the cost of driving school; her mom would fund the rest. That night, Clark had completed a 12-hour shift and was working overtime until her daughter got off work at 10 p.m.
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Upon hearing her daughter's voice, Clark fought tears but remained calm. "Part of our training is to treat every call as if it’s a family member," she explained.
Clark asked the caller for her location.
"Tenia said, 'Mom, send the police, we’ve been robbed. It’s me,'" she added.
According to Clark, Tenia reported that a woman had entered the restaurant and told the teen and her co-workers to "get on the floor."
"She pulled out a gun and ordered them to the back of the store and into the freezer," said Clark. That's where Tenia called 911 with her cell phone.
In an audio recording of the 8 p.m. call published by NBC affiliate WDSU, Tenia told her mother, "Mama, please hurry up, she's got a gun."
"We are going to hurry, give me a description," answered Clark in the tape, to which Tenia responded, "She's got a mask on. She's got somebody outside and she's got us in the freezer. Mama, please."
A spokesperson from the New Orleans Police Department told TODAY Parents that a woman "armed with a handgun, entered a business at the location and went behind the counter, forcing victims into a freezer. The perpetrator then allegedly had the manager open the safe, where the perpetrator took an unknown amount of money before fleeing on foot."
In store surveillance footage published by WDSU, the woman follows employees into the kitchen.
While the call between Clark and her daughter lasted about three minutes, it felt "like forever," said the mom. After telling her daughter that a police unit was on its way, Clark hung up the phone and told her manager she was leaving.
Clark drove the 10-minute distance to McDonald's in half the time. Police were on the scene, but no one was allowed inside as employees were being questioned.
When Tenia left the restaurant, she and Clark hugged in the parking lot.
"I told her, 'It's going to be alright, you did wonderful,” said Clark.
Hill told WDSU, "I was really, really really, scared because I would not have imagined that at my first job I would be getting robbed, let alone having a gun pointed at me."
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The teen added, "I was very worried because I didn't want my mama to have to bury her youngest child."
A police spokesperson told TODAY Parents that the “investigation into the case remains open and active.” As of Nov. 16, no arrests had been made.
“Teri Clark is a shining example of what our 911 heroes in New Orleans and across the nation do every day," Tyrell Morris, the executive director of Orleans Parish Communication District, told TODAY Parents. "We answer each and every call with passion, purpose and professionalism, even when it is our own family."
A spokesperson from McDonald's did not immediately return a call for comment from TODAY Parents.
While Clark, a mother of two, loves her job, handling crime-related calls makes her overprotective.
"I'm always telling my daughter, 'You can't go here, you can't do that because something might happen,'" she said.
Clark hopes that people understand that 911 operators are doing their best under stress.
"Knowing that I could have lost my life, but she saved my life," Hill told WDSU, "I was very happy."