By Dave Statter
dstatter@wusa9.com
STATter 911 — http://www.statter911.com
WUSA9 — http://www.wusa9.com
WASHINGTON — All indications from DC Fire & EMS Department officials is the motive behind two ambulance crews recently straying far from home for many hours was to avoid taking emergency runs. Chief Dennis Rubin has given every indication he intends to fully investigate the incidents and discipline those involved. Chief Rubin said in a statement “this behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated”.
What that doesn’t address are the safeguards the city put in place in recent years specifically designed to prevent crews from disappearing. Spokesman Alan Etter admits there is still an investigation into why dispatchers didn’t catch the wayward ambulance crews hours earlier, using the automatic vehicle locator (AVL) technology that has been installed on ambulances and fire trucks for many years.
Etter told STATter 911 on Tuesday, “We have some of the best technology in the industry to make sure we know where our resources are at all times.”
More recently, in response to issues identified by a task force looking into the January, 2006 death of former New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum, Chief Rubin staffed two positions at the city’s 911 center, known as the Office of Unified Communications (OUC). One is a fire liaison officer (FLO) and the other is the EMS liaison officer (ELO).
The OUC is a separate agency not under Chief Rubin’s control. The liaison officers, according to spokesman Etter, are the department’s representatives at the dispatch center and monitor the allocation of its resources.
A spokesman for OUC Director Janice Quintana made it clear on Tuesday there would be no comment from the agency about the role of dispatchers in these incidents. No one at OUC would answer questions about whether using the AVL information on the screen in front of the dispatchers would have aided in the discovery, much earlier, of the out of position ambulances.
Similar questions were asked by STATter 911 in April when a fire engine went to the wrong location on an EMS call where a man died. In that case Chief Rubin blamed a mental error by the officer and driver of the fire engine. At the time OUC Director Quintana admitted if the dispatcher had used the AVL screen it “may have made a difference”, but said there is “a lot of apparatus in motion”.
As for the July incidents, Chief Rubin’s statement indicates the case of one of the missing ambulance crews has been “investigated fully”. According to the statement, “the members involved chose to drive their vehicle outside of their primary service area without authorization”.
That incident was on July 11. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the crew from Ambulance 10 spent more than seven-hours in Upper Northwest Washington, about seven-miles from its quarters at 6th St. and Florida Ave., NE. By being far away from its area, the dispatch computer, relying on GPS information from the ambulance, did not send Ambulance 10 on runs near its firehouse. That area generally has a much higher call volume than the Upper Northwest part of DC. Ambulance 10 works in one of the busiest firehouses in the country.
The firefighters from Ambulance 10, and two firefighters from Ambulance 33, remain on administrative leave with pay.
The incident involving Ambulance 33 was on July 24. That case is still being investigated by the department. Sources tell 9NEWS NOW the crew, assigned to a firehouse at 1st St. and Atlantic Ave., SE, was out of service for two-hours and forty-minutes. The unit was discovered on Fessenden St., NW on the opposite end of the city.
Since 1972 Dave Statter has covered the news. A good deal of Dave’s reporting has focused on how fire and emergency medical services are delivered in and around Washington and Baltimore. Along the way, Dave was also a volunteer firefighter, an emergency dispatcher and a cardiac rescue technician.