Friday, August 27, 2010  PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU SEEKS COMMENT ON INCREASING PUBLIC SAFETY INTEROPERABILITY BY PROMOTING COMPETITIONFOR PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES

Agencies can weigh in on this topic.

Visit: http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0819/DA-10-1556A1.pdf for more.

Friday, August 27, 2010  Not that this would be characterized as news by many, but a recent FCC report helped to underline the disparate (or is that desperate?) state of 911 funding in the US.

To take a look at the entire contents, surf to: http://pdf.911dispatch.com.s3.amazonaws.com/fcc_911funding_report.pdf

Friday, August 27, 2010  For those interested in learing more about the topic of tactical dispatch,  the Incident Dispatch Resource Center web page is a great place to begin. Their recently updated site can be found at :  http://www.incidentdispatch.net/

Sunday, August 15, 2010  A study undertaken by the American Red Cross indicates that the majority of Americans assume that public safety services are monitoring social networks and e-mail. This assumption will probably only increase in the future as more people are born into a Facebook world.

For a look into their findings visit http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/other/SocialMediaSlideDeck.pdf

Sunday, August 15, 2010  At their recent annual conference in Houston, TX, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International received a preliminary report from their Professional Communications Human Resources Taskforce. Entitled Challenges Facing Human Resources and Staffing in the 9-1-1 Public Safety Communications Center, this 23 page document gives the US bad grades for the current state of affairs. Wonder why you have to wait to get answered? As pointed out therein, 97% of all telecommunicators leave the field prior to retirement, so centers are in constant churn. (This is about the opposite of experience for sworn firefighters and police.) You can read more interesting facts at: http://apco911.org/new/commcenter911/downloads/ProCHRT_Interim_Report.pdf

Friday, July 23, 2010  Fatal Crash Raises Questions Over Emergency Response by Jeff Tang

GREENBRIER, Tenn. - During a life-threatening emergency, most people would want the closest available help to rush to the scene. But one Robertson County mother said that didn't happen when her son was involved in a head-on collision in May. Instead, the two nearest ambulances to the crash stayed parked, while two people lay dying.

The biggest problem in this case was where this accident took place: on Springfield Highway right on the Davidson-Robertson County line.

"It was a head on collision, both drivers died," recalled Lori Gregory through tears.

Gregory's son was one of those drivers who died.

"For whatever reason, there are lots of accidents there," said Greenbrier Mayor Billy Wilson.

Mayor Wilson and his fire department heard the call on the crash. Emergency responders at the Ridgetop Fire Hall heard it too. The accident was just three miles away from them.

"We had an ambulance ready to go and knew about the call," said Ridgetop Mayor Darrell Denton.

But neither department responded to the crash because they said they weren't allowed to. Since the accident technically happened in Davidson County, it was Nashville Fire Department's case. They sent the nearest ambulances from their side.

"It is a long response but we looked at the response times and they're within the acceptable standard: 10, 11 minutes. We'd like to be better," said Deputy Chief Steve Meador with Nashville Fire Department.

The ambulance in Ridgetop could have been there in two minutes, but it could only be sent out if Davidson County had asked for help. Lori Gregory wants to know why that call never happened.

"I don't know if it would have saved him or not, but anybody knows the sooner you get to a person the more chances they have of survival," said Gregory.

Nashville Fire officials pointed out that it is impossible to know how bad a crash is until they get there. They didn't ask for help, because they didn't know they needed it.

"We're here to save lives. It's not a turf thing, it's not a jurisdiction thing, it's getting on the scene and making assessment then asking for more help," said Meador.

On May 30th, Lori Gregory's 18-year-old son JR died, and so did the 21-year-old woman whose car he collided with. Nothing will change that. But Lori hopes she can change the way crashes here are handled.

"I'll never see him graduate college, never see him going to married, have kids. I'm not going to grow old for him to help me. I'm angry, I'm very angry," said Gregory.

A mutual aid agreement is in place that allows Robertson and Davidson Counties help one another, but only at the other's request.

Lori Gregory hopes the counties adopt an automatic mutual aid agreement, which allows emergency responders to help without seeking permission first.

Ridgetop and Greenbrier's mayors said they are all for it. And Metro fire officials said they're looking into it as an option.

Nashville Fire officials said an ambulance stationed in Goodlettsville would have been the first to respond to the crash, but it was out on a different emergency call at the time.

Monday, July 19, 2010  EMT Murdered In Manhattan Updated: Sunday, 18 Jul 2010, 6:31 PM EDT
Published : Sunday, 18 Jul 2010, 4:20 PM EDT

BY LUKE FUNK

MYFOXNY.COM - A off-duty Emergency Medical Dispatcher who had been the subject of a criminal investigation was shot and killed early Sunday morning.

Jason Green, 32, was shot in the face at the corner of Hudson Street and Van Dam Street in the West Village at about 5 a.m.

EMS took Green to Beekman Hospital but it was too late. There have been no arrests.

Green was suspended for 30 days in December 2009 after allegedly refusing to interrupt a coffee break to aid a pregnant woman who was suffering a heart attack in Downtown Brooklyn.

Green and a follow dispatcher were eating at the Au Bon Pain in Metrotech Center near the FDNY headquarters when an employee asked them to call 911 for help .

His partner called a fellow dispatcher to report the incident, but witnesses said the pair did not try to help Eutisha Revee Rennix.

The 25-year-old, who was six months pregnant, died hours later. Her unborn baby also died.

At the time, a livid Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the medics' alleged actions "unconscionable. " Barely containing his anger, he told reporters that "It was unconscionable, [an] outrage, pick some adjectives and stick it in."

Green had just left Greenhouse Bar after being refused entry when he was shot.  The Greenhouse issued a statement saying the shooting did not involved patrons of the bar.

Saturday, July 17, 2010  The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District now offers residents a real-time view into their Computer Aided Dispatch system by means of an I-phone AP. Citizens can check on the stauts of calls in the area on demand. Follow this link for more information:

 http://www.firedepartment.org/live_dispatch/iphone.asp

Saturday, July 17, 2010   Hinds County officials are working to find out what caused the police radio communication system to crash Wednesday. 
    County emergency management leaders held a two hour closed door meeting Friday with representatives from Jackson and Clinton police departments as well as the sheriff’s department.
    During the outage, dispatchers in Jackson and Clinton had to find alternative ways to communicate with officers, firefighters and paramedics.
    While police dispatchers could hear patrol officers on the streets, radios in the officers’ squad cars were out of commission for almost half an hour.     
    Officials tell us they were forced to use cell phones to communicate until the system came back on line.
    Jackson police tell us they have put a back up plan in place in case the system crashes in the future.
    Meantime, an attorney for the board of supervisors tells us the county has filed suit against Motorola for failing to complete an upgrade of the system’s software.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010  MORRISTOWN, Tenn. (WVLT) -- A Morristown man burned earlier this week in a house fire has died from his injuries. Donnie Stepp, 56, died at Vanderbilt Burn Center this morning.

For the first time, rescuers are releasing the tape where he made his final call for help.


It's difficult to hear the struggle Donnie Stepp faced, knowing he couldn't get out in time.

Stepp lived alone in this rented Spout Springs Road home. He awoke in the middle of the night Tuesday to find that home consumed with flames.

He called 9-1-1. Dispatcher said, "Morristown Hamblen County 9-1-1. What's your emergency?" Donnie Stepp said, "Yeah, my house is, I just woke up. My house is on fire and I can't hardly breathe."

Smoke billowed in from the living room. "I can't get out the door," said Stepp. Dispatcher said, "I've got them on the way. What room are you in?" Donnie Stepp said, "I'm in the bedroom, and I can't get out. The smoke is killing me."

When rescuers arrived and pulled Stepp from the home, he was unresponsive. He was taken by Lifestar to UT Medical Center, and then transferred to Vanderbilt. He died Thursday from his injuries.

"He couldn't get through. He tried to break the window out, and he couldn't get out the window," said Roy Young. Young lives nearby, and heard the sirens from his porch.

"Bunch of sirens, and I guess 8 or 10 firetrucks," he said. "I could see the smoke. Quite a bit of smoke."

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, while the Morristown community remembers a good man.

"He lived there by himself, but his kids come around a lot I think it was," said Young. "I've seen him down there mowing the yard and stuff. But I never did get acquainted with him. He's a good neighbor and everything. Didn't bother nothing, nothing like that."

His landlord, Terry, told Volunteer TV he'd known Stepp for years, but Stepp had only lived in the home for three months. Neighbors say they can't believe the fire claimed his life.

"It's the first time anything like this ever happened in this neighborhood," said Young. "It was sad, I hate it."

Tuesday, July 13, 2010  911 operators stage sickout to protest furloughs and pay cuts, causing LAPD personnel to cover shifts Nearly three dozen emergency 911 operators staged a wildcat sickout Thursday at two Los Angeles call centers, prompting the LAPD to have administrators and other personnel work their shifts.

The sickout to protest furloughs and pay cuts was confined to operators who field emergency calls for the LAPD, officials said. The fire department has its own operators.

LAPD Asst. Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur said that department officials became aware of a possible work action late Wednesday and prepared plans to cover shifts. She said the sickout's effect was minimal, even though nearly a third of the operators were out on the day shift.

"Our administrative and training staff were able to cover those who had called in sick," MacArthur said. "We were up to full speed by p.m. watch."

On a typical weeknight, there are 45 operators working at the Metropolitan call center downtown and 40 at the West Hills station, officials said.

MacArthur said that although the department is sympathetic to the issues facing civilian employees, the primary responsibility of the LAPD is public safety.

"We have contingency plans in place to ensure the citizens of Los Angeles are safe," said MacArthur, who acknowledged that "there could be an impact on the speed in handling non-emergency calls" if the sickouts were to continue.

Police union President Paul M. Weber said he received two messages about the action via Twitter from the address "LA City Workers." The first read: "Mr. Weber, I would like to discuss our planned job action with you so that you may inform the department to ensure public safety."

A second read: "I anticipate a tac alert due to personnel shortages so your membership may get a few hours of overtime :)."

Weber said he forwarded both messages to the department to ensure it would be prepared to deal with the fallout from a possible work action. The sickout affected about half of the personnel at the two 911 centers during day watch, which is approximately from 6 a.m. to late afternoon.


The work action forced the police department to have some administrators and others to fill the shifts. 

Weber said he was concerned that the sickouts could continue and spread to the jails. "We are worried that this is going spread beyond the 911 operators," Weber said.

"This is really a reaction to the City Council implementing furloughs and layoffs," he said. "We are concerned that the department is going to have to take officers out of the field to backfill these critical functions."

In April, Weber warned that cuts to civilian jobs would negatively affect patrol officers on the streets.

"For every 100 officers who are pulled from the field work to backfill vacant civilian positions, it is the equivalent of removing about 30 police cars citywide," he said.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010  Ambulance radios in London do not work in the rain Published 13 July 2010

Ambulances in London have a problem: ambulance crews often working without radios especially in heavy rain when their radios seem to have reception problems; ambulance panic buttons either did not work, or did not elicit any response when set off by staff; Airwave, the Airwave system is getting a £39 million upgrade in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

 A Health and Safety report into the London Ambulance Service (LAS) has raised concerns about its radio communications network and vehicle panic buttons. A spokesman for LAS, however, said all the problems had been fixed since the report came out.
John Oates writes that the investigation in March found ambulance crews often working without radios — especially in heavy rain when Airwave seems to have reception problems.

Inspectors spoke to crews who also complained that ambulance panic buttons either did not work, or did not elicit any response when set off by staff, the Beeb reports.

A spokesman for London Ambulance Service denied there were any problems. He said:

We have fully investigated the points raised about our Airwave radio systems in this report and followed the recommendations made.

The report of the panic button not working on a handset is an isolated incident, and an investigation has been carried out, including an independent investigation by a consultant.

Our staff are not expected to go out on ambulance calls without Airwave radios and our technical team carries out regular checks to ensure that all vehicles are equipped with the appropriate number of radios.

We have found no evidence of problems with Airwave radios during heavy rain. The safety of our staff is of the highest importance to us and we are committed to giving our technical teams all the support they need to ensure that staff and vehicles have robust systems in place to ensure they have fully functional radio communications.

Oates notes that Airwave, based on Tetra technology, is getting a £39 million upgrade in time for the 2012 London Olympics. The system doesn’t work very well in buildings so extra kit is being installed in various venues where Airwave usage is likely to be high.

Sunday, July 11, 2010  New Orleans budget in the red, 911 staff included in NOPD layoffs By BIGAD SHABAN | WWL-TV Eyewitness News | July 6, 2010
NEW ORLEANS – At the center of Valerie Wimberly’s world is her 10-year-old son Terrence, Jr.  They both call New Orleans East home, although nearby Methodist Hospital no longer does. Emergency response times are a concern here, especially now. At the city’s 911 call center 23 operators have been laid off.

“To have my service delayed for some reason because we don’t have a call person to take a call, that’s devastating,” Wimberly said.

At the New Orleans Police Department 27 other employees have also been let go, including 12 recruits, who up until Tuesday were still training in the police academy.

The total of 50 NOPD employees are the latest casualties of a growing an estimated $67 million budget deficit.

“Obviously, people were spending more than what they had been given authority to spend,” said City Council president Arnie Fielkow.

Fielkow, also chair of the council’s budget committee, said the overspending has often been through employee overtime.  According to the city, the biggest overspender has been the NOPD, consuming $11 million more than they were supposed to during the first five months of 2010.

“The overtime issue is one that in the past has been used in the summer time primarily,” said Fielkow.  “We aren’t doing that this summer, so how we got from January to May with an $11 million overage in overtime, to me, reflects really poor management at the time.”

The finger is clearly being pointed at former Police Chief Warren Riley and former Mayor Ray Nagin, who both left office on May 3.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu, during his State of the City speech on Thursday, is expected to announce more details on how he hopes to bring the city out of the red.  In the past, the administration has said nothing will be off the table, including furloughs and layoffs.

When asked about this latest round of layoffs, a spokesperson for Landrieu referred Eyewitness News to current NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas, saying he could best answer our questions.  But after arriving at police headquarters, we were told Serpas wouldn’t be taking any.  Two hours later, the NOPD released a statement, calling the layoffs “a necessary step.”  Bob Young, NOPD spokesman, went on to write that ”staffing and scheduling will be adjusted to minimize the effects of the dismissals.”

Bryan Lagarde, who heads the non-profit group Project NOLA, which tracks calls to the city’s 911 dispatch center, isn’t as optimistic.

“They’re probably, at times, are going to be greater back logs for calls waiting for service,” he said.

The former NOPD cop also fears less call takers will push operators to hang up sooner in order to tackle the next emergency.

“If they can’t spend enough time with each caller, not enough information might be covered,” said Lagarde.  “Then, obviously the less information the police officer is going to work with.”

That doesn’t sit well for Wimberly.  Just this past weekend, she lost a family member in Mississippi because the ambulance didn’t arrive fast enough. A sadness she never wants to feel again.

“That’s not a reason for someone to lose their life,” she said.

Thursday, July 8, 2010  International Association of Fire Fighters
By Michael Duck, OF THE MORNING CALL

A message from Don Konkle PFESI Executive Director

10:15 p.m. EDT, July 6, 2010


Aiming to keep Easton firefighters safe and head off a struggle that was heating up between them and Northampton County emergency dispatchers, county officials agreed Tuesday to step up training and outreach efforts with the firefighters.

Easton's chapter of the International Association of Fire Fighters, led by union president Terrance Hand, has complained for months about some of the county 911 center's radio procedures. Though Easton Fire Chief John Bast said those procedures aren't causing safety problems, Hand and other firefighters said they were putting lives in jeopardy.

"There needs to be more discipline. There needs to be training — there needs to be training for all of us to work together," Hand said Tuesday at a meeting between firefighters and county and city officials.

During the meeting, which was arranged by Easton Councilman Jeff Warren, county Director of Administration John Conklin said he's happy to discuss any problems with city firefighters and their officers.

"If they have perceived safety concerns, we at least need to sit down and talk about them," Conklin added afterward.

Conklin said the 911 center won't overhaul its procedures just on Easton firefighters' say-so, pointing out that their perspective might overlook key things at the county level. On the other hand, he said, the city firefighters may be able to point out problems county officials don't see.

In addition to Easton's professional fire department, the county dispatches nearly 40 volunteer fire companies.

One of the city firefighters' complaints is that dispatchers use the term "structure fire" — which draws an urgent, full-scale response — while summoning firefighters to incidents that don't end up involving structures on fire. One such call was a report of an alarming odor in a building, which turned out to be caused not by a fire but by a dead animal, Hand said.

Hand and other firefighters said there are also problems with Easton fire officers being forced to monitor operations at two different locations on two different county radio frequencies, which can put firefighters in danger by leaving them out of touch with their commanding officer.

All sides agreed better training about the county's radio procedures would help with many of the problems, and Conklin agreed to set up a training workshop later this month