Firefighter Close Calls

Home of the Secret List

DISPATCHERS STOP ASKING CALLERS ABOUT COVID-19 SYMPTOMS, RAISING CONCERNS FOR FIREFIGHTERS

 Barry Furey    July 30, 2020    No Comments

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Callers to 911 in Houston will no longer be asked if they are experiencing COVID-like symptoms, changing a months-long practice to pass on the information to first responders. Firefighters are now told to treat every call as if the patient or home is COVID-positive.

Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena said the change is an admission of the widespread nature of the virus in the city and out of concern that callers were not always offering true information.

For months, Pena pleaded with the public to give honest answers to protect firefighters, who have sustained large numbers of COVID-forced quarantines.

The change was announced on the same day the Houston Fire Department attended a funeral for Captain Leroy Lucio, Houston’s first firefighter to die from COVID-19.

Capt. Leroy Lucio’s family maintained a vigil outside his hospital room for weeks.

Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association president Marty Lancton told ABC13 he can’t understand why the department would want less information for firefighters instead of more.

“Less information to the men and women on the front lines responding to calls is dangerous to firefighters, paramedics and citizens of Houston,” Lancton said.

Chief Pena explained the change to HFD members in a memo obtained by 13 Investigates. “The prevalence of COVID-19 is high in the Houston area and COVID-19 cannot be ‘ruled out’ in the field nor appropriately screened via OEC. In the best interest of HFD members’ health and well-being, all addresses and patients should be considered as possible COVID-19 positive places and patients. No attempts should be made or opinions formed to consider and treat any patient as ‘non-COVID.'”

The change is the second in recent weeks affecting COVID-19 information in dispatch. Earlier in July, the department stopped logging addresses of COVID-19 positive patients in the city-wide dispatch system. Chief Pena says that was taking too much time to enter thousands of cases in an antiquated system one by one.

https://abc13.com/covid-symptoms-911-callers-houston-firefighters-hfd-union/6341325/

 Fire Communications

Also check the most current issue of THE SECRET
LIST
(Click Here)

Sign Up for Secret List

For Email Newsletters you can trust.

Please Visit
Our Sponsor

GordonGraham.com


YOU NEED THIS BOOK!
(Trust Us)

400+ PAGES.
90+ CONTRIBUTORS!
100% of the royalties from the sales of "PASS IT ON" will be donated to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Chief Ray Downey Scholarship Fund.
CLICK ABOVE TO ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!


 

Pass It On: The Second Alarm

BillyG-book-170



Posters

Click to Print

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Apparatus
    • Crashes
    • Struck By
  • Close Calls
  • Contact Us
  • Drills
  • FIRE & EMS CIVIL DISORDER
  • EMS Close Calls
  • Fire Communications
  • Firefighter Cancer
  • Firefighter History
  • Firefighter Staffing
  • Gallery
  • LODD Calendar
  • Modern Fire Behavior
  • NIOSH Lessons Learned
  • NIOSH LODD Reports
  • Pass It On
  • Personal Survival
  • Safety and Survival
  • Secret List
  • SOG’s
Submit Your
CLOSE CALLS /
NEAR MISS

 

LODD STATS

YearTotals
202063
201957
201885
201793
201689
201586
201494
2013101
201283
201181
201087
200993
2008118
2007118
Tweets by @alertpage

Search Site

In Memory Of

fdnyClick this patch

Contact Info

Email BillyG
info@firefighterclosecalls.com

Email Weekly Drill
Suggestions to

Drills@firefighterclosecalls.com

helmet

ragusa

Click Here for The 9/11 Widows’ and Victims’ Families Association

ssc

Click Here: Skyscraper Safety Campaign


Copyright © 2003-2021

Copyright Disclaimer: This non-commercial, non-profit and free use website is for the exclusive purpose of firefighter safety, health and survival. All photographs in these posts are either submitted or from aggregate Google and are used in the postings for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, criticism, news reporting, research, and scholarship consistent with 17 USC §107 and never due to intentional or malicious misuse of a copyright.