A memo from Brentwood Fire Chief Ted Jury to Police Chief Steve Disbennett regarding what he saw as dispatching errors during the April 13, 2012 fire at the Sports Attic ran in 40 South News on Wednesday.
On Friday 40 South News received a response to that memo from the general manager of the East Central Dispatch Center, Mark Dougherty, in which he says the Brentwood dispatcher that morning did not follow protocol, and was overwhelmed.
The following is Dougherty’s response:
There has been some misinformation distributed in regards to a fire at the Sports Attic Restaurant located in Brentwood, Missouri on April 13, 2012. Specifically, ECDC’s role in sending support fire/ems units from our contract cities to this fire.
The Brentwood call at the Sports Attic was originally broadcast over the fire mutual aid radio channel as a Commercial Fire Alarm. The Brentwood dispatcher broadcast a request for ECDC to send Maplewood fire unit 3114 to respond if available. ECDC did not acknowledge receipt of the request. The Brentwood dispatcher did not contact ECDC over the mutual aid fire channel or by telephone to confirm the request.
[Fire Mutual Aid Protocol requires a Dispatch Agency (PSAP) requesting assistance to verify acknowledgement of a request.]
This failure to ensure that the request was received resulted in the delay of the Maplewood Fire unit from immediately responding to the fire. On two other occasions during the Sports Attic fire, the Brentwood dispatcher repeated the same mistake. A mutual aid call for additional fire units from both Central County Fire and North Central Fire were made over the fire mutual aid channel and not acknowledge by these Fire/EMS Dispatch Centers. Neither Center sent their fire equipment. In the case of Central County Fire, it is our understanding that the Brentwood radio antennae was the cause of broadcast malfunction. However, the Brentwood dispatcher should have called those Centers on the telephone, if no response was heard on the radio (Mutual Aid Channel.)
During the course of the escalating fire, the Brentwood dispatcher accepted ECDC’s assistance in contacting the utility companies (Laclede Gas, and Ameren UE.) During this time, the Brentwood Dispatcher requested on fire mutual aid an additional fire unit 3212 from ECDC. ECDC did not respond to the radio request. The Brentwood dispatcher did not call back ECDC to verify we had received the request until 4:17AM. ECDC subsequently dispatched the requested unit at 4:20 a.m..
The primary cause of the dispatch errors that occurred at the Brentwood fire at the Sports Attic was an understaffed dispatch facility that was unable to multitask the many radio, telephone and software requirements of a major fire. The Brentwood dispatcher was overwhelmed. This problem is not unique to Brentwood. Other dispatch facilities that staff their centers with only one or two dispatchers encounter the same issues. It is fortunate that during the Sports Attic fire, that a second major fire, ems or police emergency call was not received. There is a good probability that the second major call may have ended poorly.
Sincerely,
Mark Dougherty
General Manager
East Central Dispatch Center
Shame on you Mr. Dougherty for your comment:
“The primary cause of the dispatch errors that occurred at the Brentwood fire at the Sports Attic was an understaffed dispatch facility that was unable to multitask the many radio, telephone and software requirements of a major fire. The Brentwood dispatcher was overwhelmed. This problem is not unique to Brentwood. Other dispatch facilities that staff their centers with only one or two dispatchers encounter the same issues. It is fortunate that during the Sports Attic fire, that a second major fire, ems or police emergency call was not received. There is a good probability that the second major call may have ended poorly.”
This is a blatant attempt to disparage Brentwood’s dispatch center to further your personal agenda. Shame on you! As you well know, ECDC has had a history of not monitoring radio frequencies due to your dispatchers being over worked and unstaffed.
Hopefully there will be a comment made by a Brentwood Resident at the next Board of Alderperson meeting who witnessed an accident on Thursday, February 13, 2014 and called 911 and has first hand experience with ECDC.
OK, I’ll bite, what happened Thursday? Put it out there, everyone should have all the information before such a big decision is made!
I don’t know why we are even discussing this anymore, BRENTWOOD NEEDS TO KEEP THE DISPATCHERS! The Mayor himself said it was not about money so what is there to even discuss? The police officers have spoken, the residents are speaking. I’m willing to bet the Mayor wouldn’t be too pleased if his house was on fire and the fire department was sent to the wrong address 5 miles away in a different city. The fire chief may be for this change but he himself said in that memo that ECDC was at fault by not dispatching Maplewood (that’s an error we know about, how many other times has this happened that we aren’t aware of?). And now we have this ECDC guy, Mark, back peddling and taking NO responsibility for his dispatchers missing the Sports Attic call and blaming Brentwood antennae, which I find strange–do you mean to tell me the antennae was fine for calls before and after the Sports Attic fire and just happened to have a problem during this one and only call? Wake up!
Why does this decision have to be made right now? Why not wait until a new police chief is appointed and let him weigh in on this decision? After all, the dispatchers handle a large volume of police related calls then they do fire department calls (did I read that only 9% of the calls are for the fire department?) Why not get the new equipment and get the dispatchers fire certified? It’s my understanding that they were once fire certified but it was the fire department that decided it wasn’t needed because they can respond so quickly.
Brentwood Board of Alderman, please do NOT vote to out-source the dispatchers! This is not a good choice for our community. What will be next, getting rid of our police officers and having County patrol for us?
I agree with you. You should not get rid of the dispatchers . It’s poor decision makng and it give Brentwood no redundancy in case of a disaster or failure. The Brentwood dispatcher should be transferred or fired for inability to use a radio properly as proven by the recorded 911 tapes. In reguard to sending units to the wrong address. That is nothing more then the citizens fault. They had a chance to pass a tax increase to implement technology at all dispatch centers state wide but they voted it down. No one wants to hear you cry for the decisions you make.
edit of remark, line 3 of previous post should read “should read line 3: ” once our (brentwood) dispatchers notified ECDC dispatcher”. sorry for the edit prob.
So ECDC’s Mark Dougherty reduces this to finger pointing? Pathetic…KEEP OUR DISPATCHERS LOCAL. and accountability more transparent. re Attic fire, it should have been up to ECDC to FOLLOW UP with Brentwood once the dispatchers notified our dispatchers– How many times does a physician need to be called to a cardiac event before (s)he responds? ECDC is dodging their responsibility and that is what we can expect from them.
As i read Mr. Completely’s response to another citizen below, it is the requesting (Brentwood) dispatcher who is responsible for follow up – in this case to verify rhe request was received.
If the request/ call is not ‘received’ no one is coming whether it is a cardiac event or any other emergency.
The main story is the Brentwood Dispatchers have been cast as villains and all they want is the truth to come out. Nobody is perfect and people make mistakes, including ECDC Dispatch, Brentwood Dispatch and Police and Fire Personnel. People are being lied to plain and simple. Ted Jury tried to claim that the Dispatchers of Brentwood needed training yet they were only offered one training class. Then he claimed that ECDC was already trained in certain areas but as the memo discloses they are not infallible. What you have is Brentwood Dispatchers trying to save their jobs while a know-it-all rips them to shreds at every opportunity. What are they supposed to do? Sit back while Ted Jury makes up stories so he can get his wish? The Brentwood Dispatchers are as good as any in the area. ECDC has good dispatchers also. The memo speaks for itself, you don’t have to embelish anything. Jury blames both but says the most serious errors were done by ECDC. The Brentwood Dispatchers didn’t say that HE DID. So you have two dispatch centers ripping each other, a city arguing amoung themselves while a Fire Chief who tests fire hoses in the FIRE STATION and causes thousands of dollars in damage, rides off into the sunset. WHO’S TO BLAME?
The Sports Attic was a dump. The owner posted it for sale on CraigsList (marketing genius) for just under $1MM. The fire was a blessing for him. It was raining that night, if everyone had stayed home the fire would have burned itself out and Brentwood would have saved itself the exposure of sending firefighters into harms way.
The dispatch team ay FD did the job that they were trained to do with the equipment and policy’s that were provided by Brentwood. If there were issues with job performance or policy while answering the alarm at Sports Attic neither are the responsibility of the Mayor, board of aldermen or voters, it falls on the department.
Common sense would dictate that the experts in the area of emergency Dispatch are those who work in the Brentwood police and fire service. Their respective chiefs and management team alone should make any decisions regarding what Dispatch system would best serve their current personnel and department goals.
Part of the problem with Brentwood is the ongoing meddling into every area of the city by elected officials who do not have any idea of what the hell they are doing. Constantly churning up non-problems always some new pressing issue to tackle. The mayor sets himself up as an expert on everything. The city manager follows the leader and the next thing you know we have a handful of elected aldermen deciding who gets what TIF, what house needs to be sacrificed in the name of development, what new shiny building needs to be built and finally who will be the point people when you dial 911. Brentwood needs to go to sleep for about 6 years, elect some new people, slow down.
If you guys can’t settle this dispatch non-controversy why not just sneak into Seemayers closet, grab those cell phones, hand them out to the police and fire and they can dispatch themselves.
Problem solved, happy Valentines Day!
Hmnn, first anyone’s said anything regarding their antenna. Protocol (sep confirmation) seems redundant, but apparantly Brentwood’s guy didn’t follow it, and it would have made the difference. These other depts that say they have this esdc, do we know what they have to say about it? Should be able to get a list of any complaints they have.
This is a desperate attempt at damage control by blaming Brentwood for the issues that chief Jury mentioned in his memo. With the recent news of Central County -another one of these consolidated dispatch centers- sending the fire dept to the wrong address and the article that was referenced about Ballwin being named the 9th safest city in the country. I looked up the article and Ballwin’s sergeant Heldmann was quoted as saying,
“With our own dispatchers our officers are able to get more personalized service. We’re able to get more information on route to calls or at a call. I think that makes us more efficient.”
What I hear Mr. Dougherty saying is Maplewood’s delayed response was because Brentwood didn’t acknowledge or confirm the request. Shouldn’t it be an automatic response when mutual aid is requested that Maplewood would be dispatched to the scene? I just hear excuses and blame shifting.
What I got out of that is that the Brentwood dispatcher tried to dispatch appropriately and that “ECDC did not acknowledge receipt of the request.” As a citizen I’m not concerned that he was “required to verify” the request was received. A fire was going on and ECDC did not respond. Is that what the people of Brentwood deserve, a dispatch service that claims it’s superiority but doesn’t respond to requests during an emergency? If my husband has a grand mal seizure or my son has a major asthma attack I don’t want to rely on a service that doesn’t respond.
Geez…….the point that ECDC did not acknowledge receipt indicates just that…..they didn’t receive the request…that’s why the requesting dept. is supposed to verify that the request was received. They didn’t, they were wrong.
If you leave someone a voice mail, send them a letter, maybe a text message and they don’t answer is that it? You just assume they received it and they don’t want to respond? Maybe they died? You never talk to them again? Could be a blessing, huh?
You need backup, you make a request over the air then you verify that the request has been received and acted upon. Redundant procedures are in place because these people are dealing with life and death.
Mr. Dougherty, I respect the fact that your job is to sell this service. I’m just trying to let the Brentwood residents know that not all that glitters is gold. I have worked in the EMS field, this is not right for Brentwood.
Just last week central county dispatch (I believe), another multi-jurisdictional dispatch center sent a crew to the wrong address because they were confused due to repetitive street names in different municipalities. That doesn’t happen if your dispatchers only cover one city. Ballwin was just named the. 9th safest city in America. In an RFT article a couple days ago, the police chief gave a lot of the credit to the fact that they run their own dispatch center instead of being a part of a multi-jurisdictional dispatch system.
We want our dispatching to stay in house. I don’t personally know any of the Brentwood dispatchers, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m only looking out for the safety of the residents, as well as my own.
That is not misinformation. That was stated in the memo. Nobody has said that the Brentwood dispatcher didn’t make mistakes. Only that ECDC also made mistakes by not responding to the requests and by also not knowing the numbering system for fire equipment. A “fire certified” dispatcher should not have made these mistakes.