dispatch firegeezer on 04 Jul 2008 01:47 pm
Tuscaloosa Dispatch Update
TUSCALOOSA COUNTY, ALABAMA, OFFICIALS ARE PROMISING TO MAKE CHANGES to the way that emergency medical calls are dispatched in the county.
This past Saturday Firegeezer reported HERE on the sad incident where a teen-age boy had seizures and subsequently died when some EMT’s who were less than a mile away were never notified. The current 911 system calls for the dispatch to be routed through as many as four different agencies, one of them in another state, before the nearest unit is dispatched.
On the incident in question the fourth leg of the dispatching circuit went to the wrong agency. The Tuscaloosa News reports:
(Carrolls Creek VFD Chief Tom Clarke) says that he’s filed five reports in the last few months with the Tuscaloosa County 911 district about not being notified when calls have originated from their service area.
Clarke has filed complaints with the 911 board for years about delayed responses to fires and medical emergencies because volunteers aren’t notified quickly enough. In 2006, he told The Tuscaloosa News that ‘we’ve been dealing with this for years. Somewhere down the line, we’re going to lose a life.’
Rod Coleman, the 911 coordinator for Tuscaloosa County said that he has received 11 complaints this year from volunteer departments. Most of them stemmed from similar situations when volunteer departments were not notified when calls came in.
Now that the predicted life loss has occurred, the politicians are belatedly starting to find a way to correct the problem. County Commissioner Don Wallace and City Mayor Walt Maddox have both initiated actions to seek a solution.
Read the full story in the News HERE.
Hat tip: G. W.
