By Charlie Lardner
The York Dispatch
YORK COUNTY, Pa. — A delay in dispatching fire trucks to a blaze that destroyed three row houses last month was a result of miscommunication between a county 911 dispatcher and the woman reporting the fire.
Gloria Diaz called York County 911 Center shortly before 8:41 a.m. on April 26 and said she needed “fire/rescue” at 622 Wallace St. in York City.
But the dispatcher thought she had said 622 Water St., which is in Wrightsville.
When Diaz said she lived in York, Pa., the dispatcher, who was a trainee, asked if she lived in York City or York Township, and Diaz replied only “York.”
After further questions, including whether she lived in Wrightsville, to which Diaz responded only “yes” and pleaded for fire trucks, the dispatcher believed the fire was at 622 Water St., Wrightsville, and dispatched a police officer and fire trucks to that address just before 8:47 a.m.
Shortly afterward, neighbors reporting a fire in the city and a box alarm triggered on a nearby street corner led to the realization a mistake had been made, and city firefighters were dispatched to the 600 block of Wallace Street at 8:49 a.m.
The city’s first truck arrived on the scene in two minutes and seven seconds, within the three-minute-or-less response time the city prides itself on. But city fire Chief Steven Buffington said the nearly eight-minute delay in being dispatched was critical.
“In a row house fire, six minutes is an eternity,” Buffington said. “There is no doubt in my mind that if we had gotten the call in a timely manner, (the fire) would not have resulted in the damage it did. When that woman called, the fire was in her kitchen, and by the end of a six-minute call it had spread through the house.”
It took two minutes for the dispatcher to determine there was a fire in the house and tell Diaz to get everyone out of the building, and at points during the call you can hear the fire crackling over Diaz’s cell phone, Buffington said.
“Oh, flames! Can you hurry up?” Diaz said.
“Ma’am, I need to verify your address, just stay on the line,” the dispatcher replied.
Carl Lindquist, York County spokesman, said the conflicting information Diaz created by answering “yes” to all of the dispatcher’s questions helped create the faulty address. He also noted that Diaz’s cell phone was so old that GPS technology that might have determined her location would not work. Diaz did not have a land line.
“In terms of what occurred, it was really a two-fold situation,” Lindquist said. “One was the dispatcher’s inability to understand what the caller had said. And the second was the fact that the caller was using an old phone. We’re not putting blame on the caller. This was founded in a miscommunication by a caller who was under a high-level of duress, and the resulting misinformation caused the dispatcher to send equipment to the wrong address.”
The county came forward first and notified the city of the dispatching error, which is something that has not readily happened in the past, Buffington said. He also said that even if the fire had been in Wrightsville, it took too long.
“It is a step in the right direction, but I have to wonder where the supervision of the trainee was during all this,” Buffington said. “When a call is taking that long and you are getting conflicting information that is clearly incorrect, someone should have stepped in.”
Lindquist said he could not speak to whether any individual had been disciplined over the incident.
“I can’t comment on disciplinary action taken against any individual, but York County control has taken corrective action in response to the situation,” Lindquist said.
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