By Mark Schultz
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
HILLSBOROUGH, NC — The Orange County Rescue Squad got a reprieve Tuesday night, when the county commissioners decided the volunteer force had not been given enough opportunity to address safety concerns.
The squad, one of two private rescue squads in the county, will remain on “stand-down,” prohibiting its members from responding to emergency calls. But the county’s Emergency Services Department will work with the squad over the next few months to see whether it can be reinstated to the county’s dispatch system.
“There is a perception in this county that Orange Rescue is a necessary unit,” Commissioner Valerie Foushee said.
“For us to continue to talk about who did what ... doesn’t matter at this point,” she said. “We could talk the next year about who’s right and who’s wrong, and [meanwhile] nobody’s getting any training.”
The commissioners asked Emergency Services Director Frank Montes de Oca to come back at next Tuesday’s commissioners meeting with a timetable for determining whether the squad can be reinstated and what role it might play in the county’s provision of emergency services.
It was the first good news for the squad, which has been side-lined since de Oca suspended it June 27, citing a long list of concerns. They included: equipment falling out of a vehicle onto Churton Street in Hillsborough; an incident where squad members sawing a man free from a vehicle allegedly sent sparks into a pool of gasoline; and a drowning call where the squad failed to bring a boat or the right equipment.
Most of the county’s fire chiefs supported de Oca, with seven of 12 signing a statement that the squad was no longer necessary because their departments now provide equal or better service.
But the commissioners said they didn’t want to get into a debate over the allegations. Instead, they focused on what squad Chief Brian Matthews has said all along: that he wasn’t given a chance to respond to the accusations before his unit was suspended.
Matthews repeated that Tuesday night and also questioned the legitimacy of the stand-down order. He cited a state law that says the commissioners are the only ones who may remove a squad from the emergency dispatch system. The county attorney will also research that question in time for next week’s meeting.
“We’ve already gone two months,” Matthews said. “I would like the commissioners to address if it was a valid order for us to stand down. If it was in contradiction of county ordinances and state law, it was not a valid order.”
Matthews also said he had made repeated requests to see any documentation supporting the allegations against his squad. “As of this date, I have received zero, none,” he said.
Commissioner Mike Nelson said the squad had not been treated fairly.
“I have some concerns about diving into a suspension without giving people express written warning, laying out what the problems are,” he said. “These are young guys who really care about the community.”
Copyright 2008 The News and Observer