A nurse from a Tucson (Ariz.) urgent care facility left off a single digit from her address when reporting a child wasn’t breathing, and a calltaker failed to notice there error, sending fire and EMS units to the wrong location. The nurse gave the address as “833,” when it was actually “8333.” A second and third 911 call with the correct address didn’t lead to a correction, and so emergency units didn’t arrive until more than 10 minutes after the original call. Tucson city officials are providing few details, but do say, “The dispatcher involved was terminated for failure to follow procedures.” It’s not clear if the error is somehow related to a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) upgrade that was made six days before the incident. However, news accounts say there have been dropped calls and missing ANI/ALI information from 911 calls with the new software. Read more about the incident here.
4 comments… add one
By all means, fire the dispatcher. Sheesh. Kind of a knee-jerk reaction. S/he will get their job back after union appeal. Typical management scapegoating.
There has to be more to it. I can’t believe that would be the only reason that dispatcher would get fired. Especially if there were other calls on the same call. And why didn’t they put it in as a common place? There has to be more to it. Or, John, you’re right and the admin scapegoated. Which is horrible.
There has to be more to it. I can’t believe that would be the only reason that dispatcher would get fired. Especially if there were other calls on the same call. And why didn’t they put it in as a common place? There has to be more to it.
Sometimes reading Dispatch Magazine and seeing all the dispatchers that are fired or forced to take time off etc, just frustrates me. It’s feels like we are not allowed to be human. We must always perform above and beyond, always without fallibility. Sometimes, it is sad to see such harshness handed down. It is a hard profession to be in because people are so quick to see what we did wrong yet all the good we do is just swept under the rug and considered how it should always be, not that that isn’t our hope as well.
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