New FDNY Dispatch System Causing Chaos, Havoc

CBS 2 HD Has Learned Barely Trained Dispatchers Are

Getting Vital Information Wrong, Putting Lives In Danger

WCBS-TV 5/19/09

New York City's new fire dispatch system is under fire.

Firefighters say lives and are in danger because of serious miscommunication.

Engine 234 in Crown Heights should have arrived within seconds when fire recently broke out at a building down the block, but the call was five long minutes late in coming. The question is why?

Barely trained dispatchers in the city's new unified call taking system got the address wrong. They sent equipment to 149 St. John's Place instead of 1249 St. John's Place. They were only off by nearly two and a half miles.

Firefighters are complaining that there have been lots of mistakes like that since the city's new dispatch system went on-line on May 4. Fire engines have been sent to wrong addresses and given wrong information, putting lives in danger.

"We have dispatchers for the 9-1-1 system who are taking these calls and not ascertaining the full accurate information that fire units who are responding need," said Jack McDonnell, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

Under the new dispatch system 9-1-1 operators -- not fire dispatchers -- take information from callers.

"They, meaning City Hall, in an effort to get this system up and running gave them a total of six hours of training," McDonnell said.

"We train our call-takers just for the call-taking aspects 90 days," said Dave Rosenzweig of the Fire Dispatchers Union. "Ninety days just for call-taking not for the dispatching. The radio operating program is a year."

Among the mishaps ... on May 10 firefighters thought they were responding to a car accident in the Bronx with two trapped. It was really a robbery in which a gunman killed a livery cab driver. When the fire lieutenant got to the car, "The passenger who was in a rear seat pulled a gun and stuck it in his face," McDonnell said.

On May 11 a leaky ceiling in the Bronx was reported as a "roof cave in." The result? Instead of sending a single engine, three engines, two ladder companies, two chiefs, a rescue unit, a collapse unit, two ambulances, an emergency service unit and a police helicopter responded.

A spokesman for the city said "the new unified call taking system will save lives by cutting out unnecessary middlemen and reducing the time it takes to get firefighters to emergencies.

"The system is new and we'll continue to refine it and make improvements. If these incidents reveal issues, we will resolve them."