Baltimore, "Actions Of Dispatcher May Have Kept Balt City Firefighter, being found sooner

[BFD389RET 112]

There's an old addage... "Never assume, because when you do, you make an Ass out of you and me..... apparently a Dispatcher Might be taking a hit In Baltimore, a safety officer was located in a vacant dwelling next to the fire building....hours later.........

http://www.goheroes.us/last-alarm/actions-of-dispatcher-may-have-kept-fallen-baltimore-city-firefighter-from-being-found-sooner

[AFS1970 504]

Working the midnight shift in dispatch, I can tell you how easy this is to happen. There is clearly a need for some sort of SOP/SOG that requires communications with all field units, especially single man units like safety officers and fire marshals. In this day and age when we have cell phones in addition to radios and many vehicles are equipped with GPS tracking it should be fairly easy to check on someone. If I call someone on the radio and they do not answer, then call them on the phone. I would rather wake someone up over and over again than miss a injured or dead MOS. That being said, some of these units have traditionally not bothered to clear verbally when leaving a scene and that has to stop also.

I would suggest that a few things be put into place.

1) all units must report when they are clear from a scene wither by voice (recorded radio or phone) or by data (MDT/computer).

2) all single man units must be checked for status every 20 minutes, just like a MARC time for IDLH operations. However incidental communications can count for this and reset the clock.

3) If a unit fails to check in or contact can not be made at appropriate interval, attempt to contact by other means. If you can't get them by radio try the phone. Send a message to the MDT, try any and every method you have.

4) If all contact methods fail, then a unit from some agency needs to go to the last know location to make face to face contact. This could be sending a police car to check on a fire marshal or if necessary send a suppression unit back to the scene.

Eventually like with all regulations updating status will become commonplace and the alternate communications methods will be needed less and less except in true emergencies. However I personally don't care how many people it takes to make make sure everybody goes home.