COOPER CITY, FLA. (WSVN) - A Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue firefighter-paramedic slept through an emergency call that led to a patient’s death, drawing concerns about the alarm system at a fire rescue station in Cooper City and triggering an investigation that uncovered “anomalies and failures” with an important piece of the first responders’ equipment.
Investigators said a call for help with someone having trouble breathing came into the Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire Station 28 in Cooper City at 11:34 p.m. on Aug. 17.
Audio from the call captured the dispatcher describing the situation.
“Twenty-eight Echo. Trouble breathing,” said the dispatcher.
A little under 20 seconds later, the dispatcher is heard repeating her call and providing the patient’s address.
Firefighters would normally hear an alert go out in a situation like this twice, but there was no response from Rescue 28.
Nearly two minutes after the first call, then 16 seconds after that, the dispatcher reached out to confirm the ambulance was en route to the home.
But the crew were not on their way. One of the firefighter-paramedics, sleeping in a separate location, apparently never heard the call.
“When that call came in, it would dispatch a rescue truck of three people. They sleep in different locations inside of the station, so there’s different alerting tones or systems that are throughout,” said Jason Smith, president of the organization Broward County Professional Firefighters.
Smith said two of the firefighters went to the truck, but realized the third had not responded.
“They went out, they went to the truck. As they were preparing themselves to respond to the 911 call, this was when they recognized, ‘Hey, the individual in charge of this truck is not here,'” he said.
The dispatcher sent another crew from the same station. By this time, the breathing trouble had turned into a cardiac arrest.
“At this time, this is when everyone starts realizing that an initial call had come in, and they missed it,” said Smith.
The question arises: how did the firefighter-paramedic, as well as another one sleeping in the same room, not hear that first call?
“This individual asked questions to their group, ‘Hey, did you hear a call?’ And then that’s when [They said], ‘Yeah, we got a call, but it didn’t go off in our room,'” said Smith.
BSFR conducted an investigation and found that all the overhead alert tones appeared to be working, that they were “unable to replicate” the problem.
However, investigators also found “anomalies and failures” with pagers the firefighters wear.
Why the first responders didn’t hear those alerts is simply unknown.
The delay in this case was two minutes and 40 seconds, and the man sent to the hospital died several hours later.
When asked what he would say to people who learn about this incident and wonder what would happen if they call, Smith replied, “I would say that that is a fair position to initially feel, but the responders of the Broward Sheriff’s Office are dedicated to getting it right. We don’t delay any form of care, whether it’s from minor or to the most urgent, so for us to have any delay is a problem for us.”
7News has learned that some of the firefighters’ pagers have been replaced, the volume in some of the alerts has been increased to make it easier to hear, and there is now a checklist to make sure everyone is accounted for and they know where everyone is.
The patient’s family declined to comment.
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