Disabled Woman Burned Alive

Brenda Orr had Multiple Sclerosis and was bed-bound when she dialed 911 to tell them her bed was completely engulfed in flames.

There were 23 people manning positions in the operations center of Bucks County Emergency Communications on January 29, 2008, when Brenda Orr called 911 for help. At the time of this 911 call, 2 of the 23 people were out of the room on break, and 11 were either on the phone or on the radio.

That left 10 people in the room, picking their nose or whatever, ready and waiting, completely available to answer Brenda’s call.

Plus 4 supervisors.

What happened next was a disgrace; there is simply no excuse for what happened next.

Squads work 12-hour shifts, primarily 6 AM to 6 PM or 6 PM to 6 AM.

Bucks County Emergency Communications Department policy states that “All 9-1-1 calls are to be answered within 10 seconds or less (2-3 rings). 9-1-1 lines have priority over all other incoming lines.” A report, called an “exception report”, is available to the supervisory staff that shows the percent of calls that exceed the answering threshold.

The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency’s Public Safety Emergency Telephone Program policy dictates that emergency calls must be answered by trained dispatchers within 10 seconds of the call at least 90 percent of the time.

When Brenda dialed 911, her call went unanswered for: 6 RINGS. (note: some reports read seven !) Her bed is on fire. She is bed-ridden disabled.

Six. Rings. That’s 27 seconds. Call yourself. 27 seconds. That’s 3 short of a half a minute. Got a clock with hands handy? Watch it a moment. Watch that ’second’ hand cross over 27 seconds. Now imagine being trapped in a bed engulfed in fire and your source of help cannot be reached… for 27 seconds.

Yet, it gets worse.

“At no time should anyone ever put a 911 call on hold without determining the seriousness of the call. All dispatchers are taught in training not to place any call on hold until it is determined that the person can hold; the caller gives their permission for us to place the call on hold.”

Dispatcher 1: “911, can you hold one second, please?”

Brenda Orr: “No, I can’t! It’s an emergency! 9-1-1 emergency! 3-4-0 Doyle, bed on fire!”

Dispatcher 1 promptly places her… ON HOLD. After six long rings, Brenda, who is disabled, bed-bound and her bed is on fire, is placed on hold.

As a result of the initial inaction, Brenda Orr had to listen to the phone ring at least six times, 27 seconds elapsed… and then wait yet again while a dispatcher put her on hold.

55 seconds into the call, yet a second Dispatcher starts taking Brenda Orr’s information.

Then another full minute before help was even sent on its way to Brenda Orr’s Doyle Street Pennsylvania home.

Dispatcher 2: “Are you still in the house?”

Brenda Orr: “Yes!” You can hear Brenda’s terror, struggling to breathe.

Dispatcher 2: “Alright, well, you want to get out of house?” (Why do 911 Dispatchers often have this Holier Than Thou attitude as if the general population is too damn stupid to know the obvious? How many other people have died due to this wasted kind of time attitude I wonder?!)

Brenda Orr: “No. I’m disabled! The bed is fully in flames!”

Brenda Orr died in the fire.

“The lapse in response time was significant, and we asked the county to look at that lapse and see if we can’t address it so that it doesn’t happen again,” said Doylestown Borough Police Chief James Donnelly.

“I think that it was a very unfortunate incident. I think there were some procedures that were not properly followed in the center, and they are being addressed,” said Emergency Communications Director Brent Wiggins.

Not one of those 10 dispatchers were able to provide a reasonable explanation why they did not answer that 9-1-1 call. Not one. Maybe it was picture day? Or, better yet, because they knew it was Brenda Orr calling? Just today, Valentine’s day, the Orr family sent a gentle letter to the editor of Phillyburbs. Within this letter, they include:

“we want to thank the police for responding to her many calls to help her when she would fall, as well as the fire department that tried so hard to save her on Jan. 29.”

Since Brenda Orr was calling from her home phone, and the county has what is known as an “enhanced 911 system,” Brenda Orr’s address showed up on the dispatcher’s computer screen. They were already quite familiar with Brenda. She had called many times in the past in need of help when she had fallen. When Brenda called again for help, 10 people, doing absolutely nothing, ‘just happened’ to not answer the phone.

The one who did answer Brenda’s call, that one who did first pick up the phone and had placed her on hold, had actually been handling another call at that time. Of the 23 on duty in the operation center that day, he had been one of the “11 who were either on the phone or on the radio.” He was not one of the 10 picking their nose, or whatever.

Bucks County commissioner Chairman Jim Cawley released a copy of its internal investigation during a news conference into the handling of the call.

1,454 total calls (9-1-1 and 7-digit) were received within this particular 23-manned 6 AM to 6 PM shift, with, according to the investigation report, an exception rate of 3.23 percent. I wonder how high that rate would be if that total call number were split like it should be; 911 emergency vs. non-emergency/7-digit. How many of those 1454 calls were actual 911 calls, and how many of those actual 911 calls took 10 seconds or longer to answer? Hm? What’s that exception rate?

The investigation report also conveniently excluded the actual number of the exception rate. I’m suspecting then that this is 3.23 percent of the total 1454 calls. Their leaving the actual figure out of the report leaves one to their imagination.

1454 @ 3.23% = 46 calls rang more than 10 seconds / 4 rings. How much more, I don’t know, though it would show on that exception report, along with Brenda Orr’s call. Her call is one of those 46.

1454 total calls averages 63 calls per dispatcher for the entire 12 hour period. An average of 5 calls per hour per dispatcher. This includes 911 emergency and the 7-digit calls.

In the investigation report, it is claimed that this 3.23% is well within State regulations. With that kind of staff? Are you kidding? There were more than enough people available to answer the phones. I trust these 10 people who were hired to answer emergency calls, and all 10 chose not to, as well as their supervisor(s), who clearly isn’t respected, is out of a job.

Response timing is critical to the safety of residents and the people who are there to protect them. Every municipality in the county relies on the emergency communications center. A woman’s life has possibly been sacrificed because of bureaucratic incompetence. The people of Pennsylvania deserve better for their tax dollars.

THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Police, fire and EMS logs indicate local agencies were dispatched at 10:33 a.m., two minutes after Brenda Orr dialed 911.

Doylestown Cpl. William Doucette arrived at Orr’s house a few seconds later. Officer Paul Kreuter, who is also a firefighter, followed at 10:34 a.m.

According to his report, Officer Paul Kreuter kicked open the front door and attempted to crawl through the house to Brenda Orr. The fire was too big and the smoke too thick for him to get very far into the house.

Officer Paul Kreuter and Cpl. William Doucette then went to the back of the house and kicked open the door.

Officer Paul Kreuter attempted to crawl through the house again to get to Brenda, but the smoke was too thick.

Firefighters arrived on Doyle Street at 10:35 a.m., two minutes after they were initially dispatched and four minutes after Brenda Orr’s call.

The fire log shows Fire Marshal David Cell arriving on the scene at 10:37 a.m., however he has stated that he had arrived at Orr’s home and attempted to rescue Brenda Orr before the firefighters arrived and before he reported his location to the county communications center.

Fire Marshal David Cell went into the house once without an air pack that would have helped him breathe. He said he got halfway down the hall to Brenda Orr’s bedroom before the smoke was too thick for him to go any farther.

David Cell ran out of the house and found the first crew of Doylestown firefighters and a truck full of water had arrived from the Shewell Avenue station. He grabbed an air pack off the truck and went back in.

He said he made it to Brenda Orr’s bedroom door, where he saw nothing but heavy black smoke.

“I felt a lot of heat,” stated David Cell, guessing it was a couple hundred degrees in the bedroom. “That’s an indication of flashover, when everything in the room, all the stuff and the gases, catches on fire all at once.”

If he had gone into the room during flashover, David Cell said, he would have had second-degree burns all over his body even with the protective gear on.

Brenda Orr WAS in that bedroom during that flashover. She had no protective gear.

David Cell and a crew of firefighters went back in the house, they made it as far as the bedroom door.

“My helmet melted and everybody’s gear melted, so we backed out,” David Cell said.

They grabbed the hose on the truck and went back into the house with water. Fire Marshal David Cell said they got halfway down the hall before a piece of the ceiling fell on his head and one of the firefighters threw him out of the house, at 10:46 a.m. He was treated for his injury and taken to Doylestown Hospital. The rest of the firefighters went into the bedroom to put out the fire.

Firefighters reported to county communications that the fire was ‘completely under control’ at 11:47 a.m.

Brenda Orr was a smoker; this along with electrical devices in the room are among the possible causes for the fire being investigated.

Bucks County Fire Marshal Nick Rafferty, who had arrived at Brenda Orr’s home about an hour earlier, found the charred remains of Brenda Orr’s mattress, bedroom furniture, and other personal belongings, and he also located Brenda’s body.

Here is the Bucks County Fire Procedures Manual. If I can find it, surely they can.

TIMETABLE OF EVENTS

NOTE: Not all times of responding units were included, only those from the original dispatch.

10:31:09: Call received at the 9-1-1 Center
10:31:37: Call answered by first dispatcher after six rings – Approximately seven seconds into the call you can hear the initial dispatcher tell another dispatcher they had to pickup the call.
10:32:03: Second dispatcher takes over the call – Since the call had been picked up at a different console, the location information was not available to this second dispatcher
10:32:42: Last contact with the caller
10:32:47: Call sent to the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system
10:33:00: Dispatched Doylestown Borough Police Department to fire call
10:33:18: First tone sounded for fire dispatch of Doylestown Fire Company and Plumsteadville Fire Company
10:34:39: Doylestown Borough Police officer on scene w/heavy fire blowing out the front of the house
10:34:57: Borough Fire Marshal responding
10:35:07: Doylestown Fire Company Battalion Chief 19 responding (chief’s vehicle)
10:35:36: Doylestown Fire Company (DFC) Battalion Chief 79 on scene (DFC Battalion Chief was the same individual as the on-scene Doylestown Borough Police Officer at 10:34:39)
10:37:02: Borough Fire Marshal on scene
10:38:04: Doylestown Fire Company Battalion Chief 19 on scene
10:38:44: County dispatcher calls Engine 19 (Doylestown Fire Company main station), Engine 20 (Plumsteadville Fire Company) and Ladder 79 (Doylestown Fire Company sub-station) (Dispatchers are required to check on dispatched apparatus to see if they are responding after four minutes).
10:39:03: County dispatcher acknowledges Ladder 79 en route (This is the first fire apparatus responding.)
10:39:18: Battalion Chief 19 reports a one-story dwelling with fire throughout, unknown on the occupant
10:39:57: Doylestown Fire Company (Engine 19-1) responding (This is the first fire apparatus responding from the main Doylestown Fire Company station on Shewell Avenue.)
10:40:26: Plumsteadville Fire Co. (Engine 24) responding in place of Engine 20 (Plumsteadville FC responding unit from Main station on Stump Rd instead of sub station on Ferry Road.)
10:40:33: Plumsteadville Fire Co. (Engine 20) responding (unit from sub station on Ferry Road)
10:40:40: County advises Battalion Chief 19 with information on the patient: she is bedridden in the side A (front) bedroom (County received a telephone call from Central Bucks Ambulance (Medic 135) who knew where the caller’s bedroom was located).
10:42:55: Security Central (private monitoring company) call advising a medical alert alarm received for this address
10:43:06: Doylestown Fire Company (Ladder 79) on scene (This is the first fire apparatus that advised the County to being on scene. It should be noted that Engine 19-1 never signed on location of the call but based on the response time of later responding units the time on location has been estimated in the area of 10:40-41 hours)
10:43:31: Battalion Chief 19 reports visible fire front of the dwelling, one hand line in service
10:44:20: Battalion Chief 19 reports still one individual entrapped; requests notification of the state and County Fire Marshals
10:46:09: Plumsteadville Fire Co. Engine 20 on scene
10:49:49: Doylestown Fire Co. Engine 19 responding; reporting undermanned. (This is the second unit responding from the fire station on Shewell Avenue.)
10:51:51: Doylestown Fire Co. Engine 19 on scene
10:54:06: Battalion Chief 19 asks “did the caller report where she was located in the building.” Dispatcher advised the front bedroom
10:55:33: Battalion Chief 19 reports the victim located

Sgt. Scott Brobst is part of the police investigating what went wrong in this incident, and is gravely concerned regarding both the lengthy delay in the answering of Brenda’s phone call, as well the additional delay created when Brenda was put on hold.

“While this almost one-minute delay may not have changed the outcome of this incident, we will never know if a rescue of Brenda Orr could have been affected if there was not a delay. In 40 seconds a fireman or police officer probably could have searched and exited the entire home. Could this have been long enough to make a difference?” Sgt. Scott Brobst wrote.

Commissioner Jim Cawley said the dispatchers and their supervisors had disciplinary letters placed in their files.

Yeah. That’ll teach ‘em. *sarcasm*

Borough Council President - Det Ansinn
Bucks County Coroner - Joseph Campbell
Bucks County Commissioner - Charley Martin
Bucks County Commissioner - Jim Cawley
Bucks County Commissioner - Diane Marseglia

Bucks County Commissioners, 911 Emergency Communications Officials released their response just yesterday (February 13, 2008 ) to their findings of the investigation, and have stated their inadequate, not-applicable, “corrective measures” in typical bureaucratic whitewash fashion. If they think this nonsense is going to appease the public, think again. Here is the full audio account of the news conference.

Here is information (Dates, Locations, Agenda’s and Minutes) on all of the Public Commissioner meetings that have occurred, and that are scheduled for the future. Their next meeting is on February 20th.

Bucks County Fire Marshal - Nick Rafferty
Doylestown Borough Manager - John Davis
Doylestown Council President -Det Ansinn
Doylestown Fire Marshal and Code Enforcement Officer - David Cell
First Assistant District Attorney - David Zellis
Bucks County Elected Officals, and Elections Information

Say hello to the Telecommunication Specialists of Bucks County. If you have any questions or comments, just click on their Dispatcher Number for an E-mail link. If you wish to send a message to the whole department click “Bucks County Radio” to send them a message.

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~ by dissfunktional on February 14, 2008.