LEFT TO DIE
SHOCK EVIDENCE: QAS HELP WAS JUST 500M UP THE ROAD WAITING FOR POLICE RESPONSE
A FRANTIC call for help comes in to an emergency call centre. Dean Webber tells an operator that people are outside his home and he doesn’t feel safe.
He’s taken in Candice Locke ( main picture), who woke him up with an injured shoulder asking for help.
He tells a Queensland Ambulance Service communication officer that he needs police, but when the job comes across their desk, police don’t think it’s urgent.
Less than an hour later, Thomas Davy and Corey
Christensen ( pictured below) are dead. This forms part of compelling evidence that was heard on the second day of the Alva Beach inquest yesterday, describing how police communication officers did not take the “urgent” QAS message seriously, and how paramedics waited just 500m from Mr Webber’s Alva Beach home for 30 minutes until police arrived.
Three Townsville communication officers working the night Mr Davy and Mr Christensen were killed gave evidence, telling Cairns Magistrates Court that they believed the initial call for help did not seem like a serious job.
Senior Constable Michael Arope received the initial notification from QAS after Mr Webber’s first call for an ambulance at 12.24am on Octob ber 1, 2018.
The QAS team advised police that Mr Webber told them he didn’t feel safe, there were men outside his home, he was locked inside and Ms Locke had come off a buggy.
Paramedics were “staged” down the road at 12.33am, waiting for police to make the scene safe before they got closer.
Paramedic Emma Savatovic and her partner were the crew tasked to the incident at the Topton Street home, which was initially called in as a road traffic crash and a woman w with a shoulder injury at 12.30am.
Ms Savatovic gave her version of events over the phone, saying they w were advised by the communication centre to “stage” – a term used by QAS to wait away from an incident and wait for police to attend as they b believed alcohol was involved.
She said they stopped the ambulance along Beach Road about 10 minutes after the job came through, about 500m from Mr Webber’s home.
Here they waited until police drove past them more than 30 minutes later, followed them, and eventually arrived at the home at 1.17am where they found Corey Christensen clinging to life and Thomas Davy dead.
In that 30 minutes of waiting, Ms Savatovic said they followed up w with their communication centre “several times” to see where police w were.
About 1.03am, the job priority w was ramped up after calls that people had been stabbed, and the communications officer told them the “assailant” wasn’t at the scene.
Ms Savatovic said her partner received a phone call from the communication centre soon after, with information two men were lying near a road, and there was still no police available.
The communication centre asked the paramedics if they wanted to go in, or wait for police.
“We said no we would wait for police,” Ms Savatovic said.
“We were surprised we were asked … normally under these circumstances it would have still been instructions to stage.
“We are not trained to respond to scenes where there are potentially armed offenders.
“We very much wanted to proceed, unfortunately we thought the risk to our safety was too great to proceed.”
When police eventually arrived, Ms Savatovic ran over to Mr Christensen and her partner ran to Mr Davy.
She felt a very weak pulse in Mr Christensen, and tried to revive him. The men couldn’t be saved.
Ms Savatovic was pressed by counsel for the Davy family, Chris
Minnery, who questioned why they didn’t do a drive by of the scene.
She said due to the position of the corner block house, it was impossible to discretely drive past.
Senior Constable Arope, who was the assistant communication co-ordinator, logged the job with police as a code three, or “routine” job, saying at no stage did he think to heighten the priority to “urgent”.
He did not take another look at the job, saying he didn’t “micromanage” police crews once they received it.
“I received the job, put it on, did the checks and approved it … all of about two minutes,” he said.
Deputy State Coroner Jane Bentley questioned Constable Arope’s definition of “urgent”, asking what would warrant an urgent, or a code two, job in his mind.
Constable Arope said he would have changed the code if he received information that the men had kicked the door down, or were armed.
“There wasn’t too much information in there other than they were outside,” he said.
A civilian communication operator, Kylie Biddell, was also working on the night of the stabbing, and notified Ayr police that there was a job for them.
She spoke with First Year Constable Noel Dwyer about 12.42am after QAS had called their centre following up how far away police were.
Ms Biddell said Constable Dwyer was delayed as he was the only officer at the station and he had a drink driver in lockup.
About 12.53am, Ms Biddell logged new notes on the job log saying that the crew would attend once an objection to bail had been signed.
The job eventually becomes a code two, or urgent job, at 12.59am after more calls come in.
Sergeant Tania Childs was the communication co-ordiantor on the night, but says she stands by the code three classification, despite QAS job notes stating it needed police to look at the job urgently.
Sergeant Childs said the communication teams often sought out more information from QAS about the level of urgency, saying there were opinions in the office that QAS always needed police help on jobs, and the versions of “urgent” differed between both organisations.
Constable Arope said police were expected to “hold their hands”. “A lot of the time QAS won’t attend an incident or a job unless we go with them,” she said.
Ms Bentley questioned this, saying Sergeant Childs wouldn’t know the number of jobs QAS attends without police.
Ms Bentley also said she observed in evidence that the police communication centre “gave fairly little weight” to advice they received from QAS.
Under cross-examination by counsel for the Davy family Chris Minnery he presses her about the time it takes police to get to the scene and why more wasn’t done.
“It’s way too long,” she said.