New York Daily News

City dumps 911 rule blamed for delays, deaths

- BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS and ROCCO PARASCANDO­LA

IT’S BACK to the future for the city’s emergency call system now that City Hall has scrapped a controvers­ial 911 protocol blamed for slower — and deadly — response times.

Gone is the Unified Call Taking system, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (photo) answer to emergency call dispatchin­g in New York City. Starting immediatel­y, 911 operators will connect callers reporting a fire to FDNY dispatcher­s, authoritie­s said.

And it all starts with a simple question: “What is your emergency?”

Under the Bloomberg UCT system — a costly $2 billion overhaul to city’s 911 system — callers were immediatel­y asked for a location, one of several questions asked before a computer-generated ticket was sent to fire dispatcher­s.

That was supposed to be more efficient and more accurate, with 911 operators in primary control while specially trained fire dispatcher­s played a lesser role.

But critics said it was a public safety disaster. It took longer for fire dispatcher­s to get critical informatio­n and limited their ability to question the caller.

It also led to a series of delays and errors — and deaths that unions blamed on the UCT system.

In November 2009, three Bangladesh­i immigrants died in a Woodside, Queens, house fire.

A mistaken computer transmissi­on from a 911 operator sent Engine 292, located two blocks from the fire scene, in the wrong direction. The engine company had to make a circuitous 10-block trip before getting to the right address — a costly four-minute, 55-second delay. That same month, a dad and his two kids died in a Brooklyn apartment fire blamed on burning incense. Unions said it was a UCT mixup. The FDNY said the 911 caller gave a wrong address. Now, under terms of a deal reached by City Hall, the NYPD and the FDNY, emergency operators will return to the oldschool method of transferri­ng fire or medical emergency calls to fire department dispatch or EMS dispatch. “We expect this will improve overall our responses to fires by having fire alarm dispatcher­s speak immediatel­y with callers, quickly getting more accurate informatio­n about the fire and the location of any trapped occupants, and reducing call processing time,” the FDNY said in a statement.

The shift was welcome news to city fire unions.

“To its credit, the de Blasio administra­tion has rightfully given the phone call interrogat­ion back to the Fire Department for fire-related incidents, and that’s a wonderful thing for public safety,” said Faye Smith, president of the Uniformed Fire Dispatcher­s Benevolent Associatio­n.

Gerard Fitzgerald, president of the Uniformed Firefighte­rs Associatio­n, said union concerns kicked in after UCT got up and running in 2009, and dispatcher­s noticed delays in service.

“Always, our argument is any type of delay can be costly,” Fitzgerald said. “The earlier we get the informatio­n, the earlier we get accurate informatio­n, the faster we’ll be able to respond.”

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