Photo by Eric Purcell
Three ambulances operated by the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services were improperly listed as out of service the night that a D.C. police officer was struck by a car March 5, according to an internal investigation by city officials. Instead of being transported to a hospital by an ambulance from D.C., the officer was picked up by one from neighboring Prince George’s County.
In the report today, which has not been officially released but was leaked to The Washington Post, investigators found that the three ambulances were all within the vicinity of the injured officer, who was hit near the intersection of A and 46th streets SE. According to the Post, the crew assigned to one of the ambulances was reported as unavailable to respond to the scene because it was still listed as being on an earlier call, even though the vehicle was standing by in its usual station:
The investigation found that Ambulance 15 was in its station three miles from the crash. But the vehicle and its crew were not dispatched because personnel never told headquarters that they were done with their previous call. The crew was still logged in as being at Howard University Hospital in Northwest. Still, the report found, the crew should have heard the distress call and responded to the accident.
“They were out of service and off the radar,” said one of the city officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation has not yet been made public. Had those firefighters told dispatchers they had cleared the hospital, they would have been sent to help the officer, the officials said.
The internal investigation was headed up by Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander. At his press conference today, Mayor Vince Gray avoided questions about the issue, saying that he had not yet seen the report and instead deferred to Quander. However, Quander was not present, having called in sick today with an illness, Gray said.
The fire department is under considerable scrutiny for several instances in which ambulances have been slow or unavailable to respond. In addition to the incident with the injured cop, a man who suffered a heart attack died earlier this year after waiting 29 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe is also taking heat from the unions representing his department’s employees after it was discovered that some of the fire trucks and other emergency response vehicles listed on an oversight document presented to the D.C. Council were found not to be in working order, including a ladder truck that is actually decaying in a Wisconsin scrapyard.
The mayor’s office has, however, defended Ellerbe and FEMS and said that the department’s fleet is in better shape than its critics say. A spokesman for Gray told DCist this week that since 2011, the fire department has purchased 32 ambulances, and has another 13 on order in the current fiscal year.
