Ambulance dispatched Staten Island to Manhattan

[FormerEMSLT297]

I almost guarantee I know what happened. First I'm almost certian that the units GPS was not working correctly, why else would they come up recommended.

I worked in Comm years ago, as a Disp, and Floor Lieutenant, before the days of AVL/GPS.

Each unit has somethign called a home atom, this corresponds with an NYPD Pct. and sector, near where your area is. If the unit was from SI and lets say they belong in the 123E precinct. All you need is for the person loggin the info into the computer to erroneuously type 023E, and puff, according to the computer they are in Mn, and on the upper East side close to the call.

Now, When I was in NYC*EMS, before ANY disp was allowed to transfer a call from MN to SI or send a unit from SI to MN they needed to get permission from the Floor LT.

The system BROKE DOWN. I do not know wh yin this day and age, 2 Disp (SI and MN) did not catch this, the floor LT, and Tour Commander did not catch this, the SI unit did not speak up and say heah WTF, and why didnt they come up on the Mn Central freq, and say were coming from SI anyone closer.

Also all Sta. LT's now have computers and can monitor calls and units status, so why didnt the SI Station boss notice his unit going to MN and why didnt the MN boss notice the SI unit responding to a MN job.....

There is a ton of fault to go around, I can see pulling a Queens unit into MN or a BX unit into Harlem, or a BK unit into lower MN, but this was just STUPID. Plin and simple......

[Asysin2leads]

From talking to a few fairly reputable sources, or as reputable sources as I am going to get, the clusterf*ck started out as thus:

To deal with the high call volume in Manhattan, an ambulance from Staten Island was redeployed to Manhattan. While enroute, they were called for a job in Brooklyn and ended up at Kings County hospital. After they became available for that job, the dispatcher assigned them to their new 'atom', or dispatch area, in Manhattan, probably under orders from dispatch supervisors so they could get to Manhattan without coming up recommended for more jobs in Brooklyn.

Now they come up for the job in Manhattan. They inform dispatch they are highly extended. Through various machinations, this does not translate as "I'm in Brooklyn and I'm not getting there anytime soon." Whether or not people in lieutenant's and captain's costumes were threatening the unit with being placed off service if they didn't respond are true or not is unknown to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Like I said, the system, between the dispatch and the ignorance of supervision and leadership, is just plain broken.

[stcommodore]

It all breaks down to...in a busy something it can happen. Was it right? Probably not but we all know that there are times that you listen to the radio and hear unit after unit go out and know that if the rush doesn't stop we could all see something like this happen.

In the area I work once you go "transport complete" a in county hospital that hospital is considered a location on the box cards that you can be dispatched from. Often times the dispatchers check to see if your ready to take the next call, but its not impossible that a southern unit transporting to a central hospital gets dispatched north, and before you know it miles and miles from its local.

I know FDNY doesn't have set locations for stations but we all know that when volume gets as bad as that sounded then logic should dictate units relocate to cover areas from central locations.