Columbus Fire Chief files formal complaint detailing frustrations with dispatch

Remedial training and limited disciplinary action has been ordered for a Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher who failed to follow policy in an incident that ended in the death of an elderly woman on March 24.

Sheriff Cliff Brophy said that while an internal investigation determined the dispatcher did not follow policy, she will not be terminated because she “has not completed all her training.”
The dispatcher will be given “limited discipline” which amounts to a letter being placed in her personnel file and having to undergo remedial training before being allowed to return to work.
 She has been put on administrative leave since March 29 pending an internal investigation of two fatal traffic accidents last month in which help was not immediately sent.

The specific policy she violated falls under “Dispatching” listed on a 12-page Public Safety Answering Point policy, which reads as follows:
1. Communications Officers shall dispatch the appropriate agency as soon as reasonably possible. If the appropriate agency cannot be dispatched within a reasonable time, then the reason shall be documented on that CFS.
a. The top four priority calls as defined in B(3) should have someone dispatched within two minutes.
b. All other calls should be dispatched within 10 minutes.
Those top four priority calls are as follows, according to policy:
•Emergency service providers in life threatening situations have first priority.
•All other life threatening situations have second priority.
•Situations that could result in personal injury have third priority.
•Situations that are in progress and had just occurred and could result in loss of property have fourth priority.

The incidents investigated were the March 21 single vehicle rollover on I-90 in which a woman was killed and two people injured, one critically. The second incident occurred four days later, on March 24, and involved a pedestrian being hit and killed on Highway 10, despite three requests from citizens to send someone to check on her before she was hit.
The investigation determined the dispatcher did follow policy in the March 21 fatality.
The internal investigation was conducted by Brophy, Undersheriff Chip Kem and Chief Communications Officer Jennifer Siegfried. Stillwater County Attorney Nancy Rohde and County Finance & Human Resource Specialist Joe Morse were also involved.

FORMAL COMPLAINT FROM THE FIRE CHIEF
Columbus Fire Chief filed a formal complaint against Brophy regarding how the two fatal incidents were handled in dispatch. The 3-page complaint was dated March 24 and sent to several government entities on March 29. The News became aware of the complaint earlier this week and filed a Freedom of Information request with Cowger and the Stillwater County Commissioners, who each supplied the News with the document.
In addition to listing the timeline of each fatal incident and posing questions about policy, Cowger points out the devastating end result.
“Had someone been dispatched and responded appropriately that individual would be alive today,” Cowger wrote.
Cowger also made clear the subject of his frustration.
“While these two incidents unfortunately fell on the same dispatcher, I do not believe that it is entirely her fault nor do I believe she should be held solely responsible. In fact this formal complaint is not about her. While she definitely has a level of responsibility for the handling of both of these incidents, my complaint is about the system as a whole and the lack of oversight, proper training and personal accountability. This has been and was evident even to the administration of the Sheriff’s Office over a year and half ago or more and when a dispatch supervisor position was created and hired to bring standardized processes, training and consistency to the dispatch system. I’m sorry to say this but this system has failed,” Cowger wrote.
Cowger also addressed the alleged frustrations that have been growing.
“There have been multiple times within the past months and even last couple of years where not only we, but also Columbus Police Department officers and even your own deputies have expressed concerns to administration on various different issues such as dispatch time discrepancies, what agencies are dispatched to and what we aren’t, how long calls are held before being dispatched, not sending the appropriate agencies to the appropriate calls, not following any types of protocols and lack of information transfer,” Cowger wrote.
The fire chief closed by writing he considers the sheriff and many other in law enforcement as friends and knows the complaint won’t be received well.
Brophy declined to comment on the report at this time.

SHERIFF: IT'S A MONEY ISSUE
Stillwater County Sheriff Cliff Brophy takes full responsibility for the death of an elderly woman last month who possibly could have been saved if a dispatcher would have followed policy and sent help before she was hit and killed on Highway 10.
But Brophy, who has worn the sheriff’s badge for the last 35 years, says it’s not a matter of negligence, but rather a matter of money.
More specifically, low wages creating a high turnover and minimal training. There are currently four full-time and one part-time dispatchers.
There is funding for five full-time and three part-time slots, which would allow there to be two dispatchers on every shift with the exception of overnight.
Of those, only one has more than a year of experience.
That lack of experience had fatal consequences for at least one resident.
The dispatcher involved in the fatal incident had not completed her training but was working unsupervised, with six to eight months of experience under her belt. That scenario, Brophy said, is normal.
“There was a lot of injury,” said Brophy, referring to the death. “The public should be concerned.”
When asked what he was doing to make sure there was not a repeat of the tragedy, Brophy offered the following:
•Getting wages more competitive.
•Retraining dispatchers.
•Re-evaluating training.
•Trying to get the part-time head dispatcher position turned into a full-time position.

MONEY
“This has been an issue for years,” Brophy recently told the News. “This has been the first time the system has failed.”
After losing some veteran dispatchers a handful of years ago, Brophy said a couple of them said it was because of the money.
In June of 2015, at the request of Undersheriff Chip Kem, the Stillwater County Commissioners upped the starting wage for a communications officer from $11.76 to $13.

TIMELINE OF FATAL ACCIDENTS
March 21 I-90 Fatality

The crash was reported by two different 911 callers. According to dispatch records, the first 911 call was made at 2:42 a.m. by someone who said there were “vehicle pieces all over the area” and one man walking in the area. That caller was transferred to MHP, which had to send a trooper from Billings.
At 3 a.m. a second 911 caller reported the occupants were injured, “one of them very badly,” according to dispatch records. Columbus Fire Rescue was paged at that point, but no local law enforcement officers were sent.
At 3:10 a.m., one of the 911 callers reported one occupant was underneath the vehicle and apparently deceased.

MHP arrived on scene at 3:25 a.m. Columbus Fire Rescue left with the two patients at 3:41 a.m. The coroner was summoned at 3:43 a.m.
The occupants were a couple and their adult son from Idaho who were returning home from a funeral.
The mother was killed, the adult son was seriously injured and the father suffered injures as well.
“The dispatcher on duty followed established procedures while handling that call for service. However, further training and experience would be beneficial to the efficiency of work performed by that particular dispatcher. This is in light of the short time that dispatcher has been on the job,” Brophy determined in his investigation.

March 24 Highway 10 Fatality

The investigation centered on the dispatcher’s alleged failure to act on three notifications of an elderly woman wandering in the Columbus area who was eventually hit and killed on Highway 10.
 The first request for help came at 5:06 a.m. when a man physically went to the sheriff’s office to report the woman. That was followed by phone calls at 6:03 a.m. and 6:16 a.m. by two separate callers, according to dispatch records. In all three reports the dispatcher was told help was needed for an elderly woman who appeared confused, according to dispatch records.

At 6:22 a.m. a third caller reported seeing the woman get run over by a vehicle when she lay down on the road. According to initial dispatch records, it was not until that point that a deputy was advised. That deputy arrived on scene at 6:25 a.m.
Brophy said his investigation revealed that recordings showed the dispatcher was “calling out law enforcement” after the 6:16 a.m. phone call. That is not documented in the initial call for service, but Brophy said was found on a recording.
Brophy did not defend the lack of action on the part of the dispatcher.
“The dispatcher on duty failed to properly assess the first two notifications that came to the dispatch center. Because that dispatcher did not recognize the urgency in the first two calls for service, immediate assistance was not sent. After the fact, it is obvious that assistance should have been sent,” Brophy stated in his investigation findings.