Ariola presses FDNY on unknown condition and calls on hold
Ariola returns to Kevin Daly's case and asks how often the system holds more than 100 calls and why critical calls are classified as unknown. Miano says call volume is up and staffing is down, and Werner explains the call came through the overflow position as an unknown condition because no call takers were available.
Okay, so just I will continue then with my questioning.
So you said that you were holding 100 more, going back to Ms.
Daly and her son Kevin and his issue.
So you were holding more than 100 calls, and it was put in as an unknown condition.
How often are you holding more than 100 calls, and how often do calls go into the system as unknown, especially when they are as critical as Kevin Daly's condition was?
So I'll defer to Chief Warner to speak about how it's dispatched, why it was classified and unknown, and that process.
But as far as how many calls, how many times that we're holding calls, that many calls, unfortunately, that has risen over the last...
Over the last few years, right?
Our call volume is up, as Chief Esposito stated, and our head count is down, which means that we have less ambulances on the street to respond to those calls.
However, our life-threatening, our most serious calls, our segment one through three assignments, cardiac arrest, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, cardiaks, those do not hold.
Those calls are immediately dispatched out as soon as an ambulance is available.
Those are our most highest priority calls, and that is why the lower priority calls often
times while ambulances are responding to lower priority calls are redirected into more into higher priority calls because they are the closest ambulance and we do not want to have a situation where somebody who is in cardiac arrest is not receiving an ambulance
so i'm going to turn over to chief warner to explain the the the call typing and process and why it was designated as an unknown.
So this call was processed by the overflow position, so we did not triage it.
So the person that's categorizing it, giving it a call type, is relying on the information that PD obtained and relying on the code that they made it.
So this call was designated as a 54Q, which translates in the EMS code to an unknown condition.
And I would understand that if it was just the school nurse that was calling or the boy's mom, but a trained FDNY, a retired FDNY member called 911
and stated clearly what was happening.
So what would a suspected stroke be?
A segment one, three?
What does that categorize as?
Had this call been triaged, it would have been categorized as a priority three.
Why wasn't it triaged?
There were no call takers available at the time that this call came in.