WASHINGTON — Human error. That’s how the District’s fire chief explains a botched emergency response Sunday when city firefighters arrived to the street where a man was having a heart attack but left without ever reaching him.
Minutes after Albert Jackson’s family called 911, D.C. firefighters in Truck 17 arrived on the same block of 60th Street NE where Jackson was. The firefighters came upon D.C. police officers first.
“(D.C. police) had a patient. They waved them down and said, ‘Hey, we don’t need any assistance from you guys.’ They thought they had arrived at the location,” says Fire Chief Gregory Dean.
Thinking police were responding to the same call, which dispatchers described as an “unconscious, fainting man,” Dean says the fire truck left. But Jackson was not the man with police.
When dispatchers realized Truck 17 had never reached its intended patient, Dean confirms 15 minutes passed before the next EMS crew arrived. Jackson later died.
Early Wednesday, Dean released a statement extending his condolences to Jackson’s family for the part D.C. Fire and EMS crews played in his death.
When asked to what he attributed the mistake, Dean responded, “human error.”
“There’s not really an internal investigation. We have the facts. We know what happened,” he says.
Going forward, Dean says he’s requiring all first responders to confirm the address of a call to dispatchers when they arrive. They previously had used the phrase, “At location,” according to Dean.
He is also ensuring dispatchers use clearer language to describe the patient’s age and ailment — descriptive information that could have helped firefighters recognize that the man police were attending to was not their patient.
He says the responding officers are not on administrative leave.
“They made a mistake. They assumed. So their supervisor is looking at that part, as well as I looked, at what do we need to do as an organization so we can ensure this won’t happen to anyone else,” Dean says.
Dean took over the department last year after former Chief Ken Ellerbe resigned. Ellerbe’s tenure was marked by complaints of staffing shortages and poor patient care, including the death of Medric Cecil Mills, 77, who suffered a heart attack and collapsed across the street from a D.C. fire station.
