Monday Morning QB

[Guest guest]

The discussion concerning the recent Miami incident has prompted me to offer

my two cents on the situation:

1. Sometimes when 9-1-1 calls hit the news, it's because the call screams out

" what was the TC thinking? " That doesn't strike me here, which makes the

public scrutiny doubly onerous Has the expectation become that every call

shall have a happy ending?

2. While a firm believer in EMD and other pre-arrival instructions, I am

concerned that this case, and others like it, open up an entire new area of

duty and responsibility which translate into unreasonable standards of

liability. At what point do we become " responsible " for providing a caller

what most reasonable people would consider to be obvious instructions?

Certainly, telling someone to vacate a burning building is good advice, but

are we criminally and/or civilly negligent if we don't provide the caller

with these specific instructions? Unfortunately, the definition of

" reasonable person " may be what has become more unclear.

3. I personally do not believe that wireless providers have done all that can

be done to expedite the delivery of location services. In fact, in many areas

they have opposed legislation that would have provided funding to local

communities to help deal with the overwhelming issue of wireless calls.

Unlike the phone companies of old they operate as unregulated utilities.

However, we are wrong to assume that wireless location technology is the

silver bullet that will cure all of the issues. There will still be

approximation concerns, the lack of a " z " coordinate which can be a killer in

urban areas, and the potential for technology failures. None of this speaks

to the possibility of multiple wireless calls overwhelming both the network

and telecommunicators during high visibility incidents.

4. Unfortunately, if any of us enter or remain in this profession seeking

unconditional love or everlasting wealth, we have made a serious error in

judgment If we can individually or collectively look at the job we have done

and honestly know that we gave it our best and have many times made a

difference, then we are embraced and enriched in ways that many people never

get to know.