Call Waiting

An All Angels by the Sea Episcopal Church parishioner collapsed during a Sunday, March 22 service, right in the middle of Father Fred Emerich’s sermon.

The congregation acted quickly:
Someone dialed 911 at 10:27 a.m.

Of the 97 congregation members in attendance, three were physicians. Two immediately began chest compressions.

“For an older parish, it was a little unnerving,” said All Angels Senior Warden B.J. Bishop. “The people sitting there watching were all very good about sitting there quietly in prayer. People in the back moved all the chairs to make way.”

At least two other congregation members went outside to wave the ambulance into the church entrance.

But parishioners attended the March 23 Longboat Key Town Commission regular workshop to express concern about the length of time — 14 minutes, they said — and the fact that a caller had to repeat information to a Manatee County dispatcher that had already been relayed to the call-taker in Sarasota County.

The comments came during a two-hour discussion of the town’s 911 police dispatch system, which ultimately prompted town staff to move ahead toward accepting an offer from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office to consolidate services.

Mayor Jack Duncan asked Fire Rescue Chief Paul Dezzi to look into the response for the All Angels incident.

The wait time may have seemed like an eternity for parishioners, but according to Fire Rescue records, it was only eight minutes.

It didn’t surprised Dezzi that the waiting period felt longer to those who were sitting in church.

“It happens when I have to call 911,” Dezzi said. “It seems a lot longer than it actually is.”

But the handling of the call shows the complexity of the current system.

Because the call was placed from a cellphone in a Sarasota location, the call went to Sarasota County, which typically transfers Longboat Key fire/emergency medical calls to Manatee County to be dispatched.

In this case, however, the Sarasota County dispatcher, who was in training, mistakenly dispatched the call to a Longboat Key police dispatcher, who then contacted Manatee County dispatch with the information.

It doesn’t happen very often,” said Longboat Key Police Chief Pete Cumming. “This truly was a glitch.”

Had the call been placed from a landline anywhere on the Key or a cellphone that pinged to a Manatee County tower, a Manatee County dispatcher would have gotten the call directly.

Only police calls are transferred to a Longboat Key dispatcher, although that dispatcher monitors police calls and sends an officer to fire/rescue calls.

Although Longboat Key dispatchers can transfer landline calls, they cannot currently transfer cellular calls.

Less than a minute after the original call was placed from All Angels, a second person called 911 to report the parishioner had collapsed. That call also went to a Sarasota County dispatcher, who correctly sent the call to Manatee County.

“It didn’t really cause that much of a delay,” Dezzi said. “The Longboat Key dispatcher did the right thing.”

The eight-minute response time was higher than the department’s average of five minutes, but, it wasn’t unusual.

“Eight minutes isn’t bad, especially considering where the trucks are,” Dezzi said. “Anything above eight minutes is something where we would ask what the delay was.”

But Dezzi, who believes the town should accept Sarasota County’s offer, worries about the potential for delays in the current system.

“These transfers, we can’t continue to have them,” Dezzi said. “There is a potential for mistakes.”

Meanwhile at the church, the parishioner who collapsed was conscious when firefighter/paramedics arrived and transported him to Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Although Bishop, who spoke at the March 23 workshop, believes technology upgrades are necessary to the current system, she worries about the possibility of getting rid of Longboat Key dispatchers.

For example, a Sarasota County dispatcher told one of the callers to provide a street address, according to Bishop.

“We’re an island of tourists,” Bishop said. “If a tourist is having a medical emergency, and the tourist says, ‘I’m in front of the Michael Saunders office, and it’s right next to a beach shop, that local dispatcher is going to have an idea of where that person is. My worst fear is, we eliminate that second line of defense we have.”

Cumming is still hopeful that the commission will change its decision and opt to keep town dispatchers.

Number to know: 911
Many residents call the seven-digit numbers for the Longboat Key Fire Rescue and Police departments when they’re having an emergency — and that’s a practice the town discourages because it can cause delays.

Firefighter/paramedics have to call Manatee County dispatch when they get an emergency call on the seven-digit line. Calls to the fire department’s seven-digit line aren’t recorded, and there’s no way for personnel to determine where the call originated.
The town is distributing flyers encouraging the use of 911 for emergencies.