A matter of time

Bob Spielberger noticed Gordy Weil, 66, in distress during a 60s Match Feb. 11, at Cedars Tennis Club.

“Gordy clenched the fence and seemed unsteady,” Spielberger said.

Players rushed to Weil, urging him to be seated.

After a few minutes, Weil said he was feeling better and insisted on standing. He immediately began listing to the left; Bob Dreyfuss and Dwayne Compton gently laid him on the court.

Spielberger made the first 911 call at 12:56 p.m.

What followed left many witnesses questioning how the town responds to emergencies.

Spielberger didn't know the exact address.

“They asked me to guess, so I gave them an address in the 5000 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive,” he said.

But that address sent a Longboat Key Fire Rescue truck and ambulance to 5650 Gulf of Mexico Drive just south of Cedars, according to Longboat Key Fire Rescue Chief Paul Dezzi.

Another call was made at 1 p.m. by someone who provided the correct address. The Key’s fire stations dispatched two units at 1:01 p.m. One unit went to the wrong address about one-fifth of a mile away, and the other headed for Cedars.

Firefighter/paramedics arrived on-scene with a fire truck at 1:03 p.m. and were by Weil’s side by 1:04 p.m. 

The Key’s south-end ambulance was on its way back from the mainland from another call  before arriving on-scene four minutes later at 1:07 p.m.

In the 11 minutes it took for both units to arrive, Weil lost his pulse but recovered it after Dreyfuss  performed CPR.

“He was actually talking to us when we were trying to reach his wife on his cellphone,” said Jim Forst, captain of the 60s team.

Firefighter/paramedics took over and began tests, leaving for Blake Medical Center in Bradenton at 1:18 p.m. They arrived at the hospital at 1:31 p.m., and Weil died in the cardiac center a short time later.

Many witnesses criticized the number of questions dispatchers had for those who made 911 calls.

“Some of the questions were just ridiculous,” Forst said. “It’s an unbelievable tragedy. He was just 66.”

Others say it took longer than the registered response times for firefighter/paramedics to arrive.

“One person was almost certain the ambulance had not arrived by 1:21 p.m. after they notified the victim’s family,” said Cedars member Rebecca McPheters.

Spielberger said it seemed “like an unbelievably long time” before help arrived.

But Dezzi said the confusion over the address, which led some of his firefighter/paramedics to be dispatched to the wrong address, didn’t delay the response.

It took the fire truck just two minutes to arrive on scene and the south-end ambulance six minutes to arrive; Dezzi also said that all of his firefighters are trained paramedics so the delay from the ambulance didn’t delay medical response treatment.

“This was a very good response and transport time,” Dezzi said.

Calls are dispatched almost immediately while dispatchers continue to ask callers questions to attain more information for emergency responders.

Dezzi, who was on the scene of the incident that day, said firefighter/paramedics responded to the call “by the book.”

While McPheters and others also took issue with why Weil was transported to Bradenton even though he stated he wanted to go to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Dezzi said his department followed protocol.

“Our policy is if the patient is unstable, they will go to the closest facility,” Dezzi said. “If they are stable, we will take them to a requested facility.”

McPheters said she questions whether the town’s 911 dispatch conversion to Sarasota County is the best and most efficient way to handle 911 calls on the Key.

“Dispatchers with first-hand familiarity with the area and local landmarks are essential to public safety,” McPheters said. “If ‘tennis courts at Cedars’ had been communicated locally, there would have been little room for doubt as to where their assistance was needed."

Longboat Key Police Chief Pete Cumming, though, confirmed his current dispatchers don’t handle any 911 calls that are strictly firefighter/paramedic calls in nature.

Dezzi said the conversion, now expected in the first week of April, will make 911 calls more efficient.

That’s because Sarasota County will dispatch both fire and police calls after the transition. Sarasota County also hopes that technology from cellular carriers will change soon to allow its equipment to determine the location from which a call is being placed. Current technology can only identify tower the phone is using to make the call. And by 2017, Longboat Key police and fire departments will be able to talk to each other over the radio on the same frequency level.

Dezzi and Cedars' members, meanwhile, are planning to sit down together Friday to go over the response time and protocols. Dezzi said he will review all the dispatch tapes and times before the meeting.