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SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake County sheriff says people are dying because of confusion and problems with the 911 system.
He's calling for a change that would put every agency in the Salt Lake Valley on the same system. At the same time, KSL has obtained the exclusive phone calls the sheriff says prove his point.
In one instance, dispatchers across the valley debated who should send an ambulance.
"I'm just showing this on our screens as Salt Lake City fire. Do you want us to take this?" a male dispatcher asked.
"Oh, hold on," a female dispatcher answered.
A woman who was desperate for help for her ailing husband exclaimed, “Guys. Just come!”
In an entirely different case, a female dispatcher said, "Hey, I don't know if this is you or VECC."
The Salt Lake Valley’s three dispatch centers even debated what the call was about.
"I have no idea," the dispatcher said. "I don't know what it is. I'm just looking at the call. That's why I was calling you guys to see if you had it, to see if you knew what it was."
It took three separate calls, spanning 15 minutes, to resolve who would respond to the medical problem.
"The calls have been bungled," said Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder. "I don't recall anything that I've ever seen that has been this disheartening relative to our system."
The calls have been bungled. I don't recall anything ... that has been this disheartening relative to our system.
–Sheriff Jim Winder
Winder said troubles grew when Sandy City moved its dispatch services to Salt Lake from Valley Emergency Communications and the neighboring cell towers sent calls from Midvale and other surrounding cities to the wrong dispatch centers. And because Unified and Salt Lake dispatchers and Valley Emergency Communications are on different computer-aided systems, Winder said response times have been slowed to the point where some calls turn into an emergency.
"Why am I sitting here with my loved one who is either suffering or in some instances not breathing, and there's nobody arriving? That's happening," Winder said.
John Inch Morgan, executive director of the Valley Emergency Communications Center, said since the changes went into place, VECC has seen transferred emergency calls grow from roughly between 600 and 700 a month to 2,200 a month.
Despite an offer from Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams to fund a unification of CAD (computer aided dispatch) systems, Winder said city mayors continue to disagree over issues as simple as Apple or Windows computer operating systems.
"What is blocking it? Petty turfism and politics," Winder said.
There is a different view in Sandy.
"We're happy with how things are currently," said Sgt. Jon Arnold of the Sandy City Police Department.
He said communication between dispatch centers is as good as it’s ever been.
But on the west side, West Valley City Mayor Ron Bigelow said, "West Valley City supports going to a single CAD system."
However, "It doesn't make any sense to go spend $1 million fixing the problem and then find out it didn't work or we chose the wrong one," he added.
Radio systems used by the three dispatch services are similar. Freitag said the Salt Lake system is now digital while the other two are still analog.
He’s calling for an independent review to determine the best CAD option.
Meanwhile, Salt Lake City 911 Director Scott Freitag said dispatchers are planning an audit of cell towers and will release the findings to cellphone providers, which ultimately must decide themselves to change the configurations of their own equipment.
Winder said county residents should call for an external audit of the 911 system, the recent changes and difficulties.
"This was ill-conceived and presents an inherent public safety risk," he said.
Freitag said a CAD-to-CAD interface goes into place this weekend that dispatchers expect to alleviate some of the computer transfer issues. Winder said that set-up ultimately requires updating and will cost more money than an across-the-board fix.
