TRI-RAIL NIGHTMARE: Did Boca Fire Bungle Response To Death By Train?
The Friday night death-by-train incident in Boca Raton exposed bad emergency management, a problem with emergency communications, and an apparent leadership issue within Boca Raton Fire Rescue, according to sources familiar with the agency’s response.
By Sunday night, Boca Raton Fire Chief John Treanor was still offering only this 15-word statement: Boca Raton Fire Rescue responded to a fatality accident late last night involving a train. The statement raises serious questions about Treanor’s management of the situation and came only after BocaNewsNow.com twice requested an explanation about the agency’s response.
As BocaNewsNow.com reported exclusively, a person was struck by a Tri-Rail train just past the Broward County-Palm Beach County line around 10:45 p.m. Friday. Apparently believing the incident occurred in Broward County, Tri-Rail alerted Broward County Fire Rescue, which immediately dispatched multiple crews. Those medics, within minutes, realized the incident occurred just to the north, in the City of Boca Raton. That’s when problems started.
Broward County was unable to reach Boca Raton over a shared two-way radio frequency. The communication issue was so bad, so frustrating, that a Broward County first responder called Boca Raton Fire Rescue on the phone — like a normal citizen reporting an incident. But Boca Raton dispatchers apparently couldn’t get Boca Raton Fire Rescue to expedite a response. While two Boca Raton ambulances were on I-95, dealing with two people who had overdosed on drugs and were sitting on the side of the highway, Broward County had no idea what Boca Raton was doing — if anything, at all.
Over the following twenty minutes, Broward County tried multiple times to figure out whether Boca Raton knew there was a train incident…where its rescuers were… whether a victim needed medical attention… and who was in command of the scene.
Passengers on the train paint a picture of complete emergency management mayhem:
I was on the train when it happened on my way back to Delray Beach, said a passenger. It took 4 hours to get the train moving again. A Tri-Rail onboard officer said accidents on the track happen but normally only take 30-45 minutes to clear and resume transit. This was an absolute nightmare for everyone on board being stuck for four hours with no information. I could hear the conductor freaking out from the cockpit ‘how could the situation get any goddamn worse? what is happening out there!?’
A body was ultimately found in the area of SW 18th Street east of Military Trail. Boca Raton Police later confirmed this was a case of suicide by train. The agency, however, could not comment on the apparent dispatch and response issues of Boca Raton Fire Rescue. Officials said Friday night’s management staff wasn’t scheduled to return to work until Tuesday.
A source familiar with the incident and dispatch procedures suggests something went wrong: The incident location on the CSX/Tri-Rail tracks between SW 18th Street and Camino Real lies within the city limits of Boca Raton. The railroad dispatcher knew this because the train engineer told her it was at milepost SX996.8, so I don’t know why she contacted Broward County. The counties exchange calls pretty much daily that get directed to the wrong 911 call center, so that shouldn’t have been an impediment for Broward to notify Boca over the usual means.
While Boca Raton handles its own dispatch duties, it does share radio frequencies with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, which recently began encrypting its dispatch communication. Palm Beach County claims that it’s required to do so in an effort to thwart terrorists from hampering responses, but no other agency in the area is encrypting its vital dispatch broadcasts. Some suggest Palm Beach County’s new dispatch radio policy may be to blame, making it difficult for agencies in Broward County to clearly communicate, over two-way radios, with agencies just yards away in Palm Beach County.
The Boca Raton Police homicide unit ultimately took control of the investigation. While it is not believed that a faster response by Boca Raton Fire Rescue would have led to a different outcome for the victim, it raises questions about what happened, whether policies and protocols were followed, and whether Palm Beach County’s radio dispatch scrambling could lead to further problems for responses where moments could mean the difference between life and death.
