Troubles a year ago in DeKalb County

An assistant chief is one of four DeKalb County, Georgia firefighters demoted after an investigation into drinking or being intoxicated on duty during a major ice storm in January. It is a rather complicated and detailed story about various roles investigators say the firefighters played in this latest black eye for the DeKalb County Fire Rescue.

It was a little more than a year ago that the department was dealing with bad publicity surrounding a fire call to an elderly woman’s home. Ann Bartlett died in her burning when firefighters failed to properly respond to her initial 911 call. The fire chief and a number of firefighters and officers lost their jobs during that investigation. With the exception of Chief David Foster most everyone was ordered reinstated to the department.

Here are some excerpts from AJC.com on the latest issue. You will get significantly more detail by reading the entire story:

On Tuesday, Fire Chief Eddie O’Brien announced that Assistant Chief Joseph Tinsley had been reduced in rank to captain despite a month-long investigation that exonerated him, but the chief refused to say why. It was determined that Tinsley drank at Twain’s Billiards & Tap in Decatur with the disciplined firefighters.

Capt. Marcus Reed was demoted two ranks to a firefighter level 2 because his own admission proved his level of intoxication, an investigatory report said. Fire Apparatus Operator William Corbett and Firefighter Joshua Crawford were demoted because they possessed alcohol at Fire Station 24.

O’Brien emphasized that the investigation found no evidence that the firefighters went on any calls while inebriated. He said the intoxicated men reported to the fire station the night before they went on duty intending to sleep off the effects of their drinking.

“They’re all sincere in apologizing to the department, to the county and to the citizens,” O’Brien said. “They didn’t just let me down. They let everybody down.”

See our coverage of the firings over the January 24 fatal fire in DeKalb County

I am sure recall the recent problems with a fire response in DeKalb County, Georgia that left a woman dead and the chief and five of his employees without jobs. An alert STATter911.com reader pointed out this fire on Wednesday morning that has caught the attention of WSB-TV. Here is what is posted on the TV station’s website:

Firefighters told Channel 2 Action News they went to the home on Magnolia Trace in Stone Mountain three times in 24 hours.

They believe the first fire started near a clothes dryer.

Crews put out that fire and then went back a second time to put out hot spots.

Then another fire broke out in the attic, according to Fire Department officials.

 ”Roughly 2-3 hours later we responded back to flames through the roof,” said Capt. Eric Jackson of the DeKalb County Fire Department.

No one was at the home when that final fire started. 

Click here for STATter911.com’s previous coverage of this story and to read DeKalb County report

Captain Sell Caldwell is the fifth member of the fire department in DeKalb County, Georgia to be fired over the January 24 fire that took the life of 74-year-old Ann Bartlett. The impact of the error filled response, detailed in a county report, also resulted in the immediate resignation of Chief David Foster earlier this week.

The video above includes some of the radio transmissions for both the initial response to Bartlett’s home and the response of firefighters five hours later when her home had already been destroyed. Bartlett’s body was recovered from the rubble.

A police investigation continues to see if there were any criminal violations in the actions taken by responding firefighters.

WGCL-TV image.

More from FirefighterCloseCalls.com

AJC.com

More on this story and internal report on the fire here and here:

From John Shirek at WXIA-TV:

DeKalb County Fire Chief David Foster has resigned, CEO Burrell Ellis announced Monday evening.

The shake-up at the DeKalb County Fire Department continues and has now reached the top.

Late Monday afternoon, the fire chief himself, David Foster, resigned.

DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis did not give a reason in his brief press release.

The timing of the resignation is striking, since the fire department is under investigation over the death of Ann Bartlett in a house fire in Dunwoody on January 24.

On January 29, Foster fired four of the firefighters who responded to Bartlett’s house fire, accusing them of neglect of duty.

Ann Bartlett was 74 years old and was using an oxygen machine. She had called 911 to say her house was on fire and she was unable to get out.

Then her phone line stopped working.

Soon after the firefighters arrived at her house, they left, because they did not see any flames. They never knocked on her door.

Five hours later flames broke through the house and neighbors called 911, but Ann Bartlett had already died.

Now the tragedy, and the firefighters, are under criminal investigation.

David Foster had been DeKalb Fire-Rescue Chief since January of 2003.

Monday night, Ann Bartlett’s neighbors said they want answers and changes.

“It’s extremely sad,” said Maria DeArenas, “because she counted on the firefighters and they were not there for her.”

“I think it was negligence on their part,” said Tom Brooks, who lives next door to Bartlett’s burned home, and says he is still incredulous at what happened. “And hopefully, this won’t happen again. I hope a lot of people have learned some lessons.”

Ann Bartlett’s daughter, Ruth Bartlett, told 11Alive News on the phone Monday that the family preferred to say nothing about the chief’s resignation. She repeated what family members said last week, that they are just waiting as the investigation proceeds and they don’t want this to happen to anyone else.

DeKalb CEO Ellis appointed Deputy Fire Chief Eddie O’Brien to be Acting Chief.

More from AJC.com

More from The Secret List

Read DeKalb County report into fire response

From the AP:

Four firefighters were terminated Thursday and they are being investigated by police for their response to a house fire that killed an elderly woman.

The DeKalb County firefighters responded to a 911 call from the home about 1 a.m. Sunday and left after they didn’t see any signs of flames or smoke.

But according to an investigative report, they didn’t follow department procedure to approach the home, verify the address and make contact with the 911 caller. 

Ann Bartlett in a family photo.

Most of the firefighters who responded to the call stayed in their vehicles, only getting out to help the trucks turn around in the cul-de-sac near the home, according to the report.

About six hours later, a neighbor called 911 to report the same house was fully engulfed in flames. Ann Bartlett, 74, was found dead inside from smoke inhalation.

“These officers didn’t follow policy, and that’s why they’re being terminated,” county public safety director William Z. Miller said Friday.

Police in Dunwoody, a northern Atlanta suburb, have launched a criminal investigation into the fire department’s response, police Chief Billy Grogan said.

The four firefighters are acting officer in charge William Greene, Capt. Tony L. Motes, Battalion Chief Lesley Clark and Battalion Chief Bennie J. Paige. A fifth firefighter, Capt. Sell Caldwell, has been put on leave with pay as an investigation into his actions continues, DeKalb County spokeswoman Shelia Edwards said.

Paige did not immediately return a call for comment Friday. There were no public phone listings for the rest of the firefighters and it was not known if they had retained attorneys.

Bartlett’s daughter, Ruth, said Friday she hopes “every firefighter learns from this.” She said her family wants an apology from the firefighters.

“We know those four men feel awful,” she said in a telephone interview. “First, we were very shocked. Then we were very sad, and as the facts started to unravel, we became mad. Now as we see they are resolving and taking actions they deem appropriate, we are starting to heal.”

Read DeKalb County Fire Investigation Report

More at FirefighterCloseCalls.com

Read more at AJC.com

As we previously reported DeKalb County, Georgia officials launched an investigation into a house fire early Sunday morning. Firefighters responded twice to Ann Bartlett’s home. It was the actions during the first response that resulted in the four fire department officers – Officer in Charge William Greene, Capt. Tony L. Motes, Capt. Sell Caldwell, and Battalion Chief Lesley Clark  being put on leave with pay. Today a report into the fire was released by DeKalb County. Here’s more from an article by Jaye Watson from WXIA-TV:

Ann Bartlett in a family photo.

“Our family wants to tell you what a wonderful and kind woman my mother was.”

Ruth Bartlett and her two sisters and their children stand in front of the home their mother Ann lived in for 41 years. The 74 year old Bartlett called 911 shortly after 1 a.m. sunday morning to report that an oxygen device she used for a pulmonary condition had just set the house on fire.

In a copy of the 911 call made by Bartlett you can hear her say her name and complete address. The operator tells her to evacuate the house and then Bartlett says “hurry!” before the phone was disconnected. The operator tried repeatedly to call Barlett back to no avail.

Fire crews arrived just 12 minutes after the call but in a copy of a report from Dekalb County Fire Department Incident Investigation fire crews ‘failed to establish incident command.’ The report also says ‘Houses on either side of 1687 Houghton Court North had visible addresses, and although not in exact sequence(1691 and 1686), should have provided a clue of the location of 1687 Houghton Court North.

Ruth Bartlett, who met with County and Fire officials thursday morning,tells what happened when crews arrived.

“Those on the scene said they looked around from their trucks here in the cul de sac but did not see any evidence of fire. They observed that our family home up the hill was dark. They did not get out of their trucks and their trucks left the scene at 1:22 am seven minutes after they arrived. No one walked up this hill to her house. No one knocked on anyone’s door asking questions.”

More than five hours later at 6:40 a.m. neighbors called 911 to report Bartlett’s house engulfed in flames. Crews found her body just inside her garage.

Ruth Bartlett says, “We believe the electricity must have gone out because the phone went dead and the electric door opener for the garage would not have gone up. She perished there by the door inside the garage.”

Ruth Bartlett and her sisters can’t bear to think what if? What if the firefighters had walked up the driveway? What if they had followed the ’360 protocol’ which calls for them to walk around the structure and look inside? They believe the firefighters would have found the fire, and their mother, alive.

Bartlett’s children have asked for a personal apology from the firefighters who left the scene. They say their mother, an Atlanta native, lived for her children and grandchildren. A horrible mistake has taken a matriarch away from her family.

“She paid her taxes in Dekalb county for 41 years but when she needed Dekalb County they did not find her. They did not find the person that made that 911 call.”