Fire Station Still Under Siege Even With Backup Aid

Stretching back a decade or more, the 17,000 inhabitants of northeast Cypress were the only city dwellers in Orange County depending on an antiquated volunteer fire station that regularly failed to respond to life-threatening emergencies in time to prevent fatal consequences.

And while the failures were brought to the attention of county fire officials as early as 1983, steps to correct the problem once and for all were only taken after a Westminster firefighter began voicing concerns about poor service to Cypress officials, who have a contract with the county for fire protection and emergency medical service.

According to internal Orange County Fire Department records, Station 12 in Cypress routinely failed to respond to 911 emergency calls within five minutes, the standard adopted by state authorities because irreversible brain damage can occur when cardiac or pulmonary arrest victims do not begin receiving medical treatment within that time.

County fire officials say they have remedied the problem through the automatic dispatch of regular full-time firefighters or paramedics from another nearby fire station every time that Station 12 is called on to answer an emergency. But the remedy was painfully slow in coming.

Fire Department records show that on numerous occasions critical minutes frequently ticked by as Station 12’s firefighters scrambled to muster enough volunteers to man the station’s fire engine, which is equipped with life-saving equipment.

“Engine 12, no response on an ‘infant not breathing’ (call). Engine 17 dispatched at 3 minutes into incident,” reads one typical entry on one in a series of memos that one worried firefighter began sending to his superiors as early as 1983.

Another memo that same year tells of a runner at Cypress College who had a heart attack and died. “Station 12 could not obtain sufficient manpower to man (Engine) 12, so (Engine) 13 handled the call, which resulted in a delayed response. The call was a runner down in full (cardiac) arrest who eventually expired. This seems to be a continual problem with (Engine) 12, not having the manpower or delayed responses.”

Yet another memo, written in March of the following year, pleads with county officials to take corrective action. “Station 17 Medics have responded to full arrests, acute patients, violent patients, TC’s (traffic collisions), etc., where the responding engine arrival was delayed up to 10 minutes because Station 12 did not have the manpower,” the memo states. “Memos have been written regarding this problem; however, the situation continues, resulting in a disservice to the public.”

County Fire Chief Larry Holmes concedes that there have been problems in the past with the response times of Station 12 but that it wasn’t necessarily because they lacked adequate manpower. Like other stations, he said, they could have been out on training, or responding to another call. Whenever manpower problems were brought to the attention of county fire officials, he said, corrective action was immediately taken.

“There have been occasions when we know--because of staff making us aware--that Station 12 is having difficulty,” Holmes said. When this happened, another station would be dispatched simultaneously with Station 12 until the problem was corrected, he said.

Holmes said the memos criticizing Station 12’s performance were not addressed to him but to lower-ranking fire officials. In several interviews, Holmes never questioned the authenticity of the memos, which The Times obtained from a firefighter.

He didn’t want to talk about the memos and instead said there had never been any complaints from the public. Nor had any county studies showed that the department was not meeting the public’s expectations, he said.

Besides, he added, the county would have happily converted Station 12 into a fully manned station, if Cypress had been willing to foot the bill.

According to county officials, it would cost more than a million dollars a year in personnel costs alone to upgrade Station 12 to a full-time fire station. And this doesn’t include the costs of upgrading the 60-year-old building, which was one of several county fire stations deemed seismically unsafe.

“What do you suggest we should have done? There’s not enough money to put another fire station in there,” Holmes replied when asked if the situations described in the memos were serious enough to have warranted double-teaming Station 12 before it became policy to do so last spring.

“As I understand it, our staff has made arrangements to deal with all the issues that have been brought forward,” he added.

The controversy over Station 12 surfaced publicly last November, when Westminster firefighter Craig Campbell took his complaints to a meeting of the Cypress City Council. A captain with the Westminster Fire Department who lives in the coverage area of Station 12, Campbell complained that the volunteers were inadequately trained and didn’t respond on time, if they responded at all.

Even before the controversy surfaced in public, however, Campbell’s activities had apparently prodded county fire officials into taking corrective action.

In December, 1990, Campbell began complaining of the problem to Cypress officials while pressing county fire officials for documents that would reveal the station’s response times.

By March of 1991, more than three months into Campbell’s one-man campaign, the county had begun double-teaming all emergency calls in Station 12’s response area--a policy that was later extended to all areas in the county that relied on volunteer stations.

County officials vigorously deny any connection between the new policy and Campbell’s crusade to convert the station to a paid staff. “The refinements (in policy) aren’t a knee-jerk reaction to someone’s allegations,” Deputy Fire Chief Ken MacLeod said.

Chip Prather, assistant chief of operations for the county Fire Department, said the new backup rule, which became effective countywide on Jan. 31 of this year, was based on a department study concluding that response times in the outer boundaries of volunteer stations were not adequate.

It started earlier in Cypress, officials said, because volunteer Capt. Harry Gardikis alerted county officials that Station 12 was having trouble answering emergency calls.

“There were a couple of years that we hardly had any problems,” said Gardikis, a Station 12 volunteer for more than six years. “(But) for a year we had considerable problems. . . . We had several occasions where we missed calls. Then you are talking five or six minutes before an engine can get on scene as opposed to three or four minutes. I told them there were times when we can’t guarantee coverage.”

Critics, including county firefighters, charge that top Fire Department officials have been aware of glitches in the volunteer system for years but chose to do nothing about it.

“I have been seeing what has been going on for at least 10 years,” said one county paramedic who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity. “It is ridiculous.”

The 60-year-old Station 12, tucked into the corner where Lincoln Avenue intersects Walker Street, hardly seems like the center of what some have dubbed a life and death battle. With its brick siding and interior cedar paneling, it is one of the few remaining all-volunteer stations left in Orange County. All except those in the most remote areas of the county having been converted to full-time stations long ago.

Over the years, the 25 firemen whose names grace the station’s roster have devoted thousands of hours to the city, giving up weekend outings with their families and a full night’s sleep whenever their beepers go off signaling a call. Some are looking to beef up their resumes and be hired as full-time firefighters elsewhere. Others just want to give something back to the community.

In fact, the volunteer firefighters are not the problem, critics say. Rather it is the system that is at fault. From the minute the alarm bell sounds, the volunteers are working with a handicap because--unlike paid firefighters--they have to fight traffic to get to the station and then rush out on the call.

County records show that in 1990, 1991 and 1992, response times for all calls within Station 12’s area averaged around five minutes. But a closer examination shows tremendous disparities in those response times.

In 1990, there were 731 calls in Station 12’s area, and 48% of the time the first unit failed to arrive at the scene within five minutes. This falls far short of the county’s own goal of having an engine on scene within five minutes 80% of the time.

Even after Station 12 started getting automatic backup in 1991, the station’s response times still fell short of the target, arriving at the scene within five minutes about 70% of the time.

So far in 1992 a marked improvement has been made. Out of 173 emergency calls, the first unit has made it to the scene within five minutes 79% of the time.

Chief Holmes said there are service disparities in every city. “A person who lives next door to the fire station has a higher level of fire service then the one that lives at the far end . . . and there is nothing we can do about that,” Holmes said. “There is nowhere in the system that gets total complete equity and balance. Every city has those variances. There will be people who tell you they have this even level of service, and it is a bunch of bunk.”

According to Holmes, Fire Department officials until recently lacked comprehensive data to analyze the response times of all stations.

Before they installed their new computer system, they weren’t able to monitor whether they were hitting the five-minute response goal, he said.

“The important issue here is, ‘Are we delivering adequate service or aren’t we?’ ” Holmes said. “We can go back and dig into the past trying to sling mud. The reality is we have adjusted our service and taken care of it.”

But critics charge that for those who didn’t receive critical care on time, it is too little too late.

One county paramedic who said he confronted battalion chiefs about Station 12’s lagging response times several years ago was told it was a matter of economics. “They call it risk management. If you have a certain number of people who get poor service or are adversely affected by lack of response or poor training, a small percentage is acceptable,” he said.