Emails After Delray Beach, FL, Rig, Train Collision Show Fallout

Ride-alongs canceled. Administrators asking for recusal. A script for fire department employees to follow when answering calls from outraged citizens and a $1.4 million replacement fire truck.

It has been nearly three months since the violent crash between a Delray Beach Fire Rescue engine and a Brightline train on Dec. 28. Emails between fire department and city officials newly released to the South Florida Sun Sentinel show more details of the fallout in the days following the crash and the steps taken early on to manage it.

There was confusion for days afterward about whether or not the crew involved was responding to an emergency call at the time, the emails show. At least one elected official was left in the dark for more than a week about whether the employee driving the fire truck had an active license that day.

Some questions that surfaced in the aftermath have since been answered: A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigation confirmed the crew was responding to an apartment fire at the time of the crash. While all of the employees involved in the crash had active licenses that day, another recently concluded investigation found that several Delray Beach Fire Rescue employees had been driving fire engines and rescue trucks with suspended licenses at some point without supervisors’ knowledge because the process used to review the status of licenses was convoluted and inadequate.

Driver Engineer David Wyatt has been issued a noncriminal traffic citation for failing to use “due care” by driving over the railroad tracks despite the lowered crossing gates as the Brightline barreled toward it at nearly 80 mph. Two top fire department administrators who were placed on leave have been cleared of any wrongdoing. And the city has also since bought a replacement truck.

But some things are still unresolved.

The fire department has yet to finish its investigation of the Dec. 28 crash itself, and Delray Beach Police are still investigating their handling of a 2023 off-duty crash involving Wyatt. Chief Ronald Martin said in one email that he was reviewing the fire department’s Training Division “to identify deficiencies that could have contributed to the incident.”

City officials are also actively considering making safety changes to the railroad crossing at the intersection where the crash happened, Vice Mayor Juli Casale told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

Replacement truck

It would have cost the city about $2.3 million to replace the destroyed 2009 Pierce aerial platform firetruck with a similar vehicle, according to officials’ emails.

Chief Martin within days of the crash told city commissioners and City Manager Terrence Moore that he recommended buying a $1.4 million smaller apparatus with a 75-foot ladder with the caveat that it could potentially downgrade the fire department’s Insurance Service Office Public Protection Classification rating. Martin wrote on Dec. 30 that in a “worst-case scenario” the downgrade could potentially minimally increase residential and some commercial property insurance rates.

Casale said the city has since approved the purchase and entered a lease-purchase agreement for the smaller firetruck. She said Tuesday she did not believe that it would affect the department’s ISO rating.

Leaders asked for recusal

Wyatt and Capt. Brian Fiorey, who also was on the firetruck on Dec. 28, as well as Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Green and Division Chief Todd Lynch were placed on administrative leave following the crash.

Prior to the crash, Wyatt had driven city vehicles with a suspended license from August to December 2023, according to the fire department investigation of driver’s licenses that concluded last month. He was one of several employees who had a suspended license while at some point working for the fire department, the report showed.

Lynch and Green were investigated to determine their involvement in how licenses were reviewed and whether they knew of the suspensions. The investigation found that the department’s process, which required scrolling through hundreds of pages of a PDF document from the DMV, was confusing for even experienced people to determine the actual status of licenses, according to the report.

Lynch was placed on leave on Jan. 3, records previously obtained by the Sun Sentinel show. Just days before that, Martin had tasked Lynch with working as a liaison for an investigator from the State Fire Marshal’s office. Lynch, as a member of the department’s own safety committee, was to conduct a review for the committee at the same time, the emails show.

Lynch asked that he be excused from the assignment to “avoid any perceived conflict of interest” because he was Wyatt’s family liaison, he said in his reply to Martin. The chief asked who he thought should take the assignment instead. Lynch replied that it would depend on how involved they would need to be, the emails show.

“These are 19- and 20-year employees and most if not all of our Chief Officers have significant personal relationships with both Captain Fiorey and DE Wyatt,” Lynch wrote in one response to Martin. “I don’t know any of us would pass an impartiality review from the outside.”

The other administrator who Martin gave the same assignment, a captain who was also a member of the department’s safety committee, similarly asked to be excused.

“My relationship with Capt. Fiorey and D/E Wyatt would not allow me to be impartial. I was hired with Dave and he was in my wedding party. I have also been friends with Brian for nearly 20 years. In addition, I was working on one of the 1st arriving Engine’s and was involved in scene management as well as patient care of the injured firefighters. For these reasons I request removal from this assignment,” the captain wrote.

A different division chief was given the assignment by the next day, the emails show.

Lynch recently announced his reinstatement on social media, while blasting the way the fallout was handled. Green has retired.

Student riding on another truck

A “student observer” was riding with a crew on a different, uninvolved Delray Beach Fire Rescue truck on the day of the crash, leading Martin to temporarily suspend all ride-alongs, the recently released emails show.

“In my professional judgment, this action is prudent, warranted, and in alignment with Best Practices for risk management,” Martin wrote to the city manager, city attorney and human resources director on Dec. 30.

He issued a general order suspending the ride-alongs later that day, in place until the department’s internal investigation of the crash is finished, the emails show.

The investigation into the crash itself was put on hold while the investigation of licenses was underway, according to Martin’s emails. The city has not provided an estimated timeframe for when it will be completed.

The Federal Railroad Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are both still investigating the crash, spokespersons for those agencies told the Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

“We have collected information on this event but do not have plans to publish any information at this time,” Sarah Sulick, an NTSB spokesperson, said in an email.

‘If asked about responsibility’

Martin was slammed by the union on social media and in an email to commissioners on Jan. 3 for “prematurely” releasing the names of the employees placed on leave. He wasn’t the only one feeling the heat, the emails show.

Two days after the crash, a fire department executive emailed the city’s spokesperson and Martin asking for a “scripted response” to use when answering phone calls.

The short script emailed in response directed employees to say that the firefighters and Brightline passengers injured were “receiving care,” that no one died and that the cause of the crash was under investigation.

One part of the script said personnel “if asked about responsibility” should reply with: “We understand there are many questions, but the investigation is still ongoing, and we cannot comment on the cause at this time. The City is fully cooperating with all investigating agencies,” according to the email.

Days later, Martin emailed civilian administrators, acknowledging they had been “on the frontlines of receiving and listening to some profanity, obscenity, and demeaning messaging” since Dec. 28. He directed them to “follow the messaging” developed by the city’s spokesperson, to report it to Martin if anyone became threatening and to hang up the phone if someone “becomes intolerably abusive.”

“I like a saying from former First Lady Michelle Obama that helps me: “When they go low, we go high!” Martin wrote in the email to civilian administrators. “I reiterate this saying to myself to help keep my attention and response to these difficult times gauged and appropriate. Therefore, I share it with you in the hopes you can find some solace in it as well.”