9News has learned that two DC firefighters were found sleeping on the job. And not in the firehouse, but asleep in an ambulance that had been dispatched to a 911 emergency.
In light of the recent report on the death of David Rosenbaum, DC's fire chief is livid. Fire Chief Adrian Thompson talked exclusively with 9News reporter Dave Statter about this latest stain on the department.
Statter said he’s never heard the chief so angry and determined to take immediate action against those two firefighters who missed a call because they were asleep inside an ambulance next to a DC school.
The incident happened about 1:45 a.m. Monday when a supervisor discovered two firefighters sound asleep in the front of an ambulance in an alley on the side of Alice Deal Junior High School off of Nebraska Avenue.
The fire department confirms that at 1:21 a.m., the ambulance crew was dispatched to help a woman with chest pains and trouble breathing on Butterworth Place Northwest. The crew never responded and never answered the dispatcher.
After six minutes, a different ambulance was sent on the call. That ambulance took the woman form Butterworth Place to Sibley Hospital. In the meantime the supervisor was able to track the missing ambulance and crew to the high school because the ambulances are equipped with automatic vehicle locators.
In the Inspector General’s report on the death of David Rosenbaum, the fire chief heard a lot about poorly trained medical workers, a lost ambulance crew and a list of other problems. But now discovering that an ambulance crew missed a call because they were sleeping is a new problem for the fire chief.
