LP1 Assignment: Communications

Write a brief essay using the following format:

Answer the directions below in no more than 1,500 words. The assignment should be submitted using Microsoft Word with default margins, using 12 point Times New Roman black font, be double-spaced, and be in essay format.

Default Margin Formatting:
Alignment: Left
Outline Level: Body Text
Indentation: Left & Right: 0
Special: None
By: Leave blank
Spacing: Before & After: 0
Line Spacing: Double
At: Leave blank
Don’t add space between paragraphs of same style: Do not ‘check’

Scenario:

It is 2:03 a.m. on a dark and stormy night. In fact, a thunderstorm began at 9:15 p.m., just a few hours ago, and it seems to have only gained strength. You are a first-responder in a large metropolitan city and on-duty at the station house.

BOOM! There goes another thunder boom. It startles you. You just begin to sooth your nerves when the siren goes off. It’s go time!

You suite up, get in the firetruck, and start driving towards an unknown scene. Information starts coming in through dispatch. “Four chemical trucks have collided on the entrance to the expressway”.

…just as this dispatch comes in, the firetruck you are in slams the breaks and you feel the firetruck slide a good distance. The driver says on the radio, “Whew! That was close. This torrential down-pour is making these roads slick!”

You focus your attention back to the dispatches arriving, in near rapid-fire succession, over the radio: “Be aware that two of the chemical trucks are leaking and the other two are a possible leak as well.” “Two POVs (privately-owned vehicles) are involved on scene as well. Both crashes, one into a chemical truck that is leaking, the other into a tree on the shoulder” “Be advised the POV crash, into the leaking chemical truck, has two children and two adults inside the vehicle. Unconfirmed if dead or alive.”

You arrive on scene to a true catastrophe. Your firetruck is the first fire response on scene. The metro city police, and county police, are already on the scene. State police response is uncertain. As you move towards the scene to assess the situation, you hear the metro police captain and the county sheriff arguing:

“This is MY scene to process, Sheriff! The chemical truck at-fault had an intoxicated driver. This is going to get the good citizens of metro city much-needed funding for projects, such as a homeless shelter and a mobile needle-exchange program.”

“No it’s not!” Yelled the sheriff. “This involves a multi-collision chemical truck accident and I have to notify the state police so they can send a HAZMAT and decontamination unit. That is MY responsibility. The county is going to sue that rotten chemical company for employing intoxicated drivers because WE need the money!”

You then hear loud honking. You look back, to access to the scene, and see cars stopped in a long succession- access to the scene is blocked! You realize that law enforcement, who are still driving to the scene, are going to be delayed. You get on your radio to tell dispatch to notify law enforcement and that a traffic re-route is going to be needed. You push the talk button on your radio and it doesn’t work. The battery died!

You hop back into the driver’s seat of the firetruck. You get on the radio to call in your requests in to dispatch. You find a working radio and begin to call it in. You get a garbled reply- you cannot tell, after repeating the communication three times, if dispatch has a good copy of your transmission.

You then switch the frequency to the ‘interoperable communications’ frequency that has been designated for state, county, and local law enforcement to communicate on during a critical incident. You send a call out and only the state policy reply. You receive the following reply: “Good copy- we were unaware that the critical incident happened. Can you tell the sheriff to get on this radio? We learned yesterday that the sheriff’s office couldn’t access this frequency with their radios.”

Instructions:

* You, the student, are required to use the class text to answer questions 1, 2, and 3 (A & B). You are required to use the class text, and properly APA cite it, for every assignment in this course.

1. IDENTIFY the eight (8) Uncontrollable Factors at the scene. EVALUATE which Uncontrollable Factors affect resolving the scene the most, rank-order them, and EXPLAIN how you arrived at your conclusion.

2. DESCRIBE the importance of ‘interoperable communications’

3. WRITE an action plan that meets the following content requirements:

A. DETERMINE what the communication errors were at the scene.

B. PROPOSE an action plan to remedy the communication errors.

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