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EAST LIVERPOOL -- Four East Liverpool firefighters and an East Liverpool police dispatcher were treated and released with no serious injuries following exposure to carbon monoxide on Monday night.
Fire Chief Antony Cumo made the decision to send all five exposed to the carbon monoxide to the hospital for evaluation even though they may have appeared fine and said they felt fine. He wanted to take precautionary measures to ensure they were healthy and not affected by exposure.
Jones said no one wanted to go to the hospital, but Cumo said to be safe they all were sent to the hospital.
They were all treated with high flow oxygen to bring their oxygen levels up and released with no need to keep any of them overnight.
The final discharge was made at 2 a.m. Jones and Cumo were both at the hospital with them until the last was released.
Jones said all five of them are doing well, there are no lasting effects and they were all back to work the next day with no time loss.
Jones said they are aware the outcome could have been worse if they had gone to bed, but luckily, it didn't happen that way, and they are going to make absolutely sure this does not happen again.
"We come out of this lucky," Jones said. "No one is going to have any long-term effects from it. There were no significant injuries or illnesses."
When the incident started and the crew was sent to the hospital, off duty crew members and a dispatcher were brought in to ensure coverage and that public safety was maintained by making sure trucks and ambulances were available and there was no loss of services during that time.
Safety-Service Director Bill Jones said that the incident with a planned power outage throughout the East Liverpool area by AEP, which the police department was not notified of.
"They gave us no knowledge of this," Jones said. "I checked with dispatch; they received no call and the next thing you we are without power."
Jones noted he heard from other people after the fact that it was a planned outage, and they were notified by phone, but unfortunately the police department never received that call.
Jones said he is trying to find out from AEP why the police department was not notified and why a potential one-hour outage turned into an eight-hour outage. He has been unable to make contact with the city's liaison at AEP.
Jones also noted that if this was a planned outage, notifying the police department of it was a disruption of public safety in the City of East Liverpool by AEP. He went on to say the police department should have been notified before any planned outage to allow them to prepare for it, so emergency services continue uninterrupted.
Jones said he is not putting the blame on AEP for what happened at the fire department but as public safety entity, they needed to be notified so they could properly prepare. He further said that if the outage is due to an accident, someone hitting a pole, power failure he could understand that, but with this supposedly being a planned outage with no notification, that is wrong and that put public safety at risk.
All dispatchers were asked if they received a call notifying them and they all said no. Calls into dispatch are recorded so there would be a record if they had been notified.
When the power went out, according to Jones, the generator that should have provided backup power for the dispatch center failed to fire up, so dispatching services were moved to the secondary location which is the East Liverpool Fire Department.
Jones said the fire department was also without power, and their generator located on the first floor was able to fire up and run providing the power to the department's lights, radios and most of the building.
Jones said the generator was running, and the firefighters and dispatcher were upstairs at the station doing their duties.
At some point during the power outage, it is at this time not known who, but someone closed the downstairs Bay doors which were opened for ventilation while the generation was running.
Jones noted the doors are always left open for ventilation if the generator, which is used only for backup purposes to power the station, is needed because it runs inside since there is nowhere around the department to put an exterior generator.
The department’s generator is smaller one in a room that has ventilation, but the doors to the station have to be opened to help with that ventilation.
Jones said there is an investigation being conducted on the incident with officer actions reports being completed to find out when, where and how the incident so they can change how they handle things from here out.
The investigation is ongoing as they gather statements from the employees involved and find out who shut the doors.
Jones said at this point, they don't know who it was and speculates it could have been someone passing by, such as an off-duty firefighter or anyone else and noticed the door opened and shut it not knowing the generator was running. He emphasized at this point that anything he has is simply speculation until the investigation is complete.
Jones is going to have the city auditor look for money to get the generator at the police station replaced so services can be maintained if there the power is out. The city does a generator in mind they would like to purchase and are just trying to find the funds for it and noted that a disastrous situation could have happened based on a financial decision regarding the purchase of a generator.
"That investigation is ongoing. This was a mistake and everybody makes mistakes," Jones said. "It was an embarrassing mistake, but we are working through it. We are going to fix it, so it doesn't happen again. This is how we learn things. Everybody learns from their mistakes, and we are going to own our mistakes."
Jones reiterated that it was an embarrassing mistake but a mistake that could have happened to anyone and one to learn from. He also noted the city is going to learn from it, and he hopes that it can be a teaching moment, that once the public is aware of the incident they will learn from it also. If it can happen at a fire department, it can happen in your house.
kgarabrandt@mojonews.com