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Report faults 911 audio playback and CAD training after Brook Hollow fire
Summary
Jensen Hughes told commissioners the 911 call from Unit 306 included the apartment number twice but the dispatcher did not use available instant-recall playback and CAD/alarm upgrade procedures were not followed, contributing to delays.
Jensen Hughes' dispatch review concluded the SCEC call-taker processed calls according to APCO benchmarks but that critical information from Ms. Badesky's 911 call—her unit number—was not conveyed to responding units.
"However, that dispatcher did not use incident recall feature, which was available," Brian Nelson said during the presentation, adding that playback may have allowed the unit number to be understood and relayed to incident commanders. The team noted oil‑back-end recording quality can differ from what an operator hears in the headset and that, in this incident, dispatchers were operating at minimum staffing.
The report also identified a CAD/CAD‑upgrade institutional gap: several dispatchers and a supervisor could not reliably place or upgrade a second alarm in the CAD system, creating a delayed 2nd alarm upgrade that county administrators remedied with retraining after the incident. Jensen Hughes recommended routine retraining on CAD alarm upgrades and default use of instant‑recall features in ambiguous audio cases.
Commissioners pressed whether playback would have changed the outcome; Jensen Hughes said playback is recommended and could have helped but acknowledged playback is not always crystal clear on headsets and cannot be guaranteed to resolve every ambiguity.
