Radio Log With a Direction Correction and a Wrong-Address Arrival
Read the following radio log. 2141 - Dispatch: Engine 27, Medic 27, respond to a reported vehicle fire, 1420 West Vernon Avenue, cross street 42nd, caller reports flames next to a gas station. 2142 - Engine 27: Copy, en route. 2143 - Dispatch: Correction, Engine 27, the address is 1420 East Vernon, cross street 43rd; the caller gave the wrong direction. 2144 - Engine 27: Copy, East Vernon. 2149 - Engine 27: Engine 27 on scene at 1420 West Vernon, nothing showing. 2150 - Dispatch: Engine 27, you are at the wrong address; proceed to 1420 East Vernon. 2154 - Engine 27: On scene East Vernon, one vehicle well involved, exposures to a gas station. The dispatch supervisor notes afterward that the caller's phone location plotted within 40 meters of the East Vernon address, and that the two streets named Vernon are 2.1 miles apart with no direct cross connection.
1. Reconstruct the corrected incident information and explain, using only the log times, where the delay came from.
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Corrected information: vehicle fire, 1420 East Vernon Avenue, cross street 43rd, flames next to a gas station, reported at 2141 with the correction transmitted at 2143.
Where the time went:
- 2143: correction transmitted.
- 2144: unit acknowledges with only Copy, East Vernon - no street number, no cross street. That read-back was accepted.
- 2149: unit reports on scene at the West address, 6 minutes after the correction. It drove to the original address while believing it had acknowledged the correction.
- 2150: dispatch catches the wrong location and re-directs.
- 2154: unit on scene at the correct address.
The arithmetic: correction at 2143 to arrival at the correct address at 2154 is 11 minutes. The avoidable segment is 2143 to 2150, about 7 minutes, plus the 2.1 miles of dead travel.
Cause in one line: the correction changed one word of the address and the read-back changed one word back. Neither party repeated the full address with the cross street, so the error survived the acknowledgment.
2. Write the single radio transmission, as the dispatcher, that would have prevented the 2143 error from surviving.
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Transmission:
Engine 27, correction to your address. Respond to 1420 East Vernon Avenue, cross street 43rd. Repeat: 1420 East Vernon, 43rd. Acknowledge with the full address and cross street.
Why each piece is there:
- Correction to your address - flags that the first transmission is void, so the crew does not hold two addresses in mind.
- 1420 East Vernon - address spoken in full, not just the directional word. East and West are the only difference and both are short words that cut out easily over a radio.
- Cross street 43rd - a second, independent identifier. West Vernon is at 42nd, so 43rd alone rules out the West address.
- Repeat - a second pass costs seconds and gives the crew a chance to write it correctly.
- Acknowledge with the full address and cross street - a partial read-back is what allowed the error to pass. Requiring the full read-back forces the crew to say 1420 East Vernon out loud, which is the step that catches a misheard word.
3. Which detail in the log is location evidence rather than a caller's statement, and how should it have been used?
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The detail: the caller's phone plotted within 40 meters of the East Vernon address. That is device location, not a person's description, and it corroborates the correction.
How it should have been used:
- At 2143, when the direction was corrected, the plot supported the change and could have been cited: correction confirmed by caller location.
- At 2149, when the unit reported nothing showing at the West address, the plot was already on record and should have resolved the dispute in one transmission rather than a 2150 re-direction.
Second piece of evidence: the two Vernons are 2.1 miles apart with no direct cross connection. That confirms the unit could not have seen the incident from the West address, so nothing showing was not evidence that the report was false. A crew can be at the wrong address and report accurately about the wrong block.
Test-taking point: separate what a caller says from what a system records. The caller gave the wrong direction; the device location and the street geometry both pointed east the whole time.