Training, public safety background helped Butler dispatchers make house fire rescue
BUTLER TWP — When firefighters climbed a burning home and rescued Bryonna Spurk, 16, from her second-story bedroom on April 8, they were given directions by dispatchers at the Butler County 911 Center across town, who kept their cool and gave clear instructions.
“It was a normal morning for us. We were maybe a little busy, but it was a pretty normal start to a daylight shift until she called in,” dispatcher Nathan Blackwood said. “I didn’t hear other calls that came in because I was tied up with helping her.”
“I was on the line with her for 16 minutes. She did a great job,” Blackwood added.
Bryonna and her mother, Andrea Cinci, got to meet the dispatchers who helped save Bryonna from the house fire on Wednesday, April 22. It’s something the dispatchers said they don’t always get to do. The dispatchers estimated they don’t know the outcome of 98% of the calls they take, because ambulance or fire crews deal with it and they don’t always hear anything from the hospital.
“It’s nice to have this outcome from all of this,” Blackwood said.
Blackwood and his co-worker, Bobby Samarin, have received various community recognitions since helping direct firefighters to Bryonna’s exact location. However, they credit Bryonna with being the reason they were able to do their jobs that day. They said before she went unconscious, she described over the phone the layout of the entire house, how to get to the bedroom from both the front door entrance and how to get there from the outside of the house.
Samarin was then able to relay the information to the fire department as it was en route and on the scene.
Rob McLafferty, emergency services coordinator, said his staff has previous experience and training in public safety, which helps them do their jobs and take on critical situations in a fast and effective manner.
At the 911 Center, the main floor is organized to operate smoothly, split down the middle. Callers on one side of the room take incoming calls from the public and send them over to the dispatchers. The dispatchers then contact the emergency services and assist their response.
Backgrounds for the employees at the center include EMS, fire and police.
“Being able to go from zero to 60, and jump in and help direct the firefighters like that, you can’t teach that stuff,” McLafferty said.
Blackwood and Samarin said this was the first call for a house fire with entrapment they have taken that had a victim on the other end of the phone line, in the inside of the house. Normally, calls come from someone on the outside of the house, reporting someone is on the inside.
“It’s not very often we see that sort of outcome, after everything that happened. It’s very rare,” Samarin said. “Usually, if you’re speaking to someone and they say someone’s trapped in a house, you find out there wasn’t anybody actually inside, or you get the bad outcome that nobody wants to know or see.”
Cinci said she, her daughter and their dog, who was rescued by a neighbor, briefly stayed with Bryonna’s grandmother. She said Catholic Charities found them an apartment, where they plan to stay there until they find a new house.
Since the fire, a GoFundMe to support the family, now searching for new housing, has raised more than $9,000.
