yes, I was right

the media has been kind. This was printed in today's Sun. Also read an article by Nathan's former little league coach Eric Ernst printed in the Herald Tribune this past week:

05/16/10

Lee's legacy now assured in E-911 bill

OUR POSITION: A deep bow to the people from our communities who worked to pass an E-911 bill that will make everyone safer in the future.

It took two sessions for the Florida Legislature to muster enough political will to pass a no-brainer of a bill improving the state's emergency 911 call operations, but that sorry fact was low on the list of concerns this week at a press conference acknowledging those whose hard work finally resulted in the bill's passage.

The bill came about primarily through the efforts of the family of Denise Amber Lee, whose 2008 murder in North Port after a botched 911 call provided the strongest possible example of the need for improvements in state emergency response standards. As noted in a report conducted by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, emergency call centers in the state may handle as many as 15 million 911 calls in a year, but a mistake in one or two highlighted the enormous, tragic consequences that come when the system fails.

The Lee case is exactly why the public needed to be assured that call centers were being operating with a high level of professionalism. Clearly, there was room for improvement.
Denise Lee's husband, Nathan Lee, took the lead role in the drive for higher standards in Florida, and has continued his outreach throughout the nation. Other family members have joined in. Many in the community have worked for reform through the Denise Amber Lee Foundation.
The result here has been a bill that will require all 911 call-takers and dispatchers in Florida to take a set level of training and pass a certification test in order to do their jobs. It also calls for training updates and renewal every two years. The full law will not take effect until 2012, giving all police agencies time to come into compliance.

As Nathan Lee said during during a press conference at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, the bill is far from perfect, but it is an important step. It does focus attention and begin to plug a critical hole in the public safety system. For the future, Nathan Lee and the Lee Foundation will aim at moving official oversight of dispatch training into the Department of Law Enforcement. They also will work at developing one statewide curriculum for training.
Both are extremely worthy goals.

For now, however, congratulations are extended to the Lee family and the Lee Foundation. The Gulf Coast Community Foundation also helped drive the process. And our local legislators deserve a nod for their efforts to push the bill through, despite opposition from legislators who thought additional costs outweighed public safety considerations.

Rep. Paige Kreegel, R-Punta Gorda, took up the bill last year. But Rep. Ken Roberson, R-Port Charlotte, and Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, managed to complete the job this session. A no-brainer from our perspective, but, amazingly, it took some heavy lifting, as well as a bit of compromise, to get it done.

A long time coming, yes. And a proper legacy for Denise Amber Lee. The improved training that will come as a result of this law just may help ensure another family and other communities will not see a repeat of this type of tragedy in the future.

http://sunnewspapers.net/articles/edStory.aspx?articleID=457156

Widower took his pain and made a difference

By Eric Ernst

Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 9:18 p.m.

In most ways, Nathan Lee is an ordinary person. He's a salesman at Best Buy in Sarasota. He represents no special interest group. But this year he accomplished something unusual; he got a bill passed through the state Legislature.

The bill, awaiting the governor's signature, will elevate the first link of emergency response by requiring 911 operators at all of the state's 258 emergency call centers to undergo standardized training to earn certification.

It comes too late to help the woman who served as its catalyst. Lee's wife, Denise, was kidnapped, raped and killed in January 2008 in North Port. She might have been saved if a witness' call to 911 had been handled properly.

As Lee and others analyzed what went wrong, they realized the 911 system had deep flaws, starting with operator training.

Those shortcomings became Lee's cause. He set out to save others by pushing for mandatory, uniform 911 training statewide.

The heroic way he chose to deal with the pain speaks to his character and should be a point of pride for the two young boys he is raising on his own, state Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, said Wednesday. Detert joined the cause, with state Rep. Ken Roberson, R-Port Charlotte, to push companion bills through the Legislature.

It took three legislative sessions and a lot of behind-the-scenes backing.

Englewood businessman David Dignam advised Lee, helped him set up the Denise Amber Lee Foundation and used his Republican Party contacts to open doors.

Lee and his parents, Mark and Peggy, started traveling to Tallahassee to testify or visit with lawmakers.

The Herald-Tribune published a series that exposed breakdowns in 911 responses statewide. The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice commissioned a $43,000 study of 911 responses that found a system fundamentally failing the public in key respects.
The articles and study became exhibits in legislative committee testimony.

People helped in other, unexpected ways, too. Bill Stiver, who runs an automotive shop in Englewood and is a pilot, flew local contingents to Tallahassee.

North Port City Commissioner David Garofalo and his peers sent 411 letters to other cities, encouraging them to support 911 reform.

Garofalo also pushed legislators. One day he left home at 3 a.m. to attend a 10-minute meeting in the state capital, then returned home for a meeting. "That's a day I drank a lot of coffee," he says.

Supporters organized phone banks to call lawmakers and anyone who could influence the process to keep the legislation on track.

Lee had a compelling story to illustrate a legitimate public safety shortcoming. The story also resonates nationally. Lee has traveled coast to coast -- sometimes at his own expense -- addressing many of the same problems exhibited in Florida.

On Wednesday, as the bill's backers gathered at a news conference in Venice, it was evident Lee has not found closure.

Maybe he never will. There are still others to save.

Eric Ernst's column regularly runs Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at eric.ernst@heraldtribune.com or (941) 486-3073.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100513/COLUMNIST/5131072/2273/NEWS?p=1&tc=pg

"When is Governor Charlie Crist going to step up"

Be prepared for a rant.

Seriously, how can we wait? Right now there are two bills being proposed up in Tallahassee both requiring some sort of mandatory 9-1-1 dispatcher/call taker training. Both bills are flawed.

Both bills expect us to wait until 2012 before persons need to be certified. The bill headed to the house states that police and sheriff departments can submit to the Department of Health their training standards before 2012 and have them approved. This essentially means that the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office can submit for approval their training program and may not have to change their "business as usual".

Either way 2012 is way too far away.

Someone asked me just this morning (and it's what got me fired up even more than usual, I'm always fired up over this but still....) "Can we find out how many people die due to 9-1-1 mistakes?"

NO! There's no possible way to find this out without someone (preferably a regular citizen) overseeing the 9-1-1 community in Florida. How many people have died in Florida due to 9-1-1 mistakes? We have no idea.

We would never have known about Denise's mishandled 9-1-1 call if it hadn't been for Jane Kowalski. See bottom paragraph of this post http://toosad4words.blogspot.com/2009/01/denise-amber-leetop-ten-reasons-i.html


Jane, God bless her, hounded the NPPD until they figured out who she was. Once they figured it all out they had to REQUEST the information on her call from the CCSO. Why? Because they knew they not only mishandled the call and didn't dispatch a car but they weren't monitoring their Teletype and several BOLO's issued by the NPPD were ignored describing the suspect and his car. They were covering it up.

Their side of the story is one person thought the other person called the NPPD while the other person said the other one did. Yeah. Just like the one dispatcher said she thought the other dispatcher dispatched a car and the other dispatcher thought.....................

WE WOULD NEVER HAVE KNOWN.

Who's overseeing the 9-1-1 community in Florida?

Yep. 9-1-1 industry people.

As Nathan said in his speech YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?????

PEOPLE ARE DYING. And it's not just because of human errors. It's because we have a system where all the counties, townships etc... have different protocols and procedures.

We're not using technologies that are available to us. More and more people are using cell phones to report emergencies and we can't find them!!! The two most glaring examples are of course, Denise and Olidia Kerr Day. But how many others aren't being found? How about those football players lost in that boating accident? And how about the errors being made in these 9-1-1 centers? Olidia asked the dispatcher to have police waiting for her outside the station! Our call taker had a CAD and didn't use it! Or at least didn't use it properly because she wrote things down on a piece of paper! And then handed the piece of paper to a dispatcher! Huh? Florida's 9-1-1 "system", if you will, is flawed! Big time.

And more people are going to die. Some we'll hear about and others will be swept under the rug.

When is Governor Charlie Crist going to step up and say "This is wrong. We need to have someone OUTSIDE OF THE 9-1-1 INDUSTRY looking into these tragedies. And then 9-1-1 industry experts from many companies (not just one) looking into the problems, then suggesting and providing solutions! Our citizens are dying and we can do better!"

Having 9-1-1 industry peeps watchdogging their own industry is like having the fox watch over the henhouse.

I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to North Port City Commissioner David Garofalo, Senator Nancy Detert, Representatives Paige Kreegel and Ken Roberson for their hard work, dedication, diligence and compassion for our cause. You are our heroes and I'm in tears just thinking about all you are doing for us. You all have been simply wonderful.

But it is my opinion that we can do better. WE HAVE TO DO BETTER.

And to those lobbyists and companies with agendas to make more money and garner more control, I say........ shame on you. People are dying.