Mrs. Mark and I attended the Wisconsin Public Safety Communications conference this week. As an exhibitor, I rarely pay attention to the sessions and presentations. We usually go, setup the booth, talk about our product to prospective customers, eat way too much, and go home.

This conference was different. As the day of the conference drew near, a YAPP was released for the conference and I installed it on my phone. As I was looking through all of the sections of the YAPP, I noticed that Nathan Lee was giving his presentation for the Denise Amber Lee Foundation.

We made it a point to wake up early today, and attend the presentation.



I was not prepared for it at all. It brought back all those horrible feelings, of all the moments, hours and days that we all experienced, here and over at TNCR, 11 years ago.

Nathan's presentation is meant to make you feel things. Very sad things. It makes you angry; so angry to learn the nitty gritty details, of the multiple failures of 9-1-1 that day.

When he showed the video of him and his father-in-law in the police station, when they showed him that they had found Denise's ring that he had bought for her on their first Valentine's day. There was not a dry eye in the place. They had found the ring in the car. Denise had removed it and also pulled out several of her own hairs and made sure she got the roots, to provide the police with DNA evidence that she had been in that car. She knew that things did not look good for her, and she did everything she could to make sure the bastard would be caught, and pay for his crimes.

After the presentation, I approached Nathan and it surprised me a little, that he remembered me. It had been 10 years since I met him at the first fund raiser for the foundation. At that time, I gave them a presentation, of our 9-1-1 QA/QI (Quality Assurance / Quality Improvement) system, just so they could see that someone was trying to address the issues that are prevalent and systemic in the operations of all 9-1-1 dispatch centers. Issues, that lead to the mistakes made that horrible day. We had been at this, trying to convince 9-1-1 centers that they need to perform QA/QI for over 13 years at the time. . We have actually been at this for over 23 years now.

QA/QI is still too slowly being implemented at our 9-1-1 centers across the nation. It makes me so angry that it has taken this long. Even with the additional awareness that this must happen, there is still resistance. Why that is, still baffles me. When a 9-1-1 center tells me they have a QA system in place, It makes me more angry that they think what they have implemented is anything resembling QA/QI. Even when a state legislates the requirement for QA/QI, they ultimately fail to enforce it and therefore it never really gets implemented properly. Then when you look at the legislation, you quickly realize that the people who drafted the legislation have no idea what real QA/QI is all about. The "standards" they set are a joke and when a center only has to meet those minimum requirements, they end up with a system, that is actually worse than not have anything in place.

We caught up with Nathan at the end of the expo and talked for several minutes. He is in agreement with everything I have said or will say about 9-1-1 QA/QI in this post. He was in high demand so we didn't keep him long, We will be touching base soon as he is interested in seeing how our system has grown.

Denise's story is important. Nathan makes his audience fall in love with her, and also fall in love with her and him as a young couple in love. Then he rips their hearts out with statements like, if 9-1-1 had performed as it should have, he shouldn't be standing there telling them about this. A room full of 9-1-1 call takers, dispatchers, and administration personnel. He makes them emotional, he makes them think, and that is a good thing.

"Leave Your EGO at the Door" was the title of his presentation.

I remember visiting the Sarasota 9-1-1 center shortly after the fundraiser 10 years ago, to give them a demo of our QA/QI system. Their EGOs and arrogance was astounding to me. Especially in light of what had transpired with Denise. The then director of 9-1-1 actually told me that they had no issues with QA. I left Sarasota that day more pissed off than any other time in my life, save the day my father died.

At one point during Nathan's presentation, I actually started to shake. Tears were involuntary and many.

I am still reeling from it. It makes me more resolute to get our system into more 9-1-1 centers. Marketing people, we are not. We spend 100% of our time making the system better. It's been in constant development for over 23 years. In that time we have only reached less than a handful of centers. Maybe I need to learn some marketing.

How Nathan does this, day in and day out is pretty amazing. You can see that he still feels intense emotions when the videos are playing. He hides it well, but, not completely.

I sincerely hope that none of you ever have the need to call 9-1-1 for a life and death situation.

Mark,

You should go public with your criticisms of the system, even of Sarasota's given their failures. Arrogance in the face of incompetence needs puncturing.

Yes, you have an "interest," given your line of work. But you can lay that all out for people in the beginning to establish your credibility as well as your background.

Mark,

I don't know what to say, other than "thank you" for persevering. As much as I dislike marketeers, maybe you need one.

Sadly, at the same time, there are companies making zillions of dollars teaching police departments how to make zillions of dollars performing civil forfeiture. It's all about marketing. And 911 centers don't make money.


On a related note, there was a story on npr recently about 911 operators who apparently don't know how to coach someone through CPR:
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08...-not-know-telephone-

The full -- very unsettling -- story
https://thepublicsradio.org/ar...m-failed-baby-alijah

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
Mark,

You should go public with your criticisms of the system, even of Sarasota's given their failures. Arrogance in the face of incompetence needs puncturing.

Yes, you have an "interest," given your line of work. But you can lay that all out for people in the beginning to establish your credibility as well as your background.

PD, didn't I just go public? lol.

Look, I do not want to piss off the very people that need this system. I really don't want to make us look like enemies to potential customers. No. Tact, and diplomacy is required here. We will hopefully sell more if we are "partners" with the centers vs. looked upon as the enemy.

Wow. I came across the peggybank fund stuff when we were moving. I probably should have thrown it away by now, but I can’t seem to do it. What a nightmare that all was for them. How old are the boys now - I don’t even know. I see Peggy every once in awhile on facebook.

Sad memories...