A coroner's inquest continues into a fatal boat crash that killed three people in the Sudbury area back in 2013. It is looking at ways to improve Ontario’s 911 emergency response system.
The only survivor of that deadly crash on Lake Wanapitei, Rob Dorzek, and a 911 dispatch manager were both giving testimony Tuesday, day two of the inquest.
Dorzek, who lost three friends that day, continued to talk about the communications problems he had with the 911 staff.
The other person that testified was a call taker with the central ambulance communications centre who said from the time of the call at 12:30 am until 1:30 am, things were chaotic, as they tried to pinpoint where the crashed boat and the people were.
Prabhu Rajun is the coroner's counsel for the inquest.
“Once again, testimony was emotional for all involved, including lone survivor, Rob Dorzek, who said quote: ‘ill bleed out before I will call 9-1-1 again." said Rajun.
On Wednesday, a police dispatcher with Greater Sudbury Police and Fire talked more about the gap in response time in the incident, saying a call was received at 1:10 am from survivor Rob Dorzek, the fifth call in a 27 minute span.
Thursday proved to be another day of difficult testimony.
Witnesses from the City of Greater Sudbury’s fire service say there was a breakdown of communications between them, other first responders and the 911 operators.
"We've talked about sharing information between services. One thing we've learned is that they have different systems, and they're not necessarily compatible. It really should be a caller-centric system, as opposed to an individual service situation.” said Rajan.
Stephanie Bertrand, Matthew Humenuik and Michael Kritz died when the boat they were on crashed into an island on Lake Wanapitei on June 30th, 2013.
Lone survivor Rob Dorzek had to call 911 five times because his calls kept getting dropped.
It took more than an hour after the first call before a rescue arrived, partly because 911 operators had difficulty locating him.
But volunteer firefighters Mark Bardswich and James McDowell testified that if a map of the accident location sent to 911 by Dorzek had been shared with them, they would have immediately known how to get there.
"If in this case, that map, as you noted, was shared with any number of people who were familiar with the area, they would have known exactly where Mr. Dorzek was, within not even minutes, seconds probably." said Rajan.
Sudbury fire captain Terrance Laroque testified if he had better understood the urgency of the situation, he would have told the rescue boat to leave immediately instead of waiting for paramedics.
"If fire had been told earlier, they'd be there 13 minutes earlier. If they were aware of the fire ten minutes earlier, they would have left earlier. Every minute counts because as we learned they're only six minutes away." said Rajan.
The inquiry wraps up in Sudbury Friday before heading to Ottawa to review details of a separate fatal incident involving 911 communications and response time.
A jury is expected to deliver recommendations to improve the 911 system by the end of the month.
