Lexington Announces City Will Hire More 911 Operators

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ)-After its response time to a weekend barn fire came under critique, Lexington has announced its E911 service will hire more phone operators. The new staff members will handle non-emergency calls. According to the city, those calls make up about 53% of calls to the E911 Center. The hope is specifically tasking people with answering those calls should keep 911 operators free to answer emergencies. It is something Mercury Equine Center owner Eric Reed says comes too late for him.

Reed has barely slept or eaten since early Sunday morning when one of his barns at Mercury Equine Center burned to the ground, killing more than 20 horses. Now, he has a new problem. He says coyotes are trying to eat the bodies of the horses still lying here under the rubble.

“This is the horse capital of the world we don’t tolerate that with our horses,” Reed said.

He says a crew sat all day Tuesday, waiting for the go ahead to remove the horses. He says the Fire Inspector promised clean up could happen Tuesday, but no one came to finish the investigation, and when Reed called, he says he was told the Inspector had the day off.

“It’s like we’re the only ones who care about the horses. They had all day to finish this investigation and nobody cared. They just figured they’d come tomorrow and that’s jut not right,” Reed said.

A fire department spokesperson says there is always an inspector on duty, adding the investigation has to be thorough and done with other agencies that can be hard to coordinate with. Reed says the longer the debris sits out, the greater the health concern and emotional challenge for his family and staff. It is just one of many problems now for Reed. The biggest is still the city’s response to the fire. He says it took 39 minutes for the fire department to arrive after he called 911 twice asking where firefighters were.

“All my life I thought you called 911 and they were here…we got a recording. We called 911 and got a recording while we’re running in and out of a burning barn and that’s uncalled for. That’s absolutely unacceptable,” Reed said.

President of Lexington’s Firefighter’s Union Chris Bartley agrees.

“They messed up. There’s an issue there and it needs to be fixed,” Bartley said.

Bartley says firefighters have heard complaints like Reed’s since the new combined 911 center opened in October.

“When people need us, they need us there and they don’t need to hear some fake voice,” Bartley said.

The City responded to Reed’s complaint Monday, saying records show it took about 20 minutes for fire equipment to arrive a the farm after the first 911 call. Tuesday brought a new announcement,  the 911 center will begin recruiting new staff this week to take non-emergency calls.

“It’s a good first step. I think it alleviates those administrative calls from E911 when they need to be handling 911 calls,” Bartley said.

He still thinksE911 needs more improvements, starting with a full investigation into the Mercury Equine fire response.

“I’m glad they finally did something about it. It’s just a little too late for us,” Reed said.

Now, he and his owners say they just want to be able to bury their horses and move forward, not wipe sleep from their eyes as they stay up, keeping watch for coyotes.

A representative from the City says the Mercury Equine fire did not prompt the decision to hire more 911 operators. She says it is something the city and the union have been talking about for a couple months.