Florida EMT Who Spurned House Fire Victim Reprimanded

April 22—Last winter, a frantic man banged on the door of a fire station, begging for help as his home, a scant half-mile away, burned down.

The emergency medical technician who answered the door told him to call 911.

In an internal report released this week, EMT Joseph Trybalski will receive a reprimand letter in his file for his actions Nov. 15. Authorities said he should have immediately reported the fire on his handheld radio.

"He was unsure of what to do and instead of acting, told the resident to call 911 and let the door shut," Deputy Chief Blake Estes wrote in his report. "At that point he went looking for his lieutenant, finding him in the bathroom and waited for him to exit to then advise him of the situation."

The homeowner, Neville Morrison, said Trybalski told him to report the blaze by phone—not in person, even though his house was just down the street—and sent him away.

"I said, 'I have no phone,' " Morrison recounted at the time. "I said, 'You can see the blaze coming out of the roof of my house.' He told me twice to call 911, and then he closed the door with me standing outside."

A neighbor called 911, and it took crews eight minutes to reach the scene, a half-mile distance by street. Much of the house was destroyed, and Morrison's family of five was displaced. Morrison said although there is a fire hydrant in front of the house, firefighters told him the heat was too intense to use it. By the time firefighters arrived, he said the front door had fallen off from the heat.

Trybalski told investigators he asked for Morrison's address, but the distraught man didn't know. Trybalski also said he let go of the door, and it shut automatically. He admitted telling Morrison to call 911. The reason: so his address would automatically appear to dispatchers.

Morrison, 67, an air conditioning repairman, said Wednesday he was never asked his address.

"That is absolutely absurd," he said. "I lived there for 24 years. It's my house, I paid for it, and I don't know my address?"

A paramedic overhead the exchange between Trybalski and Morrison, but didn't tell investigators anything about Morrison not knowing his address. According to the report, Giovanna Ramos said she heard "someone screaming and forcefully punching and knocking at the front door" and that Trybalski opened the door to a "frantic citizen" who said his house was on fire.

She told investigators Trybalski asked if he called 911; Morrison replied he had no phone. Ramos said Trybalski told him to call 911 and that he would get his lieutenant. After the door closed, Ramos said she ran to re-open it, but Morrison had bolted. She caught up with him, and once "face to face, I grabbed my radio and told the man to give me his address," she said.

As Morrison was telling her his address, she said, fire alarms went off.

"During this investigation you freely admitted that your conduct fell short of the department's expectations when handling a member of the public," Fire Chief Laney Stearns wrote in an April 7 memo to Trybalski. He said Trybalski had an "exemplary record." "Therefore, it is my opinion that this incident was an aberration in your otherwise stellar career."

The case investigator recommended Trybalski be suspended without pay for 24 hours and receive training, but the department's disciplinary board, which reviews agency penalties, felt that was too harsh, according to a city memo.

Stearns ultimately agreed with the board and wrote a reprimand letter. He also ordered Trybalski to assist "in developing and instructing a program on customer service and how to interact with the public."

In December, Morrison's attorney notified the city he would sue for Trybalski's "bad faith and malicious actions" that led to the home's destruction.

"The Morrisons watched in agony while their house burned to the ground," Sommer Horton wrote.

Morrison said Wednesday he is still traumatized and felt Trybalski should have been more harshly punished. "He could have shown some compassion," he said.

"It was devastating," he said. "I still have nightmares—losing my two cats, losing my home. The plan is to rebuild even though I don't want to. I don't want to be a citizen of Plantation anymore because of that experience."

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