One truck’s story

Faulty truck’s many failings ignored

Despite repeated warnings, Ladder 7 still sent on runs

By Melvin Claxton and Charles Hurt / The Detroit News

    The history of Ladder 7, the broken aerial truck sent to the Pallister Plaissance Apartments fire, mirrors a pattern of neglect and mismanagement in the Detroit Fire Department’s handling of essential equipment.
    Internal memos and department records obtained by The Detroit News show that department officials had ample notice the 15-year-old truck’s aerial ladder didn’t work, but they left the truck in service without making repairs. Department officials routinely ignore or delay requests for critical repairs on ladder trucks and pumper engines that are essential to the city’s rescue and fire-fighting efforts, records show.
    Though the truck stationed at 6100 Second Blvd. had a history of serious problems with its ladder dating to the early 1990s, it served as the first rescue vehicle for the New Center Area’s two major hospitals, hundreds of multi-story apartments and the landmark Fisher Building and General Motors Corp.’s headquarters. By last March, the truck was literally falling apart.
    On March 18, two weeks before the fatal Pallister blaze, the aerial ladder malfunctioned at a two-story town house fire at 7751 Brush, slightly injuring a firefighter.
    The ladder was fully extended above the burning abandoned dwelling and nearby electrical wires when the hydraulic system failed and the ladder dropped onto the power lines, say firefighters who were at the scene.
    Crew members Carl Billings and Manuel Zavala were in the aerial bucket at the time. Because the truck was insulated by its rubber tires, both men were unhurt.
    Firefighter Blaize Conti, standing on the water-soaked ground, wasn’t as lucky.
    When the ladder hit the power line it sent a jolt of electricity down the ladder to the truck. Oblivious to the danger, Conti stood next to the truck trying to attach a second hose.
    “It was quite a jolt,” recalled Conti, who did not seek medical treatment. “I dropped that hose immediately.”

Broken, but in service
    The incident wasn’t the first failure of the truck’s hydraulic system. Maintenance logs show repeated hydraulic problems and leaks dating back to 1996. Firefighters were so accustomed to the truck’s leaks that they kept five-gallon containers of hydraulic fluid on hand to keep the ladder working.
    Yet, Fire Department records show that following the power line incident, in the days leading to the Pallister fire, the truck remained in service and its ladder was never repaired.
    Department officials failed to repair the truck, even after the department’s top uniformed firefighter received a memo outlining the truck’s flaws. And the truck’s log book listed it as being merely useful for taxiing firefighters to a fire.
    On March 21, 11 days before the Pallister fire, the truck’s commander, Capt. Edward Huyck, notified then-Chief of Fire Department Ronald Naumann of at least 19 things wrong with the ladder truck.
    Included in that list were problems with the truck’s engine, air supply system, exhaust system, windshield, pump pressure gauge, back-up alarm, power steering, tail lights, fuel gauge and hydraulic systems.
    Naumann died in June after a heart attack. But his successor, Tom Stoll, said it’s unlikely Naumann would have acted on the memo because the repair shop, which gets a copy of all maintenance memos, is expected to fix the problems.
    “A chief would take for granted that the repair shop would take care of it,” Stoll said. “Unless a (fire) company’s officer called me personally I would not follow through with any action.”
    The repair shop, in fact, did nothing to fix the ladder or other major problems even after the truck’s driver took it to the shop and left it for nine hours March 23, log books show. The truck remained in service.
    In the 10 days before the Pallister fire, dispatchers sent the broken ladder truck on 23 fire runs. The calls involved private homes, apartment buildings, hospitals and a high school, records show.
    Ladder 7 was the first truck dispatched four times to the six-story section of the 903-bed Henry Ford Hospital, and once to the 3,000-bed, 12-story Harper Hospital. In four of the hospital runs, all of which turned out to be false alarms, the truck — unable to rescue fire victims because of its broken aerial — was the first ladder truck sent to the scene.
    On March 25, the truck was the first aerial ladder sent to a reported apartment building fire at 93 Seward. At the time, dispatchers knew the building had more than 20 units and was occupied, a Fire Department dispatch ticket shows.
    Two days later, dispatchers sent Ladder 7 as the first ladder truck to what turned out to be a false fire alarm at the three-story Northern High School on Woodward. There were 912 students in the school that day, according to school records.
    A week later, the department sent Ladder 7 to Pallister.

Unable to help
    It was the first ladder truck sent, and because its aerial didn’t work, the rig sat idly by as eighth-floor residents screamed to be rescued as the fire rapidly spread. Four people died in that fire and a 7-year-old girl was left paralyzed after jumping about 80 feet.
    Even after the Pallister tragedy, Fire Department officials kept Ladder 7 in service. In fact, they sent the broken aerial as the first ladder truck on another fire run to an eight-story apartment building at 93 Seward within hours of leaving Pallister.
    It turned out to be a false alarm. But again, Ladder 7 was the first aerial truck sent.

    The pattern of dispatchers sending out a broken truck repeated itself during the five days that followed the Pallister fire. Ladder 7 made six more fire runs, including a trip back to Pallister on what turned out to be a false alarm. Again, it was the first aerial sent.
    On April 6, Ladder 7 was finally replaced, but not taken out of service.
    The truck’s log books show the replacement was a loaner from Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County, which has a reputation for carefully maintaining its vehicles. But The News found the truck didn’t come from Selfridge.

Depending on ‘Oldie’
    The replacement was a 24-year-old ladder truck on loan from Ladder Towers Inc., a Pennsylvania aerial ladder manufacturer. Ladder Towers got the rig as a trade-in from the tiny volunteer department in Ridgefield, N.J., a town with 13,000 residents. Ridgefield Fire Chief John Hoffman said his 79-member department traded in the truck because frequent repairs were “nickel-and-diming us to death.”
    “I must say I am surprised that a city the size of Detroit is using one of our old trucks. It’s a solidly built truck, but after all it’s 24 years old,” said Hoffman, whose fire department nicknamed the truck “Oldie.”
    The replacement truck was so old it didn’t have seat belts because there were few laws requiring them at the time the truck was made. Detroit fire officials violated state law when they put the truck on the road without installing seat belts.
    But even after getting the Ridgefield truck, Detroit fire officials didn’t repair or junk old Ladder 7. Instead, they transferred it to a firehouse at Grand River and Trinity on Detroit’s west side, where it replaced another broken ladder truck that was being repaired.
    In its week of service at the Trinity station it responded to 32 fire calls, including an alarm at the three-story YMCA building at 21605 Seven Mile. Although that run proved to be a false alarm, the truck was the first ladder sent.
    The truck’s next move highlights the trade-offs the department frequently makes as it shuffles its working trucks to provide at least some ladder truck coverage throughout the city.
    On April 14, fire officials moved Ladder 7 across town to a fire station at French and Shoemaker on the city’s east side. That station’s working aerial was sent to protect a heavily populated section of the city that had been without an operable ladder truck.
    The log book at the Shoemaker station, where Ladder 7 made six fire runs, shows it still had no working aerial or pump when it was delivered. None of the truck’s problems that existed before the fatal Pallister fire had been fixed.

Troublesome replacement
    While fire officials shuffled the ladder truck between fire houses, its replacement from Ridgefield, N.J., was having problems of its own.
    On April 28, the free loaner truck caught fire while running errands. The fire, repair logs show, was caused by bad wiring under the dashboard.
    Department records reveal that fire officials never inspected the replacement truck before putting it in service. A standard inspection would have included an examination of the truck’s wiring, fire officials concede.
    The man who put the truck on the road without an inspection was former Chief of Fire Department Naumann, according to department General Manager Niles Sexton. But records show that Sexton, Naumann’s superior, was present at the department’s garage when the truck was released without inspection.
    Sexton recalls objecting to the decision, but said he did nothing to stop it.
    While the fire damage was being repaired on the loaner, department brass gave the crew members Ladder 7, which left them helpless at the Pallister fire. The aerial ladder still didn’t work.
    The truck made two runs the first day it was back in its old firehouse. But on the second day, while on a fire call, it ran off the road when its power steering failed, according to log books.
    It didn’t even make the first turn. After coming out of the station doors, the steering gave way and the truck ran into the median in front of the firehouse.

    No one was hurt.
    The truck’s power steering had been leaking for months. Fire officials and the repair shop had been notified but did nothing, according to records. Only after the accident did officials finally retire Ladder 7 to the city’s maintenance compound known among the ranks as the Boneyard.
    On June 17, the fire station on Second Boulevard got a permanent replacement truck with a working ladder. But it wasn’t the new truck they were promised.
    It was, instead, a 15-year-old refurbished one from another fire house. The new ladder truck department officials ordered for the station was too tall to fit inside and it went to one of the few Detroit stations that could accommodate it.

Contact the reporters at churt@detnews.com and mclaxton@detnews.com.