Most families knew within 30-45 minutes from social media/news sources. This highlights how our early 20th century death notification process is no longer valid. Ideally, you’d want law enforcement, an agency rep, & a chaplain to be the first to inform the family. #DATM 1/
That takes time & can't beat social media. Also, any agency would have difficulty notifying 19 families simultaneously. We now ask firefighters to tell families that if something happens, they may find out from other sources but we will get there as soon as possible. #DATM 2/
I’ve been on an incident where the news but not the name broke and we had to wait hours until the coroner announced the name. It created an enormous amount of stress for every family with someone on the incident. #DATM 3/
Work with local law enforcement first thing to establish protocols. A responder fatality is not the same as a highway crash or a boating accident. We know who they are and have contact information for them. The process needs to be different. #DATM 4/
In our case, we could not confirm any information until the coroner came through. Thankfully, the family did not call or else we would have had no choice under the current rules but to give them false hope by not confirming info or notifying them. #DATN 5/5
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