DeKalb County paid $200,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the children of 74-year-old Dunwoody woman who died after firefighters dispatched to her home drove by and then left because they didn’t see flames.
The attorney for the family of Ann Bartlett declined to comment beyond acknowledging that the lawsuit had been settled because the agreement included a condition of confidentiality. The document, however, was subject to release by the county as a public record because it involved the expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
Bartlett called 911 just after 1 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2010, to report she had “set the house on fire with the thing from my nose,” referring to an oxygen concentrator she used when she slept. The phone went dead during the call and the dispatcher was unable to get her back on the phone.
Still, engines 12 and 18 and truck 18 were dispatched. They pulled up at the 1600 block of Houghton Court North 12 minutes later, but they all left when firefighters saw no signs of a blaze. Five hours later, after a neighbor called, firefighters returned to find the house engulfed in flame.
Once the fire was out, Bartlett was found in her garage, apparently trapped there because the door wouldn’t open without electricity. Nearby was Bartlett's cordless phone, which also needed electricity to make calls.
The medical examiner said Bartlett died of smoke and soot inhalation but she also was burned beyond recognition.
The family filed the suit in April after DeKalb County reinstated one of the five firefighters fired for not walking up to the house.
A month later, a hearing officer also recommended that a second firefighter be reinstated, and a third was reinstated in July.
The status of those three firefighters was not immediately known Wednesday afternoon.
The other two firefighters who were initially fired could not appeal because of their ranks
And the fire chief, David Foster, was forced out of his job a few weeks after Bartlett’s death.
One of Bartlett’s daughters said last spring the family hoped the suit would bring changes to the department more so than money for her mother’s estate. They complained at the time that the county and the fire department had ignored their suggestions for improvements and had shared little information with them since the days immediately following the fire.
According to the settlement, filed in DeKalb Superior Court Dec. 27, the county and the fire department are not admitting they did anything wrong, but both sides agreed to a $200,000 payment “solely to avoid further expense of litigation.
“The payment made under this settlement … is allocated to cover general damages and is not intended to represent back pay, earnings or earned income of any sort.”
Current DeKalb County Fire Chief Eddie O'Brien did not return messages left with his assistant Wednesday, but he told CBS Atlanta the department has changed several procedures.
Some of them are:
-- A battalion chief will go to every fire to verify what the on-scene commander's reports.
-- Firefighters must walk completely around the location of a reported fire before deciding to leave the scene.
-- Guidelines established for what is to be done if an address cannot be found.
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