Disabled woman dies after firefighters go to wrong address
A disabled woman has tragically died after being trapped in a burning home while firefighters went to the wrong address in an attempt to save her.
Vivianne Rodger, who relies on using a wheelchair, called emergency services after her home in Victoria sparked a fire.
She was then left for over two hours as firefighters, who were relying on a paper map, went to the wrong house trying to find her.
When they eventually reached Ms Rodger, she was dead.
According to a Victorian coroner, the blaze was "clearly avoidable" and she may have survived if they had arrived sooner, with their delayed response being directly linked to her death.
The 54-year-old lived alone and was unable to move around independently after suffering a stroke and acquired brain injury, meaning she relied on a wheelchair and needed assistance to get in and out of bed.
In the early hours of the morning on January 17th 2019, a service coordinator received a distressed call from the woman who said "my blanket is on fire", but the call was disconnected before more information was taken.
Firefighters initially went to the wrong house on Ms Rodger's street, after becoming confused with the street numbers and using Melways, a printed street directory of Melbourne, to find the property.
The process at the time was to send the fire station an A4 printout of the fire call with the address and a Melways reference.
Fire crews didn't arrive at Ms Rodger's home until 5am, when smoke was billowing out of her home, and the woman was found dead in her bedroom.
Coroner Paul Lawrie said the failure to find the correct address was "a missed opportunity to try to rescue Ms Rodger" and she would have had an "improved" chance of surviving if they found her sooner.
He found the delays were "significant", "clearly avoidable" and questioned the fire brigade's reliance on Melways maps over a GPS map application.
"It is also concerning that reliance on a Melway map may have contributed to the failure to identify the correct property," he wrote.
The coroner urged for firetrucks to be equipped with modern navigation technology, and to implement policies, procedures and training to ensure firefighters can better identify the location of a call to prevent further deaths.
Image credits: Getty Images