Concerns regarding the maintenance of public vehicles rose after a fire truck crashed into a bar last summer.

The Ladder 13 fire truck hit Patrick J’s Bar and Grille, 2711 N. High St., while making a sharp turn onto High Street from Arcadia Avenue on July 15. The fire truck was responding to a fire alarm at Ohio State.

Columbus police and fire divisions both asked how the fire truck could be in service when the brake was defective, which was ruled as the cause of the accident.

After investigating the accident, police could find no evidence of preventive maintenance to the brake system and assigned the efficiency of the fire truck’s brake system to be between 55 and 56 percent.

The fire truck was overdue for its 100-hour preventive maintenance, according to a fire division report.

The truck was sent to the City of Columbus Fleet Management Division of Public Service a month before the accident took place, as shown in the fleet record.

However, confusion might have arisen in the process of getting the truck back from vehicle examination, said Mike Fultz, Battalion Chief and spokesman for the Division of Fire.

On June 26 and 27 – about two and a half weeks before the accident took place in July -drivers of the fire truck had already noticed a problem with low air pressure in the air brake.

Yet, the drivers did not suspect the likelihood of an air leak. The fleet management division garage was not alerted of the brake problem with the truck, said Mary Carran Webster, public service department assistant director.

“Some people in the fire department were not aware, and no one in my division was informed,” Webster said. The fleet management division is responsible for the fire trucks’ maintenance and repair work.

The repairing procedure

Dan Wills, a mechanic in the Division of Fleet Management of Public Service, said the fire trucks are required to undergo major maintenance examination after every 4,000 miles or 100 hours of service.

“The fire division) is supposed to keep a log book,” she said. “When a driver changes, they can read if there is any problem; sometimes the log requires to bring (the truck) to be serviced.”

About two weeks before the accident took place at Patrick J’s, Captain James Cannell from Fire Station 33 left a message in the garage’s voice mail stating his intention to send Ladder 13 to be examined.

However, the garage was unable to produce the evidence of having the fire truck repaired, and Larry Montoney, the mechanic supervisor at the fleet management shop, did not receive the instruction from Cannell, according to the Columbus Division of Fire’s report.

The fire truck involved in the accident was older than the other trucks and was being used as a backup truck, Wills said. Therefore, the reserve truck should be relatively safer than the other ones because of its low usage, he said.

“It should get into less trouble because it doesn’t get used as much because they get to sit, so brakes don’t get worn out,” Wills said. “In most cases, there will be less chance (of accidents) on the brakes.”

For typical repair work on a fire truck, about three to four hours are usually required; but it also depends on the nature of the repair, Wills said.

“If there is a problem with the brake, we’ll fix the brake before it leaves the shop. It is guaranteed,” he said.

All firefighters were trained to know the fundamental ways to examine the fire trucks, Wills said.

Financial deficit?

The fleet management division can be short of manpower during the holiday season, Wills said.

“We are very, very seldom (short of manpower). The only time we did is when it’s a holiday, and we can always use more people in the whole city, but tax says we cannot have more people because they are laying off people,” he said.

The insufficient tax results in the deficit of the city’s financial status, Webster said.

“The city doesn’t have enough money,” she said. “We found out we are $6 million short.”

There are eight to 10 mechanics in the garage. The mechanics have expertise in their knowledge with the specific kind of vehicle, Webster said.

“For a lot of vehicles, they are made differently, operated differently and they are trained to work on a specific kind,” she said.

Policy changes

The Columbus Division of Fire has evaluated the existing regulations and improved upon them after the accident.

“Every one is very concerned to make sure they are a little more careful to pick a vehicle that is being repaired,” Fultz said.

One of the ways Fire Division has implemented to avoid selecting a fire truck that had not undergone repair is through the new “vehicle lock-out system” which identifies a vehicle that has not been repaired through attaching a tag to the steering wheel.

“The firefighters are trained to look for that tag before they drive (the truck) away and back on street,” Fultz said.

In spite of the accident, Fire Division is comforted by the outcome, Fultz said.

“Everybody has been encouraged to how lucky that nobody is killed and how well everybody seems to be recovering,” he said.

While Lt. Rick Conti is still undergoing therapy, all four firefighters sustaining injuries from the crash have already gone back to work, Fultz said.