A week after cops were told to use caution when taking an elevator while responding to building fires, the NYPD has rescinded the directive and issued revised protocol that requires stairs to be used at all times, reports The New York Daily News.
“Responding units must use the stairs,” read a three-page “Finest” message, dated Thursday, in which Chief of Department Philip Banks outlines the new fire response procedures.
On April 9, in a Finest message released following the death that day of Police Officer Dennis Guerra, who died of injuries suffered after using an elevator to reach a high-rise fire, Banks had advised officers to “walk up to a reported fire whenever possible.”
But the April 9 message did not prohibit cops from using an elevator. Instead, it urged them to proceed with caution; use their flashlights to check for smoke in the elevator shaft; stop the elevator every five floors to continue checking the shaft for smoke; and to take the elevator no closer than two floors beneath the fire.
Read more of the story here http://nydn.us/1phbdLD
