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By Erica Madison On September 6th, 2011 Alameda City Manager John Russo announced a few upcoming special city council meetings including the long awaited Ruben Grijalva report on the Raymond Zack drowning.  Alameda Fire Department documents obtained by Action Alameda News suggest that the City of Alameda over-dramatized the severity of the incident and the department’s response last week to kite surfer who got tangled in his lines a few hundred yards out in the water off Crown Beach. Action Alameda News has acquired radio transmission recordings from the Alameda County Regional Emergency Communications Center (ACRECC) that document the request from the Alameda Fire Department for a second medic van to be dispatched to try to revive Raymond Zack on Memorial Day to provide a second AutoPulse automatic CPR device. One week after the recordings were released to Action Alameda News, they are still not available on the City of Alameda “Crown Beach Incident” website page. Update: July 13th, 2011, 8:00 pm – Responding to a media request, Acting Deputy Chief of Operations Daren Olson declined to provide the name of the Division Chief cited in D’Orazi’s report to Council, citing personnel confidentiality, and saying only that the Division Chief is no longer employed by the City of Alameda. By Erica Madison Raymond Zack’s tragically preventable death on May 30th, 2011 has forced the Alameda Fire Department to reveal its negligence and has encouraged the City Council to keep a close eye on the reinstatement of the Surface Water Rescue program. By Erica Madison At last Wednesday night’s City Council meeting, Alameda City Manager John Russo vehemently defended Alameda City’s decision to hire Ruben Grijalva. This morning, a spokesperson at the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau told Action Alameda News that the Bureau has determined that the cause of death of Raymond Zack is drowning. The City of Alameda has confirmed that Alameda firefighters requested a second ambulance to be dispatched on May 30th, to help resuscitate Raymond Zack, who ultimately died after standing for over an hour in the waters off of Crown Beach, and then collapsing. Until responding this week to a public records request from Action Alameda News, the City had not released information about the dispatch of this second ambulance. Dear Editor, For Alameda city officials to leave the investigation of Raymond Zack’s death in the hands of but one for-profit individual is a mistake, no matter who it is. When Andrew Jentzsch learned that Ruben Grijalva would be investigating the death of Raymond Zack on Crown Beach on May 30th, he thought, “What did I do to deserve this?” Mr. Jentzsch was a firefighter for twenty years with the City of Palo Alto, which included the eight years that Grijalva was the Fire Chief. The City of Alameda is set to pay a consultant $195/hour, plus expenses, for about 100 hours of work, or, roughly, $19,500, to conduct what the City has previously characterized as an “independent review” of the events leading to Raymond Zack’s death on Robert Crown Memorial Beach on May 30th, 2011. |
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