AURORA — While ambulances remained blocked behind parked cars, police vehicles and 1,400 fleeing moviegoers, police transported the most critically injured Aurora shooting victims by driving up a grassy hill behind the theater, new details about the shooting released by fire officials show.
Incident reports and a fire department internal review obtained by The Denver Post through an open-records request also provided more information about when emergency medical responders arrived on scene and when they were notified there were gunshot victims behind Theater 9.
“We didn’t really hear the cry for people needed at the rear of the theater until … about 0055,” said Aurora Deputy Fire Chief Danny Wilcox.
That notification from fire dispatch to emergency medical workers was
17 minutes after the shooting was reported at 12:38 a.m. A fire commander had directed ambulances to a nearby staging area to await further instructions. And police officers — some of whom carried victims out of the theater — had been telling their dispatch they needed medical help at the rear of the theater for at least the preceding 7 minutes.
Why that information wasn’t relayed to paramedics more quickly is unclear. Fire and police dispatchers share a common work area. The city declined to comment, citing a court-issued gag order.
Twelve people were killed and another 58 wounded by gunfire during the July 20 midnight screening of the film “The Dark Knight Rises.”
It is unclear whether a quicker response to the back of the theater would have made a difference. Medical examiners, citing the gag order, have not released autopsy reports on the victims.
Questions about the dispatch delay are just the latest raised about the response to the shooting. An outside review was put on hold after the Arapahoe County district attorney said it could hinder prosecution of the alleged shooter.
Aurora Fire Chief Mike Garcia said he welcomed an outside review.
“There’s always lessons to be learned and lessons to be shared,” he said. “I’m so proud of the response of our firefighters.”
The incident and internal reports portray a chaotic and confused scene, with patients spread over eight locations and paramedics trapped in gridlock from parked cars and running moviegoers.
Initial reports indicated there was only one person shot and that there were possible bombs in the front and rear of the theater. Additionally, the most urgent requests to help patients initially directed responders to Dillard’s parking lot, not in and behind the theater.
As the sheer scope of the scene became clear and emergency vehicles tried to get closer, bleeding victims running from the scene surrounded them, making further progress impossible, the report said. Many of the injured patients initially triaged by paramedics drove themselves to the hospital.
The 27-page internal report does not thoroughly review the actions of responders and commanders, assign fault for a response that ended with nearly more patients transported to hospitals in police cars than in ambulances or make recommendations for future disasters. It also does not address why so many ambulances sat unused at a nearby a staging area.
Fire officials said the report was intended to be a written timeline of events.
The incident reports show that Fire Truck 2, which arrived on scene about 2 minutes after dispatch relayed the call for help behind the theater, soon found itself “bogged down by multiple units entering/mass exodus of vehicles trying to leave,” according to the incident report.
The truck’s driver cut through a parking lot and jumped over curbs and medians. About 7 minutes after the dispatch call — 24 minutes after the shooting was reported — Truck 2 notified dispatch that it had arrived at the rear of the theater with nine gunshot victims.
Confronted with “hands blown off, shots to the neck, back and legs” and “eviscerated intestinal material,” a Truck 2 paramedic told a police lieutenant that he didn’t think ambulances could get to the rear of the theater and patients should be loaded into police cars.
“The two entrances and exits into the theater — those were blocked by police vehicles and left there. They were permanently blocked,” said Aurora Deputy Fire Chief Dan Martinelli in an interview last week. “The police cars were able to get around the congestion by going up a grassy slope.”
Before medical personnel arrived, a member of Aurora’s SWAT team, who was also a paramedic, triaged the shooting victims within the theater.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates declined to discuss the theater shooting, citing the gag order.
Prior to Truck 2’s arriving, other fire department responders were on the shooting scene quickly. Engine 8 and its four riders arrived in 5½ minutes, according to the report. They tried to get to the front of the theater but were met with a parking lots full of cars, police cars blocking access and patients streaming out of the theater. The engine was stopped by “highly-stressed APD officer,” according to an incident report, who said there was tear gas inside the theater. The officer was given a gas mask.
Paramedics from Engine 8 started triaging patients at the northwest corner of the theater. Another responder from Engine 8 was led by a police officer to the theater’s northeast corner, where there were “several patients lying on the ground covered in blood.” More people, who were bleeding or had blood on them from other victims, joined them.
“Due to limited access and limited resources,” the triage unit leader wrote in his report, it did not look like ambulances would arrive. Police said they could transport, and the responder helped put patients in patrol cars.
Fifty-five minutes after the shooting was reported, 70 patients had been transported to area hospitals, according to the report. Rural/Metro ambulances transported 18 victims, Aurora police took 19 and Denver Health moved two.
An hour and a half after the shooting, at 2:08 a.m., a representative from the Office of Emergency Management arrived “to fill a logistics role by coordinating requests from APD and AFD and ordering equipment.”
Fire officials said the emergency agency role was to help with uninjured moviegoers and keep them in a safe place.
Karen E. Crummy: 303-954-1594, kcrummy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/karencrummy
Response timeline
12:38 a.m. 911 calls from Century Aurora 16 movie theater first arrive to police dispatch.
12:40: Fire department dispatches Engine 8 and battalion commander to the scene.
12:43: Rural/Metro ambulance on scene, goes to staging area.
12:45: Engine 8 arrives on scene and is met with a parking lot full of cars, police cars blocking access and patients streaming out of the theater.
12:46: Police call into dispatch for “rescue inside the auditorium. Multiple victims.”
12:47: Police tell dispatch they have “seven down in Theater 9.”
12:48: Police officer tells dispatch he has a “child victim. I need rescue at the back door of Theater 9 now.”
12:49: Truck No. 2 and a paramedic vehicle dispatched to the scene.
12:50: Police tell dispatch they are “bringing out bodies now” behind Theater 9. An officer asks dispatch to “get someone to the back as soon as you can. Rescue personnel. We have at least three to seven hit.”
12:54: Fire dispatch says police are requesting medical personnel in Theater 9.
12:55: Fire dispatch says that Denver police are “advising there are 10 down behind Theater 9.”
12:57: Truck No. 2 arrives on the scene and is “bogged down by multiple units entering/mass exodus of vehicles trying to leave.” To get to the back of Theater 9, the driver of Truck 2 cuts through a parking lot and jumps over curbs and medians.
1:02: Truck 2 tells fire command, “We have nine shot. If we can get any ambulances in stage on Sable, we can get them over to the ambos.” With no ambulances, fire and police responders load patients into patrol cars.
1:33: All 70 patients transported to area hospitals.
2:08: Officer of Emergency Management arrives on the scene.
Source: Aurora Fire Department’s preliminary incident analysis and fire and police dispatch tapes.
