By Angie DiMichele
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Delray Beach Fire Rescue driver-engineer David Wyatt has been terminated, months after he drove across railroad tracks into the path of an oncoming Brightline train, the city announced Thursday.
City Manager Terrence Moore made the decision following an “in-depth administrative investigation” into the Dec. 28 crash, which left 15 people injured — 12 train passengers along with Wyatt and two of his fellow firefighters.
Wyatt, 46, was driving a $1 million ladder truck, with Capt. Brian Fiorey and firefighter Joseph Fiumara III as passengers, just before 11 a.m. that morning. On their way to a call of a fire at an apartment building, Wyatt drove over the tracks, despite the lowered gates and flashing red warnings lights, with the Brightline train barreling toward them at nearly 80 mph.
Wyatt received a noncriminal traffic citation after a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigation that concluded in February. The Sheriff’s Office found that though the fire truck was still responding to an emergency, Wyatt failed to use “due care” in that he “did not identify” the train as he drove the ladder truck into its path.
Craig Mahoney, president of the fire department’s union IAFF Local 1842, said in a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday afternoon that Wyatt has not received “any official notice of termination.”
Wyatt could not be reached by phone Thursday afternoon.
He was hired by the department as an Ocean Rescue Officer in 2002 and worked his way up to driver-engineer in late 2015. Personnel files obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel showed he was consistently lauded in reviews by his supervisors, and there were no records indicating he had ever been disciplined or internally investigated previously.
Moore in a statement released Thursday afternoon called the termination “the appropriate course of action.”
“I believe in fairness, due process, and accountability. And while I acknowledge that everyone is capable of making a mistake, this incident revealed a pattern of carelessness and poor judgment that went beyond an isolated error,” Moore said in the statement. “These actions — taken by an individual in a public safety position—placed lives at risk, compromised our operational readiness, and violated the principles of professionalism that our residents expect and deserve from public servants.”
Mahoney in his statement said the union as of Thursday had only received notice from the city about scheduling a hearing that is required “before any disciplinary action, including termination, can occur.”
“Our member has not been formally notified by the City. For the City to issue a public statement announcing his termination before this hearing has been conducted is not only premature, but also reflects a troubling disregard for the employee’s rights and the basic tenets of due process,” Mahoney said.
Mahoney sent an email to Moore and commissioners Thursday evening, reiterating that Wyatt had not received official notice and that the disciplinary hearing they had been previously communicating about was “little more than a hollow procedural formality” if the decision to terminate Wyatt was already made. He asked that both sides agree to move forward into the arbitration process.
“The City appears to have decided the outcome in advance, which calls into question why we would waste anyone’s time pretending otherwise,” Mahoney wrote to Moore.
The crash has shaken up the city since. It sparked numerous investigations, not only of the crash itself but of shortcomings in some policies of the fire department that were uncovered as a result. One investigation found that multiple Delray Beach Fire Rescue employees had been driving fire engines and rescue trucks with suspended licenses at some point during their employment without supervisors’ knowledge, including Wyatt, though his was active at the time of the crash.
Tensions rose as city officials clashed over what information to release, how much and when in the aftermath. The public wanted more than what they were sharing, demanding transparency. The union slammed Chief Ronald Martin for publicly naming the personnel who were placed on leave before any investigation was finished. And it has caused a nearly two-year-old Delray Beach Police investigation into an off-duty crash with Wyatt to be newly questioned.
Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Green and Division Chief Todd Lynch, two top-level fire department administrators who were not involved with the crash, were investigated to determine their involvement in how driver’s licenses were reviewed and whether they knew of the suspensions. They were both cleared of any wrongdoing earlier this year.
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