Two patients transported to Level 1 Trauma Center Advocate Lutheran General Hospital after motorcycle crash with car in Arlington Heights Friday night, June 20, 2025 (CARDINAL NEWS). YouTube Tips ⓘ
Police, firefighters and paramedics from Arlington Heights responded about 11:01 p.m. Friday, June 20, 2025 to a report of a motorcycle crash with a car at Hintz Road and Bradford Drive north of Camelot Park in Arlington Heights.
The first fire crew on arrival did not report a size up, but requested that the Buffalo Grove ambulance paramedics assigned to the call expedite to the scene. An Arlington Heights ambulance, a rescue squad, a fire engine crew, and a Buffalo Grove ambulance were assigned to the scene.
Two crash victims on the motorcycle were treated and transported to Level 1 Trauma Center Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
Hintz Road was closed to thru traffic in both directions between Arlington Heights Road and Windsor Drive during rescue operations and during an extended crash investigation.
Initially there was no statement or details available about the crash from the Village of Arlington Heights. Also, there was no road closure alert on official social media from the Village of Arlington Heights. The Speed Limit on Hintz Road is 35 MPH, according to Google Maps Street View captured July 2024.
The motorcycle impacted the area of the driver’s side rear wheel of the Mercedes Benz sedan.
The information in this article is an early report published before any summary information was confirmed or released by police or fire authorities.
DEVELOPING IF CONTENT IS AVAILABLE …
IMPORTANT: Real time news of community emergencies and life-threatening crashes with road closures, such as the crash Friday night, may be going away soon, because Arlington Heights officials have voted to encrypt Fire Department Dispatch and Fireground communications. A switch to encrypted communications will prevent awareness of public safety emergencies and incidents by secondary support services, media and the general public in Arlington Heights in real time.
In March 2025 at a meeting of the Northwest Central Dispatch System 9-1-1 center, Arlington Heights Police Chief Nicholas Pecora and Arlington Heights Fire Department Chief Lance Harris voted to encrypt the fire dispatch and fireground communication talkgroups for Arlington Heights Fire Department, which will prevent the secondary service businesses, the public and media — for the purposes of public interest, safety, and transparency — from hearing important fire department communications. Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus made the motion to encrypt fire department communications, and municipal leader unanimously voted to encrypt fire radio communications at the Northwest Central Dispatch System Board Meeting March 20, 2025.
The vote to encrypt fire department communications included all municipalities in the Northwest Central Dispatch System. All village managers and all police chiefs voted to encrypt at the meeting. All fire chiefs, except the fire chiefs from Inverness Fire Protection District and Barrington-Countryside Fire Protection District, voted to encrypt fire department radio communications.
While some fire departments, such as those in Denver, Orange County, violence-ridden Waukegan, Illinois, have experimented with or implemented encryption for certain fire radio talkgroups, the trend for general fire dispatch in the United States remains predominantly unencrypted or “in the clear” as it called — open to the public. Data from the U.S. Fire Administration and anecdotal reports suggest that the majority of approximately 30,000 fire departments in the United States continue to use unencrypted radios for dispatch. Some fire departments, such as Los Angeles Fire Department and FDNY even provide real-time logs of their emergency calls online for public awareness. Los Angeles Fire Department provides incident information, sometimes including all or some of the apparatus that is responding to incidents, on social media and on its official website.
LAFD Alert- Pacific Palisades Grass Fire – NOW OUT 13530 W Sunset Bl MAP: https://t.co/wHxjx9v6MT FS19; DETAILS: https://t.co/HUFevKSS5t
— LAFD 🔥 (@LAFD) June 9, 2025
None of the fire departments at the Northwest Central Dispatch System (NWCDS) 9-1-1 center system board meetings have indicated any type of remedy to keep the public informed in real-time. The lack of information, especially in time of a major incident, such as a mass shooting, major hazmat with casualties, or natural or man-made disaster with casualties, will result in a cruel secret hoarding of information that will cause the public to be unnecessarily affected by fear and uncertainty.
Additionally, Arlington Heights Fire Department does not have an official Facebook page or X.com account. The majority of fire departments in the United States have official social media accounts. According to a 2018 survey by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), approximately 70% of surveyed fire departments used social media to communicate with the public, with platforms like Twitter (now X) and Facebook being the most common. The percentage is likely higher today, as digital engagement has grown.
Many of these fire departments post updates about major incidents, such as structure fires, crashes, hazardous materials incidents, mass casualties, or fatalities, often through social media, press releases, and website updates. Exceptional fire departments in public safety information provide news information that is current with searchable archives in a blog-style official website. Some fire departments, such as Nashville Fire Department, provide an open portal dataset of “Active Incidents” for public access.
PulsePoint App
In Illinois, some fire departments, via the PulsePoint app, provide a list of Active and Recent incidents (including Naperville; Orland; Orland Hills; Orland Park; Blackhawk; Rockford; and Ayers, Bondville, Broadlands, Brown, Champaign Colfax, Compromise, Condit, Crittenden, Cunninham, Fisher, Mahomet, Ogden, Penfield, Rantoul, Savoy, St Joseph, Thomasboro, Tolono, and Urbana in Champaign County). The PulsePoint App is a 911-connected smartphone app that allows users to view and receive live alerts of calls dispatched by fire departments and emergency medical services. The app aims to have volunteer bystanders trained in CPR help cardiac arrest victims in public locations before emergency crews arrive. The PulsePoint app, which facilitates earlier CPR, can increase the chance of survival of victims. The app interfaces with the local government public safety answering point (9-1-1 center), and notifies users only if the victim is in a public place and only to users that are in the immediate vicinity of the emergency. In February 2017, PulsePoint introduced a professional version called Verified Responder that also alerts Verified Responders regarding victims that are located in residential settings.
Secondary to real-time fire radio communications, digital platforms enable rapid dissemination of information, such as road closures; evacuation notices due to flooding, hazmat, and violent situations; or fire safety alerts. Digital platforms also allow police and fire departments to counter misinformation, and engage directly with communities. So far there is no contingency plan at Northwest Central Dispatch System and its member fire departments and associate fire protection districts to disseminate important real-time information. Instead, curmudgeon-like village managers, and fire chiefs obsessed with secrecy in the Northwest Central Dispatch System lack the common sense and common decency to continue to provide emergency information of public interest for a very large area of the northwest suburbs — a population of almost 500,000 people and an area of over 39,265 square miles. The encryption, secrecy, and lack of transparency may possibly occur as early as August 2025.
Some area fire chiefs outside of the Northwest Central Dispatch System, off record, have scoffed at the unnecessary expense of encryption and programming, and the ridiculous desire to keep fire communications secret. One has called it sad. Another has called it “a shame.” Encryption can also cause operational difficulties with fire departments that might not have encryption-capable radios. Encrypted systems may prevent firefighters from communicating effectively with neighboring departments that lack compatible encryption keys or advanced radio systems. At Board Meetings at Northwest Central Dispatch System, the authorities have admitted the possibility of operational difficulties with neighboring fire departments. Within the Northwest Central Dispatch System board there was initially a split for pro- and con-encryption. Miraculously, all member communities’ fire department fire chiefs voted to encrypt. Only associate members, Barrington-Countryside Fire Protection District and Inverness Fire Protection District fire chiefs, voted not to encrypt. The vote among City Council Managers and Village Managers was unanimous pro-encryption. Isn’t it interesting that Fire Protection District Fire Chiefs are accountable to their voting public, while City or Village Fire Departments are accountable to their City Council Managers or their Village Managers.
The information in this article is an early report published before any summary information was confirmed or released by police or fire authorities or witness on the scene.
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