loopy31

The fire departments in North Castle (Armonk, North White Plains and Banksville) have been advocating a residential sprinkler codes for several years. Approximately 5 years ago, the North Castle town board did pass a residental sprinkler code. By the time it went before the New York State Codes Division to pass the more restrictive code, NYSDOS had a issue with some of the language of the local codes and asked for it to be revised. The most unfortuate part is that when it went back to the Town board to be revised, there was an entirely new town board and they decided not to revise the new code. The FDs in the town have been pushing for the revisions to get passed, it went before the town board again last year. Several chiefs and past chiefs spoke in favor of the residental sprinkler code with all the statistics about the minimal cost to the homeowner. The town board decided to listen to the builders associations instead and tabled it. They haven't brought it back up since......

First I would like to say that all involved with the response did a great job. There has been a lot of planning that has gone into the Westchester County Airport Response Plan over the years. The plan has evolved quite a bit since its inception. It is still not perfect, but is always evolving. The pilot declared an emergency right after takeoff; the plane tried to get back to the airport but obviously didn’t make it. The airport operations contacted 60 Control and declared a Level 2 Alert. The plan alert categories are based on the type of plane, how many passengers, and how much fuel on board. This Cessna 210 should have been in the Alert level 1 category. Right from the start, there was a larger response because the wrong alert was made. That being said, the operations staff had no idea where the plane was because it went off radar. So the ICs kept all units coming in until more information was received. There are several businesses and homes in the area surrounding the airport and if the plane had crashed into a structure, that level of response may have been needed. Reports came in through the security guards at MBIA that the plane was in the woods behind their building. All units were directed towards that address. Battalion 19 and 2022 set up the IC and the command post. Battalion 11, 2023, 2393, EMS 11, and Port Chester EMS along with firefighters entered the wooded area to see what the wreckage looked like, what resources would be needed, and to determine if there were any survivors. Upon their arrival, there were no survivors found, but there was some significant fire. The wreckage was approximately 1000 ft. into the woods, with some rough terrain. Hose lines weren’t stretched, they decided to use Indian tanks and water cans to extinguish the fire as well as the DES and Hawthorne FD gators with the water pumps. Please note that in this area, there are NO fire hydrants. So having the extra water on the fire apparatus was helpful. The Westchester County Airport Response plan is for when a plane crashes on the property of the Westchester County Airport. This plan is no longer in effect if the plane crashes offsite. This plane did crash offsite in Armonk FDs district however since the call originally came in as an alert to the airport, the Alert 2 response was welcome until they got a handle on what the situation was. Once the wreckage was found and the fire was extinguished, most of the apparatus was released fairly quickly. However due to the scene being deep into the woods, and the nature of the weather that day, it was helpful to have the extra manpower at the scene. Maybe all the apparatus wasn’t needed, but most of the manpower and additional water was helpful. EMS remained on scene for Rehab. Harrison EMS provided rehab and did an excellent job. Now on to why each alert has the level of response it does. The Airport property falls in three separate fire department jurisdictions and three EMS jurisdictions, all departments involved send apparatus to the scene. Armonk FD only sends their tanker and then 2 ambulances because they know there is no need to send additional fire apparatus due to what Purchase FD and Port Chester FD responds with. Port Chester FD responds with their minimum level that is in the agreed upon contract with Rye Brook. That is contractual and cannot be changed without changing their contract. Purchase FD responds with a rescue, engine and ladder. All of which can be needed based whether the plane hits a structure on the airport grounds. When the plan was developed, although the alerts are based on the size of the aircraft, the possibility of that aircraft hitting one of the many structures on the airport grounds (including the terminal) was considered when developing the level of response. Also, for the comment about additional EMS resources needed to be placed in the plan, on an alert level three there are 6 EMS agencies dispatched as well as their ALS fly cars to the scene. That is a minimum of 10-12 ambulances on initial dispatch. When a crash occurs and an estimated # souls on board is determined, then specific number of EMS task forces will be requested by the IC. A task force consists of either 3 BLS ambulances and 2 ALS ambulances or 5 BLS ambulances a 2 ALS fly cars. A lot of good airport operations people, experienced firefighters, fire chiefs, emergency mangers, and EMS officials have put a lot of time and effort in making this plan as good as it can be, it has certainly come a very long way since the first plan written. There are some difficulties since it is in three jurisdictions, but all of them do the best that they can to make it work. It is a very unique situation and can criticized over and over again. Until you are responding to an area dealing with multi-jurisdictions (Fire/EMS/Police/Federal/Airport Ops/County), please understand it is not as easy as you think. In this particular case, there was also three police agencies involved, so there were a lot of hands in the pot. But no responders got hurt and everyone went home safe. Representatives from each agency involved with the airport response meet monthly to continually update the plan. And yes, an AAR will be held to review this event. Please remember, a plane can fall out of the sky anywhere, is your department ready if it happens in your jurisdiction?

John, If you think the training is so bad in Westchester, take a look at the attached website. http://www.dos.state.ny.us/fire/pdfs/training/outreachtrngsched.pdf This is all the OFPC training offered throughout the state of NY listed by County. Westchester provides more training than almost every other County in the State of NY. In my opinion, we are awfully luck to get all the training we do in Westchester. I think DES is doing a good job with producing all of the training that they do. They also provide a lot of County developed courses that these other counties do not have the monies to provide. It sounds like your members don't want to drive to Valhalla to take the training, that they will only train if it is held at your facility. That shouldn't be the case.

The fact is heart disease is the leading cause of death of all Americans, men and women. It is surely the leading cause of death amongst fire fighters. American is one of the most obese nations. In 2005, the US government decided to change diet recommendations. They are pretty good. It went along with a new food guide pyramid that includes physical activity as part of the equation when it comes to your caloric intake. The fact of the matter what ever fad diet you try, you'll eventually go back to your old bad habits because it is not teaching proper nutrition. It is teaching a temperay fix to a long term problem. Behavior modification is the only way people can really get healthier. Check out the web site www.mypyramid.gov Firefighters are at an even higher risk for many reasons. Think it about it, you are sitting at home relaxing and you get called out to a working fire. Your body is expected to work to a high level without any warm up or preparation for the work. Then you are adding 35-50 pounds of equipment, between PPE and tools. Then the turnourt gear that you wear is there to keep you safe and not let the heat get to you. But where does your body heat go when you body trys to cool its self down? It can't get out either which raises your body core temp, which essentially over works your heart. A proper exercise and nutrition program should be available to all firefighters, and all emergency works for that matter. This should be something that fire departments spend time and money on to protect thier own. Unfortunately that is rarely a focus of fire departments. It will lead to happier and healthy workers! Believe it or not, the new exercise recommendations have changed significantly. The recommendations from the USDA, 60 minutes, 7 days a week is ideal for lowering risk for chronic diease and gradual weight gain. 60-90 minutes, 7 days per week for significant weight loss. That is a lot of time and it's important to get it!

Heart Disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. It is certainly the leading cause of firefighter deaths. That is reason enough for your "power at be's" to give the members of your department incentive to exercise. It is the most important thing you can do to improve your health and overall well being. Our firehouse has a room that is about 900 square feet. It has two treadmills, an elliptical trainer, a stair climber, 1 upright bike, two recumbant bikes and an upper arm ergometer. We also have a multistation universal cable system as well as dumbbells ranging from 5 to 75 pounds with a flat and incline bench. And it is a comfortable fit in that small amount of space. Most of this equipment was donated by people that live in our district, business that have employee fitness centers, or local gyms that we approached and asked to contact us when ever they wanted to get rid of older equipment. Our department only spent about $2500 for all of the equipment that we have. Our members have the ability to use it whenever they want. A major benefit to having a gym in the firehouse versus getttng them discounted memberships to a local gym, is that it gets volunteers to be physically at the firehouse more often. This increases their chances of being there when a call comes in.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice.

Does anyone out there know of any good web sites to find FIRE/EMS/RESCUE training videos?

EMSCOMM80, I am not sure where you are a member, but where we work, the public wants to know where their tax dollars are going. They are very critical of us, saying that we are a "small community" and we don't need the a large fire department with all the equipment that we have. Them hearing the siren, gives them a sense of how busy we actually are. It means a lot to our members that they get this justification. They think we are just members to have a place to hang out. I'm sure it make little sense to you and a lot of people, but when you get verbally attacked in your town as a volunteer you want some justification. TO VISTAFD 126, I believe that you are right that NFPA requires a secondary way of notifcation for calls. The pager is one, and the siren is another. I do understand that you can get text messaging from the county as a secondary means, but if 60 Control is not your primary dispatch, then you do not have this option. We get dipatched by our local police department, so we don't have the text messaging option.

To EMSCOMM 80, First of all that one point I made about the public knowing we are out on calls a lot. We are in a smaller town, but a busy one. Many of our towns people don't realize how busy we are. Since we got a new siren, many towns people that I know have said to me, "wow you guys must have been really busy today, I heard the siren several times." (with a good connotation to it) It gives the towns people acknowledgement that we are needed more than they ever realized Maybe this doesn't happen in your town, but I think it works well for us in ours. As far as the paging system not working and getting a crew to standby. The times that the paging system was not working, we did not know it was not working. It took the PD trying to dispatch us, and our pagers not getting tripped to discover the problem. It would be nice to know in advance, but sometimes you can't. It's just a good back up system. Things go wrong sometimes with equipment, no matter how much you have it tested.

I believe that the horn should still be used for many reasons; 1. The town people know that emergency vehicles will be out on the roads so they can be more alert. 2. If you want to go to church or a school event, you do not have to bring your pager. Pagers make a lot of noise, even if you have one of the ones that vibrates. It is considerate to others. 3. It's nice to have the town people know that their volunteers are out on a call, during the day or in the middle of the night. Let them know how often you are called! 4. There have been many times that our pager systems have been down and the only way we know there is a call is if the horn blows. Those are just a few.

You wonder why they didn't hook him up to an AED to see if he had shockable rhythm. They may have determined that he had a pulse based to the prompt of the AED. A lot of negligence on behalf of the crew.

Wow, it's Jamboree time already. This is always a very fun event to go to. I am looking forward to it! Any real good interesting gifts being raffled off this year?

My thoughts and condolances go out to the entire Arena Family. Although most of us never met Jimmy Boy, I think I can speak for the Armonk fire Department in saying that Jimmy Boy's strength and courage was an inspiration to us all. May his spirit last forever.

I firmly agree with the fact that you have to treat the patient signs and symptoms first and foremost. That is the most important thing a EMT can do. However having a bit more knowledge helps everyone.

Tombstone ST elevations are usually only seen during the active MI, we had good clean lead II pictures of it to bring to the ER. They started flattening out quickly after ALS arrived.