JFLYNN

Oh, another quick point in response to this post that I just realized has not been made yet....Local 628 nor the UFOA have never "gone after" or "attacked" Empress' union. In fact, it might be perceived to be the other way around. You see, approx. 22 years ago, when YFD began regularly responding to First Responder work, which was not currently being done by anyone except the occasional response of YFD to medical emergencies, or the YPD ESU responing to accidents and injuries, the YFD Administration, and both unions, advocated for more ambulances on the road, documented poor Empress response times and inadequate equipment, all of which bettered the working conditions of Empress members and created additional jobs for Empress employees. YFD also requested and had put in the contract that Empress medics would provide training to our members, thus creating work for them. Now, fast forward 22 years later and IT SEEMS that Empress' union is supporting replacing YFD as first responders with Paramedics in fly cars, thus "going after" local 628 and UFOA work, not to mentionthat this is a notion that anyone involved in the system as a professional should realize will compromise patient care for many reasons. Over the years the idea of YFD taking over ambulance service had been floated by various political leaders, and neither 628 nor UFOA had ever pursued this work. So, It's hard to try to make the point that the YFD unions are somehow hurting Empress employees of their union or have ever done so. In any event, just a reminder to all in this great city who respond to any type of emergency- we all have much more in common than we hold as differences- there are no enemies amongst us. Patient care must come first and foremost. So, please everyone on all sides of this contentious and emotional issue- although we may have strong disagreements in certain areas, let's agree to treat one another with respect at all times (especially in the field), and to be honest in our dealings with each other. All of us have a tough and at times, dangerous job that is worthwile and deserving of respect. Let's not demean ourselves or our professions by engaging in pettiness and mean spirited behavior. We are all much better than that. And of course, please qtip.....

No worries Brother, I qtiped. Merry Christmas and saty safe!

I'm done for tonight..when I have time I will post the conclusion to this series of sloppy, but hopefully informative posts, entitled- THE BOTTOM LINE- Short term and long term consequences of eliminating the YFD First Responder Program, and why, if it ever is eliminated, it will inevitably be reinstituted in 9-24 months. In the meantime my friends, please...qtip.....

PART 4 YFD has not only CFR-D's, but a very large number of EMT's, as well as several Paramedics and RN's.

Part 3. Disclaimer- my apologies for spelling and grammatical errors in previous and future posts- there is a lot to cover here and I don't have time or emergy to dot the i's and cross the t's- I hope I am making some sense to most of you nonetheless. Here we go...I agree with the poster who stated that Empress is "clinically progressive" and who espoused the value of Empress' EMD pre-arrival instructions. However, I should point out that the "Haz-Mat Special Ops support to YFD" provided by Empress is done with equipment purchased with federal grant money (UASI and MMRS), and training conducted by YFD. The nature of this support is generally to provide a secondary technical decon only. One point that was made by a brother YFD member, above, should be emphasized. Empress has so very many dedicated and professional members. However, the majority of these individuals do not spend the majority of their working lives in EMS, and particularly not with Empress, although some do. Many Empress employees move on to Fire or Police Department careers, elsewhere in emergency medicine, or on to other careers altogether. The Empress work force is nowhere as stable as YFD. This is just reality and I believe is pertinent. I won't give my opinion regarding the effect of a stable vs. a more transient workforce because it is just that, my opinion, and we all know what those are worth. However, these facts should be provided so that all of the stakeholders (particularly city residents) might be able to deternine relevance.

Part 2- Now, to some of the misinformation that has been posted on this site in regard to the YFD First Responder Program. Misinformation response # 1. This work constitutes a large majority of our responses, or our overall work. This is not accurate. First Responder runs account for approximately 55 % of our incidents. However, each of these incidents requires the response of only one Engine Company, and the Engine Company is generally back in service in 20 minutes or less, sometimes longer of course. Obviously to anyone familiar with the Fire Service, the typical incident any Fire Department responds to (the other approximately 45% ) involves many more apparatus and personnel for significantly longer periods of time. A First Responder run with utilizing one apparatue and 4 Firefighters for 15 minutes is one incident. A 3 Alarm Fire utilizing 14 apparatus, other vehicles, and a total of 63 or so Firefighters for six or seven hours is also one incident, kapeesh?? Furthermore, the "workload" of a Fire Department is not only responses, but also the necessary training, inspections, cleaning, maintenance of vehicles, equipment, etc. Misinformation response # 1a. Therefore, although the rumored elimination of the First Responder Program may (not my area of expertise) allow certain contractual minimum personnel levels to no longer be adhered to, it will not obviate the necessity to have adequate Fire Companies and personnel available for Firefighting and other emergencies. Sure, no FD is as busy as twenty years ago with fire duty, and certainly not as busy as 30 or 40 years ago. Nonetheless, fires do still occur, and adequate personnel and equipment is necessary for this. There is a very valid reason that similar sized city FD's all over the U.S., and in fact the industrialized world conduct First Responder Programs- the very nature of a Fire Department requires Firefighters and their equipment to be readily available for guess what, fires! However, this ready availability of individuals who are trained to handle emergencies and have apparatus to quickly respond allows city sized Fire Departments to have personnel available to supplement the primary EMS response with First Response capability. This supplementation is able to be done by Firefighters who, for the most part, will need to be there, available, anyway! The Firefighters do not get tied up with transport (generally), transfer to the medical facility, PCR's, cleaning the ambulance, etc. So, they are able to go right back into service as soon as the patient has been placed in the ambulance, or in many cases, sooner, right? Misinformation response # 2. Oh, here's an easy one- we have 4 Firefighters per apparatus (3 Firefighters and a Company Officer), not 5. That is the manning we have had per apparatus for over 30 years. It's hard to understand how any individual who would purport to understand the situation in Yonkers could state that this is all about reducing manning from 5 to 4 per apparatus, or words to that effect. Misinformation response # 3. The majority of these runs are nuisance runs. Well, that depends on what you consider a nusiance run. The fact is that if we know in advance the situation is not a true medical emergency, then neither the Fire Department nor the emergency ambulance service shoud respond, right? The problem, which has been studied at the highest levels for many years, is how to deduce from the initial phone call what is and what isn't a "nuisance call"..I don't know how to quantify how many of these runs that YFD (and Empress) responds to are not true medical emergencies, but admittedly the number is significant, as it is in EMS systems almost everywhere. No one wants to respond on any type of alarm where we are not needed, and as soon as someone can find out how to deduce true emergency from nuisance run every time, please let us know! END OF PART 2 TO BE CONTINUED

Great post my Brother, whoever you are, lol- please let me know your identity if you don't mind. Thanks to you and Capt. Smith for the informative posts and to all of our members for not discrediting ourselves or our department by engaging in name calling and nasty, unprofessional language. Of course I would never expect our guys to sink to the level that some others on this thread have sunk to, but thanks nonetheless... I will add a bit from my perspective- please bear with me as I am exhausted and pressed for time do I will bang this out quickly and it may be a bit rough around the edges.... I am nearing the end of my career, and frankly, I don't really think I will be personally affected if in fact the YFD First Responder Program did end, although I sincerely doubt that will happen for long, if at all, and I will explain why below. In fact, I certainly have more to lose by posting on this topic rather than remaining silent as this will likely piss some people off...oh well... I have been a member of YFD for almost 25 years, since before we had a First Responder Program. As a very junior Firefighter I was a member of the committee which some at the time said "ruined the job" by convincing first, Local 628, and later, with the backing of L-628, helped to convince the City Fathers that this program was a good idea. The union did not come up with the idea of this program or push for it at first. You see, years ago, YFD only responded on medical runs when there was a confirmed cardiac arrest and Empress Ambulance either was not available at all, or did not have enough personnel available to perform good CPR. We responded on those fairly often. We had only very basic first aid training and CPR. There were numerous times when we performed CPR for very long periods of time before the arrival of the ambulance. Sometimes a Paramedic fly car would arrive and we would wait, and wait....sometimes not even the fly car. The Empress employees were almost always professional, dedicated, and we had a great working relationship. It sure wasn't their fault that the number of ambulances available didn't meet the need at that moment. One day, at Engine 306 where I worked, a family ran in with a baby in respiratory distress who had actually turned blue. A senior man /EMT opened the airway and started Oxygen. The baby wound up being ok. The family was irate that they had called over 20 minutes before and we had not responded (we checked the times and this was accurate). We explained that FD did not get sent to these type of calls unless it was a cardiac arrest and Empress requested us. It was very upsetting to me/us to know that people who we were sworn to protect, particularly children, could be having a life threatening medical emergency that we would be able to assist with, yet we would not be called. I really never wanted to do emergency medical work back then- I thought of myself as a Firefighter and my idea of a Firefighter was different than what it is today. Nonetheless, because of situations such as I have described above, I agreed with some other Firefighters who advocated for us to go on these runs more regularly as was being done in other parts of the country, and seemingly very successfully. It took a couple of years, but eventually the program began. At the time, approximately 22 years ago, it is my understanding that Empress was charging the City of Yonkers a flat 1 Million per year for their services plus the ability to recoup from billing. Almost as soon as we began the First Responder Program that ccontract was re-negotiated and Empress then waived this 1 Million dollar fee. Also, there was no minimum number of ambulances that were required to be dedicated to City of Yonkers- almost as soon as YFD began going on these runs,it was noticed how very bad Empress' response times were- not due to any fault of the overworked Empress EMT's and Medics, but again, because of a lack of appropriate resources. So, very shortly because of YFD complaints, Empress agreed to keep a minimum number of ALS and BLS units in the city and this was put into their contract. I also think that it was at this time that a certain maximum average response time for Empress BLS and ALS units was placed into Empress' contract which improved things dramatically. I guess if prior to YFD involvement no one was really paying attention to ressponse times, why bother having a lot of ambulances available- the number of billable patients was not dependent on response time- they would all wait as long as it took for the ambulance so why incur the expense if no one was complaining, right? Admittedly, I haven't gone on a First Responder rum for almost 7 years now, but I did respond on very many over the years. Almost always, I found Empress employees to be fantastic and I thought we had a great working relationship, even if there was a bit of uncomfortability at times- egos and jealousy and just basic human misunderstanding on both sides creeps in of course, however in my opinion we were mostly all regular working people who enjoyed the adrenaline rush and especially, helping people. During the approximately 15 years that I went on First Responder runs with YFD there were very many times that we arrived significantly before Empress ambulance. The large majority of time we arrived at least a couple of minutes before Empress, and often, especially when I worked on the East side of Yonkers, more than 10 minutes prior to Empress. As Captain Smith was, I was involved in 2 successful childbirths (the Moms did basically all of the work of course but they were sure glad that we were there nonetheless) before Empress arrived (not the same ones), and I and my crew initiated CPR COUNTLESS TIMES before Empress' arrival. END OF PART 1 TO BE CONTINUED

The other rig is Ladder 72. My Dad is riding the engine in this pic- Officer seat.

Hopefully NONE of my brothers on YFD will take the bait and attack the many dedicated and professional members of Empress such as this individual has attacked YFD. This is only one persons opinion. I have always felt that YFD and Empress line members work well together and respect each other. Us fighting each other is harmful to us all as well as to those we serve. 628s website post regarding Empress certainly was not an attack on Empress employees and I believe any reasonable, person would read it that way. It is 628 s job to represent their members interests and this is what they are doing. They have not attacked Empress employees. Those who would try to spin this as an attack on Empress employees, or another union are doing so for their own reasons. There are a combination of truths, half-truths and much untruth in this persons post. When I am rested I will respond to each point by point. Please my brothers on YFD as well as Empress lets stick to the facts and not get personal or unprofessional. This is what those who wish us harm are hoping for and expecting .

It's apples and oranges...if you asked the waiter in a restaurant, for say, apple pie, and he told you it would take 10 minutes to arrive at the table, but if you would rather, you can order orange soufle, which might arrive in 5 minutes, or perhaps take as long as 30 minutes, depending on the chef's mood, most people would order the apple pie...

You make me proud Wonderboy! Really.

Yonkers Fire has a ladder company (Spare L-78) with a full crew (Officer and 3 FF) plus a Battalion Chief and Aide in Nassau, I believe in Baldwin. They are returning tomorrow at 0800 after a 72 hour deployment. YFD Mobile Command has been in Citi Field, with 2 of our SOC members, for the last several days. It is expected to be there for a long time. It is being heavily utilized by various OEM / FEMA, etc. We also have a Haz-Mat Task Force operating in Suffolk County out of the Islip Airport alongside a career FD Haz-Mat team there.It consists of 2 YFD Battalion Chiefs, and approximately 4 YFD Company Officers, and 15 or so YFD Firefighters, as well as 1 Officer and 3 Firefighters from Hartsdale Fire, and 1 Officer and 6 Firefighters from Greenville Fire. All or most of these members have been trained to the Haz-Mat Tech level, and some to Haz-Mat Specialist level.They finish their 72 hours tomorrow evening I believe. They have been doing a very significant amount of work, the details of which I do not have. Suffice to say that local opinion has been very positive and they have been requested to extend their deployment for at least 72 more hours. However, in light of the coming Nor-Easter, our exhausted personnel as a result of the Hurricane Sandy mitigation- preparation- response, and recovery efforts in Yonkers, and the recovery work on Long Island, and our very undermanned department (40+ members under authorized strength due to a delayed class hiring), we have declined the request to extend the Haz Mat Task Force deployment. We will see what effect the coming storm has, and if still requested, and able, we will redeploy another Haz Mat Group. This is a horrible situation for so many, but it is nice to see how readily most First Responders as well civilians give of their time, effort, and money to attempt to ease the suffering and return us all to some sense of normalcy. Once again, I could not be more proud of my YFD brothers, many of whom suffered damage to their own homes, as well as extended loss of electricity, yet continued to rise to the challenge and performed admirably during the many events of this last week.

Thanks for your opinion.

These symposiums are excellent and well worth the money for anyone who is serious about this business. The foundation is apparently scheduling this on the right days of the week, and charging the right price, as it normally sells out. From my understanding, the monies raised go to good causes, so I don't understand why anyone would have an issue with this. qtip

Rest in Peace and condolences to all of Chucky's friends and family.

Why?

Should I have separate drawers for my athletic socks and my dress socks? I can't decide....

I mean this with all sincerity, and it is intended not only for you, but for many others on this site...how many Firefighting TEXTBOOKS (not magazine articles or websites, which have their own value), but TEXTBOOKS on firefighting- how many of them do you own, how many have you read from cover to cover, over and over, with numerous highlights and notes in the margins, maybe thousands of pages of notes taken from these TEXTBOOKS, as well as flash cards made, and accompanying study guides completed? How many? I would be willing to place a wager... This is not to discredit you or others or to be mean, but there are so many on here who simply don't know what they don't know. If you had such strong, yet uneducated opinions, and expressed them in the kitchen of a career Fire Station (particularly any department which has some occasional fire duty), it would very quickly be "explained" to you why it would be best for you to educate yourself and gain some experience before so emphatically disagreeing with your seniors. It's very hard to learn much when your lips are moving or, in this case, when your fingers are typing.

Dangit- you beat me to it! Mr. ATV is basically pleading for a "qtip", lol. I haven't even had time to watch the video yet, but after scrolling through this thread I have a pretty good idea of what I would see (based on credible reports from several fire service experts, lol), so, rather than watch this seemingly amusing video, I think I will instead use the 5 minutes of my life to organize my sock drawer- it will be time more well spent... I did have some pleasant conversation with several nice London Firefighters at the Tunnel to Towers Race on Sunday...I was nice...I didn't tease them about their motorcycle helmets, nor did I engage in a discussion on tactics, which most likely would have ended badly, lol. I figured for a department that went through what they did during WW 2, they deserve a pass on questioning their questionable tactics from a wise a** U.S Fire Chief. The rest of you on here do not, however....

Thank you.

How is that you think this is a response to my challenge? My challenge was for the other poster to explain with specificity what he meant by "glass houses". It is such a shame that again, another poster on this site has, from behind the anonymity of his keyboard, made unsubstantiated allegations using such words as "hate" and "despise"...we have so many serious problems in this world, and everyone on this website, career, volunteer, or other has so much more in common than we do differences. There is, unfortunately, so much real hate, violence and unfairness in this world, and to throw these words around so casually is really a damn shame to me. Why can't we just be big boys and respect differences of opinion without being so thin skinned or making personal attacks? I have used sarcasm on this site at times, and generally this was done in response to ludicrous misinformation on a subject near and dear to my heart, and / or a personal attack on my self or my department. However, in all my years interacting with members of the volunteer Fire and EMS service, both on this site, and in person, I have never been rude, disrespectful, or dishonest. In fact, I have been very supportive of any volunteers who have come to me for help or advice on many occasions. On a related note, when valid criticism of my own department or career departments in general is posted, I never take it personally, or try to make excuses or deny the truth. However, here in Westchester County we have many serious issues with Fire and EMS services, and the majority of these issues (not all) are from the volunteer side. This is not personal, it is business. Very important, life or death business! Duplication of resources, ridiculous selection, training, promotion and retention standards, lack of transparency, horrible inadequate response standards, etc, etc. Many of these issues could be fairly easily solved, and therefore more death, pain and suffering could be avoided, if egos could be put aside, and valid criticisms could be accepted. , Adequate minimum training standards, consolidation and regionalization, transparency in regard to finances, resources, levels of training and competency need to happen. It is a complete failure of leadership and selfish egomaniacs who are more worried about their little fiefdoms than the public good who are standing in the way of this. My hope is that if I and others keep pointing out these serious issues, the many good, intelligent, dedicated and caring individuals in the volunteer sector will force this change down the throats of the entrenched "leaders" who have been holding progress back for so long. My feelings are shared by so many, both career and volunteer- and just FYI, many of the career Firefighters who volunteers hold in such high regard actually feel exactly the same as I do- however they choose not to go public with their feelings because they want to make money by teaching you, selling you t shirts and other paraphanelia, receiving the many benefits of being volunteer Firefighters themselves, writing books and articles, setting themselves up for certain jobs in retirement, etc., etc., and they are not willing to suffer the personal attacks such as I have on here for expressing my feelings on this issue. It's actually hilarious to hear the criticisms of the volunteer fire service which are made in private by many career Firefighters who most volunteers proclaim to be their good friends and supporters I realize I am making sense to a lot of you and many of you share my feelings. No matter how hard I try, the haters will always be out there. I accept and expect that. Thanks to all of you who have supported me on these issues. Together, over time, we will acccomplish much positive change in the service of those we are sworn to protect.

I challenge you to explain with specificity what you mean by "glass houses". It would also display a measure of integrity for you to provide your name, or at least a bit of background as to your fire service experience, and thus your credibilitry, or lack thereof.

] To the many fair minded members of the volunteer fire service, please note that my name is clearly indicated on all of my posts, unlike this poster. Also, I would challenge anyone to show any evidence of me being a "known enemy of us volunteers", or of spreading "volunteer hating rhetoric"...these are really serious allegations, words like "hate" f and "enemy" for Pete's sake, should not be thrown around so casually. Members of the fire service, both career and volunteer have sacrificed much, even their own lives. How cowardly and mean spirited it is to make such slanderous statements from behind the anonymity of your keyboard. I would also ask this poster, if I thought there was any chance of receiving an honest answer, what he means specifically by "Deal with your own problems before you attack us." I wonder if he's just having a really bad day and this was an impulsive error in judgement, or if he truly is such a mean spirited, character lacking individual?

Hello Members of the media (I know you read this)....why not do some investigative journalism into the very serious, life threatening issue of fire department and EMS departments in Westchester County vis-a-vis, oftentimes ridiculously long response times, inadequately trained responders, duplication of resources, lack of transparency in regard to finances and frankly many other issues within lots of departments. This is serious stuff! Disclaimer- , I must very clearly state....this is not an attack on volunteer Firefighters, EMS workers or their departments! There are many dedicated and knowledgeable volunteer members of emergency services in this region. However, the SYSTEM is BROKEN! Positive change very rarely comes from inside of an organization, but rather through blunt force trauma from the outside. Well media, how about a little blunt force trauma in regard to this issue? Personally, my own department has been going through some blunt force trauma from certain segments of the media lately, and I'm ok with that- there's nothing to hide, no organization is perfect, transparency and acceptance of change are good things....Why are volunteer organizations who equally hold the fate of people's lives and property (and taxes) in their hands getting a pass from the media? In closing, I will pre-emptively state that I will not be engaging in a back and forth bicker on this topic, and yes, I do anticipate attempts at deflecting from the issue at hand by attacking myself personally as well as my own department. So, please don't take my non-responsiveness as acquiesence, agreement, or defeat. I'm just too busy to bother with responding to all of it. This post is really just for the media- maybe someday someone in the media in this area will wake up and realize how honest reporting in regard to this crisis would save lives, property and dollars. I'm not optimistic though, because I guess it's just easier to attack salaries, benefits, and pensions, and ignore an almost completely broken system right next door. stay safe and qtip brothers and sisters!

Great post. This is good, basic, practical information. One point I would take issue with and maybe will serve as a conversation starter is your statement that natural gas will "collect" along ceilings, in attics, etc. It has been my understanding and experience that natural gas is only slightly lighter that air and very diffuse. Thus, particularly in a private home, it dissipates quickly and generally doesn't "collect" in high spots.