NWFDMedic

Regardless, once we are dispatched we have to complete the NIFRS and the only way to complete it correctly is to make a presence on scene.

That is incorrect. There is an option on the NFIRS for a canceled call.

For those of you who have tank farms in your area, you might want to see what resources they have available. We have a foam pumper due to the tank farms on the river in our district. They also maintain significant foam resources (both piped and stored) that can directly connect to fire apparatus. If there was an incident off the tank farms that required significant foam resources, I'd imagine they would be able to make it available in an emergency situation. Granted, it's not on a truck ready to go, but it may still be of use.

It would actually be rare to have a Tech Sgt at a scene, and often a Sergeant would outrank him/her, but there are a significant number of possible exceptions to that rule.

I would hope that common sense would prevail. If the detail was specific to the Tech Sgt's area of expertise, then they should take the command role. Sometimes T/Sgt's also hold the rank of Sgt, as I know at least one of the pilots for Lifeguard at SWF did.

Currently their is no minimum manning clause in our contract. We are currently trying to negotiate a new contract which includes over 1 million dollars in concessions (which includes: salary cuts, schedule changes, loss of a couple of holidays, give back of HR time.....ect) If signed, the new contract will have a manning clause which would save the 12 guys.

As far as the volunteers....we have gotten the verbal commitment from numerous (of course not all) surrounding depts stating that they will not go into the city if the layoffs occur.

If anyone is hiring please let me know...

This is a really difficult situation the surrounding departments are put into as well. It would be very easy to say boycott going to the City if the layoffs occur. However, those who are still working there might need assistance. It would be devastating to find out that a brother firefighter died or was injured due to a department's refusal to respond because of a contract issue. I have quite a few lifelong friends in NFD and I sympathize with what they are going through but I wouldn't make a bad situation worse by not responding; it honestly puts the FF's lives at even more risk.

I spent a weekend up in Potsdam recently (for those who don't know, it's entirely a college town) and really didn't see any difference than normal. If it isn't 4 Loko, it's something else. When we were in college, we used to take the 26 mile trip up to the beer store in Canada to get Molson XXX or Labatt's Maximum. The Red Bull drinks have been a staple at college bars for a number of years. The kids I talked to in Potsdam really had no great affinity for 4 Lokos, basically saying that these drinks screw up their plans to drink all night and .... ummm ... have "relations" at the the end of the night.

Quite honestly, I'm sick of government trying to legislate responsibility. 4 Loko is just another fad. It will go away as quickly as the last if people just let it be because most people agree they taste horrible.

1st. the counties are all cutting services as well

2nd. Having the counties handle the costs of just specialized survices, does not reduce the cost to taxpayers, it just changes which bill it comes from.

3rd. At some point the levels of service will be cut to the point that we will be forced to consolidate. Some of us have been advocating to due it before we get to those levels. Its going to happen, the issue is how much will we lose before everyone agrees to it.

You bring up some good points here. Although I mentioned that the service could be provided through the county, I didn't necessarily mean that a county team was necessary. Instead, neighboring jurisdictions could share the costs of lesser used resources. We started doing this in Orange County in the fire service with some of the lesser used services. Maybe Yorktown should be the department that has the K9 team and a neighboring jurisdiction could provide a SWAT team, a third jurisdiction could provide a drug task force (excuse me for not being up to date on law enforcement teams, I'm just using these teams as examples). On the fire service end, district A might absorb the cost for a rope rescue team while district B absorbs the cost of maintaining an ice rescue team. In the event that either district A or B requires the resource, they share them.

These towns have got to cut somewhere and it stinks that public safety items are getting cut, but pretty much every line item is feeling it this year. Some of these lesser used resources might be better funded on the county level where the cost and resources can be shared.

I personally think that FID's are very important and provided the Fire Chief with personnel who are highly trained and highly experienced. One benefit is that when a FID comes to a scene, it provides the Chief with fresh eyes and minds. Can't the Chief call for a different counties FID or C&O team? I know I have experienced this before...

The Chief can call for whomever he wants, but the question becomes will they come. There are a limited number of fire investigators in Orange County where it often takes several dispatches just to get an investigator to answer in our county. Do you think they'd be willing to cover Dutchess too? I know that our K-9 resource has gone elsewhere to investigate, but that's a specialty resource. I doubt you'd see the investigators willing to go out of county for investigation without compensation.

Actually, if I read this correctly, this is just a formal expression of what already exists. Many years ago, the Town of Hamptonburgh was split up for BLS service between GOVAC, BGVAC, Town of Montgomery, and I believe a small portion to NWVAC because they had no ambulance. ALS was provided by whomever the ALS provider was for the volunteer agency and when BGVAC went ALS, they served this area with ALS and BLS coverage just as they had prior with BLS.

An ambulance should not be used as a blocker for a PD vehicle. Get something bigger behind you. EMS personnel have been struck and killed while loading the patient.

Well that's obviously the best case. When going to a highway accident, I always attempt to get to the front of the line for several reasons (A) not getting stuck on the scene, ( size-up of three sides of the scene before I step out of the bus (the firefighter in me), and © safety in loading the patient. However, we all know not every scene plays out how we'd like.

Doug,

I don't think there's a police officer out there that would write a summons to an emergency vehicle that had blue lights facing rear in the interest of safety. This is especially true considering these larger EMS vehicles might hide the police vehicle from sight at the scene of an MVC and it may be the lights on the ambulance that are actually protecting the police officer. I would also imagine that the DOH would be rather unlikely to choose this issue to "break balls" of any agency. Imagine this article on the front cover of The Record: "DOH cites ambulance for being too safe".

I think a lot of agencies have gone overboard to the point of blinding people with lights or trying to find one more place for a light than the agency next to them. However, if agencies are doing what they can to make their members safe, it's a ridiculous and petty argument to fight about what color lights an emergency vehicle might have.

But EMS vehicles have their own standards to follow anyway like NFPA sets them for fire trucks correct?

The NFPA doesn't "set" anything. They are a private organization. The reason the NFPA "standards" have so much clout is it has been recognized as the "reasonably prudent" standard in courts a number of times. Nobody is forced to follow NFPA but it does pose a significant legal risk if a department is to get sued.

There is a standard for the lighting of ambulance vehicles. It is federal and it is contained within the KKK standard, although it doesn't specify color of lighting. That is left to be determined on the state level.

I would imagine that FD EMS vehicles would be covered under this law. However, non-FD EMS agencies would be in violation of the law if they had blue lights on their vehicles. I've seen a couple of EMS vehicles in the area operating with illegal lighting.

Below is the ammendment to the NYS VTL regarding Blue Lights on the rear of FD Vehicles, EMS vehicles were left out of the ammendment. FD vehicles in NYS are now permitted to have rear facing blue lights. No mention of EMS vehicles anywhere...................

§ 375 (41). Colored and flashing lights.

4. Blue light.

b. In addition to the red and white lights authorized to be displayed pursuant to paragraph two of this subdivision, one or more blue lights or combination blue and red lights or combination blue, red and white lights may be affixed to a police vehicle and fire vehicle, provided that such blue light or lights shall be displayed on a police vehicle and fire vehicle for rear projection only. In the event that the trunk or rear gate of a police vehicle and fire vehicle obstructs or diminishes the visibility of other emergency lighting on such vehicles, a blue light may be affixed to and displayed from the trunk, rear gate or interior of such vehicles. Such lights may be displayed on a police vehicle and fire vehicle when such vehicles are engaged in an emergency operation. Nothing contained in this subparagraph shall be deemed to authorize the use of blue lights on police vehicles and fire vehicles unless such vehicles also display one or more red or combination red and white lights as otherwise authorized in this subdivision.

Luckily the ALCS is on TBS this year, so New York fans are just missing the NLCS. Must stink that Mets fans can't watch their team; I really feel for them ... oh wait, CourtTV is still on the air.

That's why they have racks in the VACs. Use them!

That idea is all well and good, until you end up at the structure fire, or hazmat incident, or MCI with the VAC that leaves you out doing work for a good percentage of your shift. Yeah, it may only happen once in a while, but it only takes one time to fall asleep at the wheel and kill someone.

Link to Potsdam FD website...

Potsdam FD

Great stuff PFD. I'll be up in Potsdam visiting in October...will have to take a ride by.

Thanks for the pictures. Any word on how the fire started? I had a good friend who lived in that house while he was doing graduate work at Clarkson. Was a relatively well-maintained college apartment house. Fire on the porch at midnight sounds like an unextinguished cigarette to me.

I have been there as well, also we have our 'regulars' (in nice terms) where as 911 dispatches a priority 1 response for a seizure because the CAD says so, even though it's the 40th time they have called 911 in a month because they sold/taken all their narcotics, 7 day supply lasting only one day! I digress, the dispatchers are well aware of the BS nature of this caller but have to follow protocol and dispatch it P1. I and most of the crews know of this person, very well and do not respond 'code 3'.

However now that there is priority dispatching, what liability are crews taking by reducing their response to calls like my above mentioned patient when the one time out of 700 it's a true life threat, the EMD from the CAD gets it wrong, call taker gets it wrong or patient embellishes their symptoms to get a faster response? This happens day in and day out, all of us who have been doing this for years have been there, what we all need to do is the seasoned veterans need to educate the newbies, as with most emergency services problems education is the key, pass your knowledge on to the next generation, be it patient education, driving, BLS/ALS skills and techniques and believe it or not, common sense can be passed on. (to a slight degree)

The answer to this is pretty simple. If you go into court for whatever purpose, the best thing you can have on your side is the fact that you followed the standard. If your dispatch center sends you on a "with traffic" response based on some sort of EMD, you better be traveling that way. The same goes for the "code" response. You're getting a dispatch from some sort of dispatch center that says "a 50 year old patient in seizures". You generally haven't gotten the full text of the 1 to 2 minute phone call. You must rely on their judgment and their adherence to protocols and do your job based on those standards. If you get dispatched on a "with traffic" response to a call that sounds more serious from the information that you are given, you should be asking or telling dispatch you are upgrading your response (and similarly if you are downgrading).

I know there are several agencies out there that go "code" response to every call, regardless of what your dispatcher says. All I have to say to that is, you better have a darn good liability policy when you get to court. It's very damaging to walk into court and have the plaintiff's (or prosecution's) lawyer ask "so, why exactly did you choose not to follow the nationally accepted standard?" Likewise, if you follow the standard and end up in court over that call that was dispatched low priority that should have been high, adherence to standard will usually negate any negligence claim.

I'm not sure if any amount of experience or time can guarantee a good driver of an emergency vehicle. I've been driving emergency vehicles now for 17 years and have never hit anything while moving forward (I had a deer hit ME once, jumped out of the roadside and hit my rear tire). I also backed into another ambulance (embarrassing story involving an ambulance covered with ice that I should've cleared before backing into the station). That being said, there are guys in my FD and my past FD that have been driving for 20 years that I plain old will not get on the rig with because I'm not confident in their ability. In contrast, I've worked with some 20 and 21 year olds that are very responsible driving the ambulance. I think that it's all about attitude and if someone doesn't have the right attitude, they shouldn't be driving your rigs. Incidents like this should remind all services that it's more important to have a competent operator than getting the rig off the floor.

A test can certainly be racially biased but given the fact that the city had previously had issues, I'm quite sure they've had their tests reviewed by experts that eliminate the colloquialisms that are often considered to be the source of racial bias. The comment by the Vulcan Society clearly says that they will challenge every written test until there is no longer a written test. Sorry folks, but reading comprehension is part of a firefighter's job. If you are the first due on an assignment and the driver of a commercial vehicle comes up to you with the manifest of that vehicle, you better darn well be able to understand that it says that "this vehicle contains methyl-ethyl-bad-stuff, keep your firefighters away".

I have no problem with double checking a test to make sure it doesn't contain ethnic bias. Throwing the test away, however, is just wrong.

I believe schools have their own process and don't necessarily have to go through the town but I'm not 100% sure about that. Fire districts, however, must follow local code.

I've never personally used one except in class, but I've seen several of my coworkers use them. They seem to work great.

I've seen several people comment that this department is "unprofessional". I guess it's professional to get to the end of a parade and have all the (of age hopefully) firefighters meet at a park or little league field and drink til they can't drink no more. I'm not saying anything against it (I've done it many times myself), but when speaking of professionalism, those in glass houses...

There's only what, 700-800 foot of LDH on that engine? If you have to manually work around the couplings, this contraption may actually add time to the job. Nothing a manual hose roller can't take care of with just as much effort. I have to agree, if your department has a hose truck, then maybe this might be a good product to look into.

As for that hosebed alsff, that is surely not parade ready. I generally laugh at how perfectly packed some of the engines are (even not at parades) while the real working engines look something like we see in the picture. The only reason my department packs the hose so tightly (between parades) is that we have to to make it fit and keep it from flying off the back while going down 9W or I-87 (long story).

Call me crazy but this is a public site. As such, we have to keep in mind that patient's families or maybe other parties involved may have access to this site. I, for one, would not want to relive and relive this tragic incident because someone wanted to post details on an Internet site.

If someone would like to post a constructive thread on field terminations and maybe discuss the differences between states and region, that could be a learning experience. To discuss this specific case on the Internet is completely unprofessional and inappropriate.