prucha25

No second guessing going on here. Read the first line of my quote. I'm giving the Montrose IC the benefit of the doubt and reviewing the rule.

Which is exactly why the facts of the story should be affirmed prior to public rants.
I have known the Fire Fighter in question as a friend for over 20 years and have no doubt to HIS integrity. Much like 99.9% of the people pushing this boycott, I was NOT present when the issue arose.
I am just amazed at how quiet HE is about this and how many OTHER people are running hastily all over the internet without having much detail.
My organization has worked with these establishments on numerous occasions and have found them to be very friendly to assisting public safety officers. I would hate for the actions of one or two morons to be portrayed as being part of an organized discrimination campaign by a business.
Looking at what I have heard and read, there appears to be something missing from story. In 2011, for a large business to openly refuse entrance to people because they are of Asian decent, seems to be like trying to put your tongue on the third-rail?
I could be wrong, but was there any attempt to sit-down with a representative of management (and I am not talking about the bar manager on duty that night) trying to discuss the issue before this thing was shot out of the canon?
With respect to my quiet and humble friend, it appears that it may have been more prudent and systematic steps that could have been taken, prior to others using his face and background with a viral internet surge.
Every organization has its misfits, morons, criminals and malcontents (the Yankees have a full roster). However, it is stretch to suggest that the Company is condoning the behavior without the Company having an opportunity to be aware of the behavior and discipline/terminate those responsible and make amends with those harmed.
The internet posts and Facebook pages were created by Sunday at noon, this incident happened on Saturday night. Kind of hard to allow for a response or answer to a complaint and allow for information to be digested or processed.
Kind of like prejudicing an entire Fire Department or Police Department because of one bad member or Officer.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/paramedics_rescue_toddler_from_bronx_eV7tWP92GbOi6QtJjERTYO?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d532bb8bae2b71b%2C0
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2011/020911b.shtml
Great job to all the members who saved a family and a gave a Mother and Child a chance at a future! On a side note EMT Poliakoff and I were partners for a while at work. He is a standup guy, I am happy he was able to make a huge difference,

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/paramedics_rescue_toddler_from_bronx_eV7tWP92GbOi6QtJjERTYO?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d532bb8bae2b71b%2C0
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2011/020911b.shtml
Great job to all the members who saved a family and a gave a Mother and Child a chance at a future! On a side note EMT Poliakoff and I were partners for a while at work. He is a standup guy, I am happy he was able to make a huge difference,

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/paramedics_rescue_toddler_from_bronx_eV7tWP92GbOi6QtJjERTYO?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d532bb8bae2b71b%2C0
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2011/020911b.shtml
Great job to all the members who saved a family and a gave a Mother and Child a chance at a future! On a side note EMT Poliakoff and I were partners for a while at work. He is a standup guy, I am happy he was able to make a huge difference,

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/paramedics_rescue_toddler_from_bronx_eV7tWP92GbOi6QtJjERTYO?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d532bb8bae2b71b%2C0
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2011/020911b.shtml
Great job to all the members who saved a family and a gave a Mother and Child a chance at a future! On a side note EMT Poliakoff and I were partners for a while at work. He is a standup guy, I am happy he was able to make a huge difference,

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/paramedics_rescue_toddler_from_bronx_eV7tWP92GbOi6QtJjERTYO?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d532bb8bae2b71b%2C0
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2011/020911b.shtml
Great job to all the members who saved a family and a gave a Mother and Child a chance at a future! On a side note EMT Poliakoff and I were partners for a while at work. He is a standup guy, I am happy he was able to make a huge difference,

May I say, what we have here is a "culture clash" of sorts. Most of us know the following, but for the edification of the member who asked the question;
There is no such thing as a career chief's turnout coat that says "Ex Chief." The only way a career chief would still be wearing a turnout coat and not be a chief anymore, would be through a demotion (voluntary or involuntary) and the new coat he would be wearing would display his current rank, or through a move from being a career Chief to a career Commissioner.
In volunteer fire departments, the selection of chiefs is a different process than in the career civil service system (which is primarily based on testing). The election of a chief does carry a significance to the members of those departments. Words like "honor" carry a lot of weight in both systems. But, a member would probably say he was honored to have been selected to serve as chief, and therefore might chose to wear a turnout coat that displays "Ex Chief", as a way of showing his gratitude to the department for that honor as they see it. Additionally, the other members of the department will probably recognize that "Ex Chief" simply by leaving the "Ex" out of the title. It's a way for other members to show their respect; especially if they believe that "Ex Chief" was a good chief while in title.
In this particular instance, there is no way to lump the two different systems together, or for that matter to even try and compare them. They are distinctly different, so maybe we should just note those differences.....maybe not judge them....and just say.....
"It Is What It Is."

I wonder if Mayor Bloomerberg found his shovel yet because I don't think his scooters feeding him streaming video are going to help him when it hit the fan this time. They still have not picked all the garbage up from Christmas in some neighborhoods yet.

I need to address a previous comment. NY10570 I was one of those "dumbed down" EMT Supervisors (Lieut) in the NYC EMS system and had absolutely no issues with supervising both EMTs and Paramedics on a daily basis and actually enjoyed it. I found that there was extreme cooperation from both levels of personnel and knew my job was to enforce procedure and review what was within my scope of training. The issues arise when medics carry a "mightier than thou" attitude because of their level of training and forget that without BLS there is NO ALS and also forget where they came from, they were once one of those "dumbed down" EMTs. Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house. Lets talk dumbed down. Being a medic is not Roy and Johnny. It is flow sheet medicine. If you do A and see B then do D not C. There are even pocket protocol charts and I-Phone apps. Not that there is anything wrong with it but don't knock one area of a system because of a swollen ego. If swelling has become an issue some IM epi or benadryl might help but I am working out of my area to suggest that. Stay dry and safe in the snow today and remember we are all there for the same thing: the patient.

While we tend to embrace those that climb the ranks from bottom to top, very often a supervisor in almost any field, does not have to know everything about every facet of the field. In many Fire/EMS systems officers with lesser license levels command paramedics with no operational or supervisory issues. If an EMT cannot supervise a medic. the problem is his/her supervisory skills. Are all chief's Haz-mat tech's? How many worked in special operations? Yet they somehow can command an incident where resources area working that may have more expertise in certain areas. The same is true of EMS. If your EMT officers over step their bounds by going against a medics' patient care advice or direction, the issue is with the supervisory skill set and attitude.

In the last few hours of this year I want to take a moment to remember the 162 Police Officers that gave their lives in the line of duty this year. These brave and selfless men and women are my heroes and at Midnight tonight when we welcome the new year, these officers and their families will be in the forefront of my mind. You have my love, honor, admiration and respect my brothers and sisters and I thank you for your service and sacrafice. God Bless You

Isn't it amazing how when it comes to firefighting everyone is a friggin' expert! "You're not supposed to put water on that..." What then should they use Mr. 9 - 5 desk jockey, orange juice, milk, urine ??? God bless the Brothers, I'm glad they weren't injured. They really had their hands full with the storm and the lack of resources thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and his immediate staff of CEO losers...

I worked from Sunday afternoon until Monday evening, so I was on duty throughout. Just to clarify, I don't believe that any more could be asked of those on the street. Cops, EMS workers, firemen and others were doing the best that we could. I think what's important here is that the city do a better job of preparing citizens prior to the arrival of the storm. More media coverage to encourage people NOT TO DRIVE and stay out of the way of public safety and sanitation workers. More resources should have been available in terms of an increased number of buses on the road and all ambulances should have been staffed with 3. Every engine in the city was given a 5th man for the 24 and beyond, with good reason.
More resources should have been stacked up and ready pending the storm's arrival. There is no reason that 1,300 calls should be back-logged, no matter how minor the emergency is.
This tough, and in some cases fatal, occurrence aught to end any discussions regarding Fire, EMS, Police of Sanitation budget cuts. Clearly we need all of the resources we have and in some cases, more.

The city would rather give us toy shovels then chains. Fdny ems issued two shovels per unit one is a military spec, very short and good for digging a foxhole but not snow. The other is plastic breaks. the city doesn't want to give us chains. Couple that with the amount of new people on the job/ people the city hires with no driving experience and you get what happened. Two guys I know got stuck with a tight asthmatic a few blocks from lincoln, so they improvised and made a sled out of the stretcher using the longboards, and pulled her the rest of the way to the hospital.

The danger of total collapse involving a bow string truss roof became a graphic reality yesterday in Chicago. The following photos give a glimpse of the peaked bow string roof, and the poor condition of the roof structure. In photo one from the street, you cannot even see that the roof apparently has different structural components and designs. The bow string section is in the rear. In photo two you can see the chimney in the corner of the 3-4 exposure of the fire building in the lower right corner of the photo, partially obstructed by the trees. Disregard where the address is marking the building, the storefront that burned and area of collapse is below it, opposite the parking lot:

Moving closer the shape of the truss becomes apparent. Compare it to the flat roofs immediately surrounding it:

In this photo you can see clearly one of the broken trusses leaning against the far wall inside the collapse zone. Be sure to click through the photo gallery and you will see more evidence of the broken truss system.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/gallery?section=news/local&id=7858152&photo=1

Goose is correct, Transcare 911 handily beat back unionization. Not to pick on you Goose, but your attitude is exactly why unionization won't work in EMS. Empress for all its flaws is regularly held up as an example of a quality EMS gig. FDNY EMS as backwards as it is run still has a total compensation package exceeding everyone else in the area. These aren't by accident.
I can only speak on what I know, so I'll focus on FDNY. For years pay languished and benefits slowly improved as we were just a small portion of DC37. A few of our members stepped up in leadership positions in the local and began fighting. We gained bargaining rights independent of DC37, we've lobbied for and attained pension benefits from the state legislature, and our pay increases are finally matching the other emergency services. This is absolutely because of the hard work and dedication of our union.
The single biggest hinderance in contract negotiations is our only real fallback is binding arbitration. Here our biggest hinderance is the industry's prevailing wage. The second largest EMS provider in NYC is Transcare and their total compensation is significantly lower than ours. So how do we argue that we need more money to recruit quality employees when someone else is doing the same job for less?

How about one that just prints the truth?

By now I'm sure a lot of you who respond to EMS calls have run into at least one young person who has drank to much of that new drink Four Loko. For those who don't know what it is, it's a 23.5 oz alcoholic drink flavored ( grape, orange, etc.) which has a 12 percent alcohol content, and the same amount of caffeine of a 12 oz coffee. It has become very popular with high schoolers and college students. Over the last few weeks pretty much every drunken person under the age of 25 I've picked up has been drinking this " blackout in a can". I know that people are pushing to get this drink banned, but before it ever gets there we still have to deal with the fact that it's on the street. I was wondering if anyone else noticed an jump in younger people drinking to much recently, or have had calls attributed this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_%28drink%29
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/10/19/2010-10-19_four_loko_an_alcoholic_energy_drink_is_banned_at_a_new_jersey_college.html

By now I'm sure a lot of you who respond to EMS calls have run into at least one young person who has drank to much of that new drink Four Loko. For those who don't know what it is, it's a 23.5 oz alcoholic drink flavored ( grape, orange, etc.) which has a 12 percent alcohol content, and the same amount of caffeine of a 12 oz coffee. It has become very popular with high schoolers and college students. Over the last few weeks pretty much every drunken person under the age of 25 I've picked up has been drinking this " blackout in a can". I know that people are pushing to get this drink banned, but before it ever gets there we still have to deal with the fact that it's on the street. I was wondering if anyone else noticed an jump in younger people drinking to much recently, or have had calls attributed this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_%28drink%29
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/10/19/2010-10-19_four_loko_an_alcoholic_energy_drink_is_banned_at_a_new_jersey_college.html

If we wanted free food we shoulda been cops

It may have been a good stop but that is most likely because of proper training of a few, and not sufficient manpower at the beginning of the fire ( when it matters). If my house was on fire I wouldn't want to wait 10 minutes for 3 departments to assemble meanwhile everything I owned burned. Just because it was the middle of the day isn't an excuse, you're either a well staffed department or you're not and if you claim to be that means you can fight a fire at anytime of day no matter what. While I love being a volunteer firefighter I don't want to watch my house burn to the ground, or be one of those first in firefighters knowing that I have no back up outside whatsoever.