JohnnyOV

It's things like this that make me hide with my head down in shame that I'm grouped with these individuals as a volunteer... completely absurd, plus you look like a dang F-shop driving around like that.

I hear complaints in general about the vented hoods putting too much pressure on the seam between the vent and the hood from the helmet. Any experience with this?

As of 1530 today, the Yorktown Heights Engine Co. Number 1's website has been hacked by a Chinese Communist Support Groups (no, it's not a joke). Until further notice, do not visit the site as we are unsure of the potential harm to be done to your computers. Do not visit www.yorktownfire.org

The commies have surrendered and the war is over. The site is back up and running.

Since I work for one of these companies in Somers, I can attest that this will not be happening. They almost refuse to fund their own building's problems.

I know we have our differences in opinion every now and then, but seriously stay safe over there brother. It takes some real testicular fortitude to man up and spend some real quality time with the sand.

Public safety water rescues have the highest LODD per call type then any other call for service. The ratio between rescuer death, and call volume is oustandingly high. And now, it all makes sense to me as to why. This exact attitude. "I dont need to call a water rescue team, I'm a big, strong, smart firefighter, I can do anything and nothing will every happen to me." Think again pal.

FASNY has a resolution of a bill on the table about allowing fire districts to bill for EMS. Somers might want to hold off on splitting organizations until this bill is passed or vetoed. http://www.fasny.com/legislative-alert-ambulance-5-10-2011.aspx

This suicidal attitude has no place in this line of work, and will end up as an LODD with which there is no glory, only sadness for your loved ones, your department brothers, your friends and anyone else your life has touched. Go find another place where policy really has 0 bearing, like rock skipping.

Like a damn boss!

Fantastic article. Being an OSHA compliance guy for work, I preach safety all the time (and get quite the ribbing for it), and how we should not take undo risks to ourselves. However, we can still be the most effin' aggressive interior firemen, while still maintaining our safety by understanding the fire. Get in there and make the push. Nothing is more effective.

The NFPA established regulations that are basically written in blood. Each regulation, pretty much has a death contributed with it of either a firefighter or a civilian. Your ignorance as to why the regulations have been established, is a good example as to why firemen die. I am not here to get myself killed over anyone, and I would never expect anyone on my crew to do the same; that is simply, and quite literally, the dumbest idea ever. If you think the NFPA created regulations such as NFPA 101, 1001, 1407, 1620, 1670, 1852 , 1982 and 1983 along with every single other regulation out there, (i'll let you look up what each regulation is for) to hold you back, and hamper your ability to be a cowboy on a scene, then you need to re-evaluate how you operate. From your single post, I would never want that attitude operating under my command, or with my crew. I am not an officer, but if i was, I would make sure you never entered a structure with me. You are there to to help someone who already put themselves in a dumb situation and to do so safely; you are not there to put yourself or your brothers in more harms way then they will already be encountering. You being dead, does nothing more then make the guys coming in after you, risk their lives even more. edit: improper wording

Yorktown responded with Rescue 16 with full manpower, which carries a multitude of cribbing in a full assortment of sizes. It also carries a set of airbags as well (Two 26T-12" lift, one 20T-10" lift, one 13T 6" lift). For this run, the YHFD officers made a decision to also take the airbag set from Engine 270, which is the same as the rescue, minus one 26 T bag. Both Mohegan and Millwood were put on stand-by for MVA's in Yorktown. Yorktown arrived on the scene as the patient was being removed from the train and loaded into the ambulance. Yorktown units cleared without preforming any rescue, but we'd rather be called out and not needed, then needed and never called. - The top compartment of cribbing has since been filled, as well as a 2nd K-12 saw added to the saw compartment.

Interesting. Since our district is so expansive and our members are allowed respond to the scene, we call the unit a Company if there are 3 or more interior qualified members responding on the apparatus.

Every department is different and my answer will be totally different then the next guys, which is why NIMS recommends plain English for radio transmissions. But generally Code 1 is no lights no sirens, Code 2 is normally for police use of Lights through intersections for a silent approach, and Code 3 is full lights and sirens. You'll hear departments request 'Respond with Caution," "Slow it down," but when you break the wordage down, the appropriate way to have units go non-emergency is to request "Units respond in Non-Emergency"

My safety, my teams safety, victims safety. I understand what you're saying about heroism, but god forbid someone slipped, now your entire team is being swept away. Maybe it worked this time, and maybe it will work next time, but who's to say the next time your entire crew ends up drowning because they are improperly trained, or received no training at all. After training in swift water / moving water/ flood water it is now quite apparent to me how dangerous moving and stagnant water is. It takes so very little for the rescuer to become a victim in a situation like this, that unless you know exactly what you are doing, and do it the right way, you put everyone you work with at risk. You did not put the victim in this situation and 99% of the time in water rescue, it is their own fault. You might feel compelled to jump in and help, but I'm sure you're doing it without a PFD on, or while you're still wearing your bunker pants and coats. Read up on NFPA 1670 and 1952. You'll be very surprised at how many departments do not follow these rules and are completely untrained to preform a rescue. On a quick question, how many of you would tie a rope to yourself or your PFD while wading or swimming out to a victim trapped in the water? You don't have to answer, but consider yourself dead if you do that. God forbid you slip, the force of water against you and the tension on the rope, will pull you down and under the water drowning you. The father from the Arlington incident the other day was extremely lucky nothing serious happened to him. Walking through flooded streets in your bunker gear? Hope you don't step onto a manhole who's cover has washed away. You'll be sucked down and hopefully you'll pop up (alive) somewhere down the line. Water rescue should be preformed only by trained individuals. You wouldn't send an untrained firefighter into a burning building, but why do departments, time and time again, do the same for a water incident? Edit: Kudos to the IC and the members of this department for standing by their orders and realizing the extremely unsafe nature of the situation, and keeping it from becoming even more then what it was already by endangering themselves.

You bring up a very valid point, and I'm seriously considering it. My biggest problem is most volunteers who want equality in training, are my age. Sucks, but the truth is that getting the youth together today to actually try and accomplish something in government against the "old tymers" (sorry guys) is about as easy as winning a volunteer officer position, it's a total popularity contest. You'll have the older guys who are content with the way the things have been, and don't see the need for change (which I hear aboutin every firehouse, in every meeting) and the young guys who want to try something new, get shot down by the overwhelming majority of old guys who don't even fight fires anymore. Government officials don't want to fight the issues because volunteer firemen make up a huge chunk of the vote, and if they bring a bill to the floor to change requirements to be certified, they'll be voted out of office.

Don't talk to other volunteers, thats for sure. You'll just get a song and dance on how training standards are becoming way too stringent and interfere with volunteer recruitment and retainment. Sad but true. I'm all for the same training standards between volunteers and career personnel. In Fl, the volunteers were put through each class that the career academy gave, but could do each class individually. They were not allowed to ride to calls unless their training requirements were complete. The volunteers trained alongside the career staff at the academy as classes were offered. There is no better system then this, as everyone received truly equal training, the volunteers could do it as their personal lives allowed, and everyone who was on a scene had the knowledge and training to actually be there. Weekly training was mandated with your company, and career and volunteer personnel trained together on the same topics. Until FASNY realizes that they're actually hindering the advancement of the volunteer fire service in the state, and endangering the lives of firemen by allowing this 2 week crash course on firefighting, you'll never be able to solicit this change. The most you'll be able to to is get your department to require FF1, FF2, survival, FAST, rescue tech basic, truck company ops, Accident Victim Extrication Training, EVOC, and what ever else in included in the career academy prior to your probies riding.

Gotcha now... How could I forget that parks are more important then someone's well being.

Leave the hose in and attach a Scott adapter... pay him a few bucks and make him the new MSU/cascade.

Thanks Capt. Now are we talking about the "Westchester County Fire Department" competing with the "Putnam County Fire Department" for funding, or are we talking about 2 competing departments within the confines of Westchester County?

Just out of curiosity, how would a "county department" (with the exceptions of the large cities) be any different then a fire district that basically encompasses the entire county?

The fire service is not a democracy. It is a paramilitary structured organization. You volunteered to sign up, you are now employed by the department. If you don't like what your leader is doing because it entices change and pro-activeness, and feel that walking out is the best way to make your point; there is the door, don't let it hit you on the way out. Those who walk out, will no longer be able to hold the department back. The department ran long before you joined, and will continue to run and operate long after you, or anyone for that matter, leaves.

Totally agreed. With emergency providers themselves being the only real group of individuals who truly care about and understand what we do, maybe we should forgo getting a grant and relying on some politician to do the work for us, and do it ourselves.

I understand this thread is like Deja Vu. My personal goal is to make EMS in this county, a reliable, well oiled machine before I die. A VERY long term goal of mine. Fire in this county could use a little help too, but lets admit it, EMS is a joke. I admit that EMTBravo is probably not the best place to try and get this accomplished at, but you need to at least start somewhere, gather a group of individuals and actually get something rolling. What better place to start then right here with the conglomerate of emergency providers from around the area. I've laid low after posting this topic, just to see where it goes and let other roll with it. Like the Capt and others have said, jumping into a massive MCI drill with every agency from the county spells out disaster. Like any other training, start with the basics and work up to professional level. Some agencies have difficulty staging with their own 1-2 ambulances in an area where they can easily leave the scene once the patient is loaded. Start with that, and scene security/accountability, and maybe we can move up to including 3 or 4 other agencies at another time. Once that comes as naturally as pouring milk into your cereal, then we can move up to a larger scale incident. I think the one thing that everyone who's commented so far can agree on is that the status quo is not acceptable in this county for EMS. It is possible that the only way to actually get some agencies to change their ways, would be to involve the press, take out ads in the paper, and billboards on the side of the road and post facts. Maybe then a fire would get lit under the rear ends of certain individuals to change. Other then that, talking about it amongst ourselves generally yields zero advancement or progression. Getting the public involved and letting them know, "You have a very good chance you'll be waiting 20-30 minutes for an ambulance during your heart attack," or "If your bus crashes right now, we have 30 ambulances around the area that we own, but we can only effectively staff 5 of them total," might entice some public outcry for change. Handling this in house and promoting positive change without involving the public would be the best course of action obviously, since John Q who has 0 idea about emergency service would offer their 2 cents on every little thing. So before some large scale event happens in this county, why not actually sit down and come up with a realistic plan of action? Make some progressive change that a majority of agencies can agree with, and bring it to the County legislator. Tell them what we'd like to accomplish, and see if it can get done. Will it be one of the most massive undertakings in this counties history, absolutely. But what better time to start then right now, by being assertive, rather then reactive?