FireMedic049

7 hours ago, Jybehofd said:

It's doesn't make sense but if it works.  Has NYC changed the ALS protocols that a medic can work alone without a medic partner ? If so I think this is good

What doesn't make sense? 

3 hours ago, x635 said:

It states there are two Paramedics to each flycar. Are they able to split up when one goes aboard a BLS bus, or do both have to go?  I seriously doubt that they would both have to go with the patient.  Right now, the vast majority of patients being transported in the ALS ambulances are likely only being attended to by a single paramedic during transport since their staffing is only 2 paramedics.  If the system required 2 paramedics to be with the patient during transport, then they'd be staffing a third person on those units.  Otherwise, they'd have to send 2 units to every single ALS dispatch.

 

It would be  very interesting if FDNY was to assign a Paramedic to each Engine company.   It certainly would be interesting, but I doubt it would be truly beneficial vs the cost to do so on any sort of large scale.

24 minutes ago, EmsFirePolice said:

I understand that the ALS fly car would reach the patient sooner,    If you understand that, then how do you not see that as "change"?

 

but in the grand scheme of things, congestion will still be a problem.   Yes, but if they are putting ALS resources on scene faster than the ambulance can get there, then it would seem that the congestion is less of a problem in terms of getting care to the patient in a timely fashion.  Again, that's "change".

 

Its gonna be interesting what the results of this program are.   I doubt that they'll be much different than what is being seen so far according to the article.

8 hours ago, EmsFirePolice said:

Although a fly car may be closer to a call than an ambulance, things really will not change. NYC drivers will not pull over and let ambulances, police cars, or fire trucks through. The roads will still be congested. 

Did you even read the article or at least the portion posted? 

Even if "the roads will still be congested", the fact that a fly car is closer to a call than an ambulance means that ALS equipped EMS personnel will likely reach the patient sooner.  It clearly states that response times in that area are down in conjunction with this program.  That certainly seems like a good thing and it's literally change.

I'm pretty sure this is actually an E-450 since it has the longer 158" wheelbase.  

I believe Ford stopped offering the longer wheelbase E-350 chassis when they introduced the E-450 chassis.  Which was at least 10+ years ago.

6 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

I was thinking the same thing. Why give extra points for living somewhere? I can see veteran credits, but just living in the biggest city around? come on.

The reason for the residency credit is pretty simple.  It gives the NYC residents a "small" edge over the out of towners.  

I suspect that historically the non-resident applicant pool is predominantly white & male.  The city is trying to inject diversity into the department.  The city has a large non-white population and a lot of females.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

5 hours ago, mustang22_2002 said:

If they are trying to make it equal for everyone  , then they shouldn't issue 5 point bonus points  for residents...  how is that equal???

They aren't talking about equality between residents/non-residents.  It's pretty much strictly about race and maybe some gender.

3 minutes ago, x635 said:

I have no problem with departments trying to increase their diversity, but with the way they do it. It should be done with recruiting efforts, public education, and prep courses, not by dumbing down tests.

 

 

You have to keep in mind what's typically driving this.  Many municipalities are making significant changes as a result of the various lawsuits regarding hiring practices.  They are trying to avoid being the next one to be sued.  They are more worried about making it appear that they are trying to diversify than making sure they have quality recruits.

33 minutes ago, AFS1970 said:

While I agree that entry level tests do not require knowledge that will be taught in training. I would be cautious because tests like this are generally only changed when someone has an agenda.

Oh, there's absolutely an agenda in play with the FDNY testing.  It's blatantly apparent to anyone who's been following the litigation referenced in the article and other recent actions, like the female that was allowed to graduate despite not passing a required physical test.

Considering their recruit training program and probationary process, prior firefighting knowledge while likely beneficial, isn't specifically necessary for a recruit to succeed in that system.  To some extent, entry level civil service exams aren't specifically for testing job specific knowledge, but rather to evaluate a person's general knowledge, reading comprehension, ability to follow directions, ability to solve problems, etc.

Personally, I don't see a problem with this as long as the test is adequately assessing a candidate's mental aptitude for what is needed to complete recruit school and perform the job vs dumbing down the exam in order to achieve diversity at the expense of quality.

2 hours ago, TimesUp said:

Is the safety issue for the residents of Norwich ct the fact that they're fire department isn't  called for mutual aid?  Or is it that they're department isn't adequately trained of staffed?

It's my understanding that......

1) Fire service within the City of Norwich is provided by a multi-station career department and 5 independent volunteer departments.  All have their own primary response area within the city and all have control of who responds to incidents within those individual districts. 

2) None of the volunteer departments utilize the career department units with any sort of regularity.

3) When the volunteer departments need help with an incident, they routinely request mutual aid units from outside of the city even though career staffed units within the city are closer and available to respond.

4) It's possible that there may be a training issue within the volunteer departments, but I'm not positive that is the case.

5) The career department utilizes the city's volunteer departments when needed.

6) The safety issue for the residents and for that matter, the other firefighters is that it is common practice in some parts of the city to not utilize units that are staffed, trained and CLOSER to incidents in favor of other units that are not staffed and further away.

Here's a thought, if the noise bothers you so much, maybe don't live in the most populated city in the country?

2 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

The Fill station on full. I was taught to crack the "Fill" knock and slowly fill the bottle. The valve on the bottle is either full open or full close.

Thanks, just wanted to confirm we were talking about the same thing.

2 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

Well this is where checking your gear comes into play. when you get to work and go over your rig, you check air pressure.

Right and that's what I was talking about.  While checking my equipment the day after a fire, it's not uncommon to find some cylinders that have settled and need topped off.

2 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

If you are filling bottles on scene you are most likely using them. Most departments don't have refill rigs so they refill back at firehouse.

That may be what you are used to, but in my area it's pretty common for cylinders to be filled on scene and not just for them to be reused at that incident.  Most departments don't have air trucks either, but there are enough that one typically responds to most working fires.  Many departments around here also don't have fill stations in the firehouse, which is part of the reason an air truck is usually requested at some point, even if you won't need to reuse them right away.

2 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

Either way the 700psi drop in a hour is not good. Also the bottle could have been the last one to fill so heat has been building from filling station.

I would agree a 700psi drop is not good, but there generally isn't a build up of heat on the fill station end.  At least nothing I've ever experienced.  The heat is primarily generated by the air under pressure being pushed into the cylinder.  The friction of the air passing thru the cylinder valve raises the temp of the air going in.  The faster the flow, the hotter the air gets and that heat is transferred to the cylinder body. 

19 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

 

They are probably filling it with the valve full open.  

Which valve, the cylinder valve or the valve on the fill station?

19 hours ago, BIGRED1 said:

700psi drop is a lot. I have filled bottles and lost a minute amount over a week. to lose that much in hours, something is wrong in the process. Slow is the way to go. if your on scene and doing refills then that's different. You most likely will use the air before it even starts to cool off.

But that's only if it's an incident of an extended duration in which you are using a lot of cylinders.  It's pretty common for us to only need to fill most cylinders once while on scene.  When that's the case, depending on who's doing the filling, it's not uncommon to see a drop in the pressure the next day necessitating topping them off.

Only the top half of the link posted is showing and when I click on it, it disappears altogether from the post and doesn't take me to the article.  If I go back to the main menu and re-enter the thread it reappears, but the same thing happens.  Anyone else having an issue?

Yeah, those have been on the streets for a little while now.

11 minutes ago, LayTheLine said:

Ok, maybe I did miss your point and perhaps I don't understand standards and compliance & non-compliance. But if one call reports a fire in a high-rise building and the city sends everything it's got (say four 4 man engines, two 4 man ladders, and a chief for a total of 25) and they get to the location and find a room and contents fire in a hotel room on the 14th floor. They stretch a line and knock down the fire, vent and do a primary search. They find an occupant who was in the bathroom dead from smoke inhilation. Now in the court of law the department is sued because the lawyer argues that you were non-compliant with a national standard and if you had been comliant his plaintiff may have lived. Probably not a winable case because whether you sent 1 or 100 FF's to the scene the occupant was most likely dead before the first engine came to a stop at the curb. But how do these standards apply once the fire is out and lawyers get involved? 

I get your concern, but will point out that NFPA 1710 has been around for a number of years now.  Many departments continue to staff less than 4 on each apparatus and not put the full 15-17 FFs on scene within the 8 minute time frame in the standard.  I'm sure there are already cases in which people have been killed/injured and "non-compliant" staffing/response was or could be reasonably argued to be a factor in the outcome, but the fire service isn't exactly awash in lawsuits because of it.

It's too complicated to explain legal aftermath here, in part because of variables in each situation, but there's a degree of sovereign immunity that can be involved with government agencies and gross negligence by the fire department typically has to be proven in order to prevail.  

1 hour ago, LayTheLine said:

FireMedic049 - as to your expanding on my line of thinking, the majority of career fire deparments send 1 engine or 2 & 1 at best to residential AFA's and that doesn't meet the 15 person standard. That doesn't mean your not going to need 15 when there is a fire. Again, reasonableness is the key. If a 2nd source comes in for the AFA then upgrade the assigment to a structural response. So does sending 10 FF's to a residential AFA seem reasonable based on what we know about frequency of fires through AFA's? I would think so. At the same time, does responding 43 FF's to single report of a fire in a building ovet 7 stories seem reasonable - even if it means starting along 2 other departments? In my opinion it is not. If additional reports start coming in that the whole floor is on fire then strike however many alarms you need to to get to 43. That's what runcards are for. Heck strike a 4th alarm if you know that is the minimum to get your 43. That can be pre-determined by knowing which each alarm brings.

You missed my point.

I was addressing your question regarding the standard's personnel recommendation.  It would be irresponsible for them to recommend an initial response that would be less than what they determined is needed.

Whether or not that is a reasonable response to an AFA or the department can achieve that response themselves is a different issue.  If I'm not mistaken, 1710 recommendations are based on actual fires in a specific building type and not AFAs and other non-fire responses.  So not sending 43 upfront to an AFA wouldn't necessarily be non-compliant.

12 hours ago, LayTheLine said:

So why recommend a standard that many cities, with only 3 on a piece, cannot even come close to meeting? It becomes a document that is destined to collect dust on a shelf.  

Because the science/research says that's what's needed to address the tasks that may need to be immediately performed.

While it may be true that sending 43 each and every time, everywhere is unrealistic, that in and of itself doesn't translate into not needing 43 when there's an actual fire.

Expanding on your line of thinking, the standard also calls for a minimum of 4 per apparatus and up to 6 for "high hazard" areas, yet many cities are staffing 2 or 3 on a piece.  Although it may be unrealistic for many cities to staff 4 per piece, 4 is what it takes for a unit operating by itself to initiate interior operations under OSHA 2in/2out, unless there is an immediate life safety issue.  As such, it would be irresponsible for an industry standard to recommend staffing that would require a unit to wait for another unit to arrive in order to get the first line in operation.

It would be equally irresponsible for an industry standard to recommend less firefighters than what the science/research says are needed overall, just because most cities are unable to commit that many on each response.

4 hours ago, dwcfireman said:

IMO, if you could incorporate the MSA pack with a Scott mask, BAM!  That would be awesome.

I could support that idea.

40 minutes ago, Viper said:

You see MSA promoting their product a bit more then Scott as seen in this video.

Yeah, the MSA salesman did a good job of explaining/showing their features and why they are better than what the competition offers without really being derogatory about them.  The Scott salesman's presentation was pretty much "We're Scott, most major cities have been using Scott for a long time so obviously we're the best, everybody else sucks, so you should buy Scott."

On 10/22/2016 at 6:46 PM, oldschool said:

Isn't most of the weight of the SCBA supposed to sit on your hips instead? I doubt there is a weight or ergonomic difference between Scott and MSA>

Yes, it's supposed to, but some designs are better at it than others.

As for weight and ergonomic differences between Scott and MSA.......

My department evaluated SCBAs a couple years ago, right before the G1 was introduced.  The brand we'd been using for a long time was no longer available, so we had to look into other brands and do a complete switch out.  Personally, I thought that the Scott model that we demo'd (the next one down from the NxG7) felt noticeably heavier and less comfortable when wearing it compared to the MSA model we demo'd (M7 Firehawk).

I've always been a fan of Scott from my initial experience with the 2.2 model many moons ago and brief encounters since.  I've used a couple different MSA models previously and they did the job well.  However, IMO, the MSA was a far superior product in that comparison in almost every way.  Not that the Scott was awful, but MSA was clearly better and giving them a run for their money.

Ultimately, Scott was selected and that's a different story.  We've been using them for a little over 2 years now.  They get the job done, but their ergonomics are not good in my opinion.

That's not a 2016 model.  That's at least 5 years old.

21 hours ago, dwcfireman said:

"The truth is, the public is completely responsible for the high number of calls that the fire department responds to. "

 

The real truth is not just in the public.  Yes, the public is becoming more reliant on 911 services to assist them to see a doctor, but another statement from the article shows the other side of the story, too:

 

"Her doctor told her to call 911 for a ride to the emergency room; he didn’t have any appointments until later in the week. "

 

Is this really what doctors are advising their patients to do?  I understand in some extreme occasions where someone is extremely sick, such as a 60 y/o female with bronchitis, where 911 service is possibly necessary, But, how many doctors are telling their patients to just call 911? 

I can't put a number to it and it's not always the doctor themselves saying it, but in my experience it is a very, very, very common thing for a person to call their doctor and be told to go to the ER and oftentimes that includes calling 911 for an ambulance to take them.

21 hours ago, dwcfireman said:

 

"When 911 is called for rides to the emergency room, resources are squandered, urgent care for those who truly need it is delayed, and myths about firefighters padding their numbers responding to little old ladies who just need a ride to the ER are born. "

 

Let's break this down into two parts.  The first, which is already evident to us, is the squandering of resources.  If doctors and nurses are already short-handed, what would make any medical professional think that there are enough ambulances to assist with day to day medical issues?  Doctors know that 911 EMS services are also short-handed, so why would they compromise the 911 services in the same way that their own practices are compromised?  Actually, most doctors in private practice probably have no clue about 911 services and give them little thought when referring patients into the system. 

 

Calling 911 for a non life-threatening issue seems to be the way of the game these days, and it's getting a little out of hand. 

 

It's been more than a little out of hand for a good while now.

 

 

No rustled feathers here, but I think you're kind of on the wrong page.

Given the significantly different operating conditions, you can't directly apply all of the concepts to the fire service.  You are correct, there is an inherent level of risk to the job that just can't be completely eliminated without eliminating the ability to do the job we are expected to perform.  I don't think the "lessons" to be learned from the aviation industry are about elimination of risk, but rather following sound practices that can help reduce risk where we can reasonably do so.

As you pointed out, if something is mechanically wrong with the plane, the plane doesn't fly until it's fixed.  In the fire service, we routinely respond with apparatus that is known to not be 100% mechanically sound.

Aircraft have somewhat strict maintenance requirements and many parts are serviced or replaced after a specific number of flights or hours in order to prevent "critical failures".  In the fire service, many departments lack proper preventative maintenance programs and repairs are typically reactive rather than proactive.

Every person on the crew of the aircraft is fully trained in their duties before stepping foot on a plane to perform those duties with real passengers, each person has a specific role and sticks to that role (under normal conditions).  As such, you don't see flight attendants flying the planes and the pilots passing out pillows and beverages.  In the fire service, we have many departments that routinely allow personnel to respond to incidents before completing initial training and allow personnel to actively perform tasks that they are not trained to perform.

The aviation industry has checklists for performing routine tasks, like a pre-flight check and for situations that may arise.  The checklists serve to help guide personnel thru the situation and ensure that important tasks are not overlooked.  In the fire service, checklists can help to ensure nothing is overlooked during the apparatus check and can do the same thing for the IC during an incident to ensure that essential tasks and notifications are not missed and are performed in a timely manner.  They can particularly help when dealing with a low frequency incident like a true hazmat situation, technical rescues, etc.

I see these types of things as where we can apply lessons learned rather than on scene decision making about strategy & tactics.