FireMedic049

I can't speak to why the departments in your area don't have the equipment, but ice rescue is a form of technical rescue and many departments aren't adequately equipped and trained for technical rescue.
Ice rescue can easily be a high risk event, but with the proper training, equipment and adequate personnel that risk can be minimized, just like firefighting. To do it properly requires more than just "basic training".

I can't speak to why the departments in your area don't have the equipment, but ice rescue is a form of technical rescue and many departments aren't adequately equipped and trained for technical rescue.
Ice rescue can easily be a high risk event, but with the proper training, equipment and adequate personnel that risk can be minimized, just like firefighting. To do it properly requires more than just "basic training".

I can't speak to why the departments in your area don't have the equipment, but ice rescue is a form of technical rescue and many departments aren't adequately equipped and trained for technical rescue.
Ice rescue can easily be a high risk event, but with the proper training, equipment and adequate personnel that risk can be minimized, just like firefighting. To do it properly requires more than just "basic training".

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

A couple of points (and not fully directed to you):
1) Statistically speaking, the 19 Arizona LODDs are an anomoly since we typically don't see single events with that many deaths. Subtracting them from the 2013 total you listed of 101, last year is on par with 2011 and 2012 in terms of total LODDs and the 5th year in a row under 100. This is kind of significant considering we spent 19 of the 22 years prior to that over 100 annually and that for many of those years post-incident onset deaths where not counted like they are now.
2) I agree, our LODD total is too high.
3) Although I wouldn't describe the discussion about Ellenville as "ranting and raving", we can discuss that situation and numerous others while also working to reduce LODDs. It's called multi-tasking and a lot of firefighters are pretty good at it.
4) Before we can truly make any progress on reducing LODDs, we have to identify and understand what is causing them. I repeatedly see posts in forums and comment sections trying to insinuate that what they perceive to be "unsafe" fireground operations (including non-LODD incidents) as the reason the annual LODD total is what it is.
Looking over the USFA stats for 2011 and 2012 and as best as I could decifer some of their coding, the 2 year averages for LODDs are as follows:
* During training - 8
* Vehicle related - 12.5
* On scene medical related - 10.5
* Post incident - 17
* Other, non-fire related - 21 (Includes on-duty medical related and on scene, non-fire related trauma)
* Traumatic fire related - 15 (These are the ones in which the fire or building kills us)
5) What that data tells me is that the "problem" is not predominately related to how we (collectively) fight fires. This doesn't mean we don't have stuff to learn and practice to keep this number down. To me, it means that the areas in which we need to be more focused are our health and apparatus operations. If we can get fitter (which should include keeping our most vulnerable members off the scene) and stop crashing our apparatus in the same ways over and over again, we should be able to make a sizable dent in LODDs and OTJ injuries.

IMO, this thing is nothing more than some people in the volunteer fire service creating a problem where a problem doesn't actually exist.

IMO, this thing is nothing more than some people in the volunteer fire service creating a problem where a problem doesn't actually exist.

More than likely these employees were being allowed to leave work to go on fire calls without loss of pay rather than actually being "paid to leave work to go on fire calls".
It's very similar to the "get paid to sleep" assertions regarding paid firefighters. I don't get paid to sleep. Like the vast majority of career firefighters, I get paid to be at my fire station, available to immediately respond to calls during my shift along with being paid to respond to those calls, maintain my station and equipment, perform inspections and other tasks. It just happens that if not on a call, sleeping at night during a 24 hour shift is allowed.
Call it semantics if you want, but I think they are important distinctions.

"Legal" and "right" are not always the same thing. The mayor may be legally allowed to restrict the town's employees from leaving work, however it may not be the right decision.
When you consider that the municipality is ultimately responsible to ensure the provision of fire protection within that municipality (which oftentimes means using a non-municipal VFD to do so), the decision to prohibit municipal employees from responding to emergencies within the community during work hours is not necessarily the wisest of decisions.
Additionally, if the issue is ultimately paying the employee for time not actually spent at work (lost productivity), there's a couple of pretty simple solutions available. Allow them to respond, but they don't get paid for the time they are absent. Allow them to respond, but have them "make up" the lost time in some fashion. At only a 1000 or so calls per year, these employees probably aren't missing a substantial amount of time.

If anybody here sounds like they're from the "saving the foundation of the structure is good enough" crowd, it's YOU.
Everybody going home when the call is done is not a reliable assessment of the performance that yielded that outcome. By that standard, a fire department could go to a fire, do absolutely nothing and then return to the station with everybody that responded and be said that they did a "good job", when you'd be hard pressed to find ANYBODY that would think a fire department that does nothing to combat a fire did in fact do a "good job".

I gotta say it's getting really old every time I look at someones photos of a fire and read "great job guys" on facebook when obviously poor tactics have caused extensive damage and further extension of fire. Or worse, lack of tactics/experience have caused a fatality. It seems to me that there isn't enough negative feedback, specifically in the fire service (Most EMS systems have QA/QI now, I hope). We have 'critiques' with the battalion after a job where we discuss how/why things were done and often point out mistakes but I know this isn't a practice across the board in the career or volunteer service. I have also been to plenty of 'critiques' for other departments where nothing but a few pats on the back were given out despite glaring issues with training, manpower and safety.
For the record, I am not attacking any service, just voicing my opinion.

I think your line of thinking is a little off on this and to an extent, incomplete.
When you talk about occupant safety (for providers) in ambulances, it has to be a two part conversation. You have to look at both the cab area AND the patient care areas of the vehicle. Furthermore, you also have to look at the type of collision.
I'm not sure about crash-testing of the medium-duty chassis, but the light-duty chassis being used currently has been crash-tested. So, for a crash involving the cab part of a Type 3 should be pretty much the same as a Type 2. It's probably debatable as to whether a Type 1 is "safer" than a Type 2 or 3.
In a typical front end collision, the "safety" aspect of the pt care area should be limited to how equipment and occupants are or are not secured in conjunction with some aspects of the interior layout since the box isn't taking a direct hit. The "strength" of the patient care area will be tested in situations where it takes the direct hit or in a rollover. I would suspect that a box is going to hold up better than a Type 2 in a rollover situation since the top of a Type 2 is fiberglass and would probably be more likely to be compromised.
I know for sure that Horton has been doing crash testing on their patient modules for quite some time now. A brief search of the web revealed that most of the major manufacturers also perform crash testing to some extent. I would certainly agree that there should be some universal crash worthiness standards for ambulances and I think we're headed there. We'll see how long it takes.

The only regulation that I'm aware of that might be applicable would be that of seatbelt law compliance. Like musical chairs, if you don't have a seat (and seat belt) when the music stops, then you're out.
Are the agencies that are running these mega crews operating more than one ambulance? If so, they should not be sending a mega crew out on most calls if they don't have a guaranteed crew for other units. You're not meeting the (EMS) needs of the community if you put 4-5 people on the first out unit and then can't crew for a second call.

What fun is that?

There's no engine, just a couple hamsters on a wheel.

What fun is that?

No problem. I'm just helping you out with that.

I think your line of thinking is a little off on this and to an extent, incomplete.
When you talk about occupant safety (for providers) in ambulances, it has to be a two part conversation. You have to look at both the cab area AND the patient care areas of the vehicle. Furthermore, you also have to look at the type of collision.
I'm not sure about crash-testing of the medium-duty chassis, but the light-duty chassis being used currently has been crash-tested. So, for a crash involving the cab part of a Type 3 should be pretty much the same as a Type 2. It's probably debatable as to whether a Type 1 is "safer" than a Type 2 or 3.
In a typical front end collision, the "safety" aspect of the pt care area should be limited to how equipment and occupants are or are not secured in conjunction with some aspects of the interior layout since the box isn't taking a direct hit. The "strength" of the patient care area will be tested in situations where it takes the direct hit or in a rollover. I would suspect that a box is going to hold up better than a Type 2 in a rollover situation since the top of a Type 2 is fiberglass and would probably be more likely to be compromised.
I know for sure that Horton has been doing crash testing on their patient modules for quite some time now. A brief search of the web revealed that most of the major manufacturers also perform crash testing to some extent. I would certainly agree that there should be some universal crash worthiness standards for ambulances and I think we're headed there. We'll see how long it takes.