Brendan

Do the current ALF Engines have stainless steel bodies?

The couple was elderly. It is entirely possible that they accidentally left the car running.
As for practical scenario testing, how often to you intubate with the patient on a table in a favorable position, with plenty of room and with all the supplies neatly arranged with adequate lighting?
I understand the concerns about going into a structure with possible CO, and the deadly side effects.I don't have the details to speculate any more about this incident.
This country is built on citizens making sacrifices for their fellow citizens. I agree with keeping yourself safe, because you can't help anyone if you're not.....but sometimes I think we are wrapping ourselves so much in personal safety bubble wrap that eventually, it will harm us and the people who we serve.

In this post anonymity has been used for a reason, as it is in the past, and not to detract from the point of this post.
I noticed on the yonkers tribune this morning, which for those of you who do not know, follows the coy and yfd matter very closely, and noticed that a negative post here on emtbravo regarding yfd was splashed across more than one article on the yonkers tribune in the comment section, with a preface explaining, look at what this person thought of a medical call with yfd. I personally do not see any evidence it was the original poster here on emtbravo himself who posted to that website, however, I would say 90% of members on emtbravo if not more, have or are currently involved in either police, fire, or ems and since you have to be a member to view posts, it is unfortunately probable, that the other person here on emtbravo who has been copying this post is mos. Regardless, this type of behavior and attempt to undermine the yfd is weak, extremely dissapointing, and leaves me shaking my head vigorously.
I do not and have not ever worked for yfd or empress, however as a resident of yonkers I do follow this matter. In a neutral view and my own opinion, it is clear that all backs have been turned against yfd despite attempts to convince me otherwise. I have yet to understand any reason at all why this is the case and why no one will reach out to them, all the while they move forward with dismantling in less than 12 months the cfr program; a cornerstone of public safety in yonkers that has been in place for over 20 years. I can never turn my back with so much left unanswered.

Great post my Brother, whoever you are, lol- please let me know your identity if you don't mind. Thanks to you and Capt. Smith for the informative posts and to all of our members for not discrediting ourselves or our department by engaging in name calling and nasty, unprofessional language. Of course I would never expect our guys to sink to the level that some others on this thread have sunk to, but thanks nonetheless...
I will add a bit from my perspective- please bear with me as I am exhausted and pressed for time do I will bang this out quickly and it may be a bit rough around the edges....
I am nearing the end of my career, and frankly, I don't really think I will be personally affected if in fact the YFD First Responder Program did end, although I sincerely doubt that will happen for long, if at all, and I will explain why below. In fact, I certainly have more to lose by posting on this topic rather than remaining silent as this will likely piss some people off...oh well...
I have been a member of YFD for almost 25 years, since before we had a First Responder Program. As a very junior Firefighter I was a member of the committee which some at the time said "ruined the job" by convincing first, Local 628, and later, with the backing of L-628, helped to convince the City Fathers that this program was a good idea. The union did not come up with the idea of this program or push for it at first. You see, years ago, YFD only responded on medical runs when there was a confirmed cardiac arrest and Empress Ambulance either was not available at all, or did not have enough personnel available to perform good CPR. We responded on those fairly often. We had only very basic first aid training and CPR. There were numerous times when we performed CPR for very long periods of time before the arrival of the ambulance. Sometimes a Paramedic fly car would arrive and we would wait, and wait....sometimes not even the fly car. The Empress employees were almost always professional, dedicated, and we had a great working relationship. It sure wasn't their fault that the number of ambulances available didn't meet the need at that moment. One day, at Engine 306 where I worked, a family ran in with a baby in respiratory distress who had actually turned blue. A senior man /EMT opened the airway and started Oxygen. The baby wound up being ok. The family was irate that they had called over 20 minutes before and we had not responded (we checked the times and this was accurate). We explained that FD did not get sent to these type of calls unless it was a cardiac arrest and Empress requested us. It was very upsetting to me/us to know that people who we were sworn to protect, particularly children, could be having a life threatening medical emergency that we would be able to assist with, yet we would not be called.
I really never wanted to do emergency medical work back then- I thought of myself as a Firefighter and my idea of a Firefighter was different than what it is today. Nonetheless, because of situations such as I have described above, I agreed with some other Firefighters who advocated for us to go on these runs more regularly as was being done in other parts of the country, and seemingly very successfully. It took a couple of years, but eventually the program began. At the time, approximately 22 years ago, it is my understanding that Empress was charging the City of Yonkers a flat 1 Million per year for their services plus the ability to recoup from billing. Almost as soon as we began the First Responder Program that ccontract was re-negotiated and Empress then waived this 1 Million dollar fee. Also, there was no minimum number of ambulances that were required to be dedicated to City of Yonkers- almost as soon as YFD began going on these runs,it was noticed how very bad Empress' response times were- not due to any fault of the overworked Empress EMT's and Medics, but again, because of a lack of appropriate resources. So, very shortly because of YFD complaints, Empress agreed to keep a minimum number of ALS and BLS units in the city and this was put into their contract. I also think that it was at this time that a certain maximum average response time for Empress BLS and ALS units was placed into Empress' contract which improved things dramatically. I guess if prior to YFD involvement no one was really paying attention to ressponse times, why bother having a lot of ambulances available- the number of billable patients was not dependent on response time- they would all wait as long as it took for the ambulance so why incur the expense if no one was complaining, right?
Admittedly, I haven't gone on a First Responder rum for almost 7 years now, but I did respond on very many over the years. Almost always, I found Empress employees to be fantastic and I thought we had a great working relationship, even if there was a bit of uncomfortability at times- egos and jealousy and just basic human misunderstanding on both sides creeps in of course, however in my opinion we were mostly all regular working people who enjoyed the adrenaline rush and especially, helping people. During the approximately 15 years that I went on First Responder runs with YFD there were very many times that we arrived significantly before Empress ambulance. The large majority of time we arrived at least a couple of minutes before Empress, and often, especially when I worked on the East side of Yonkers, more than 10 minutes prior to Empress. As Captain Smith was, I was involved in 2 successful childbirths (the Moms did basically all of the work of course but they were sure glad that we were there nonetheless) before Empress arrived (not the same ones), and I and my crew initiated CPR COUNTLESS TIMES before Empress' arrival. END OF PART 1 TO BE CONTINUED

Part 2- Now, to some of the misinformation that has been posted on this site in regard to the YFD First Responder Program.
Misinformation response # 1. This work constitutes a large majority of our responses, or our overall work. This is not accurate. First Responder runs account for approximately 55 % of our incidents. However, each of these incidents requires the response of only one Engine Company, and the Engine Company is generally back in service in 20 minutes or less, sometimes longer of course. Obviously to anyone familiar with the Fire Service, the typical incident any Fire Department responds to (the other approximately 45% ) involves many more apparatus and personnel for significantly longer periods of time. A First Responder run with utilizing one apparatue and 4 Firefighters for 15 minutes is one incident. A 3 Alarm Fire utilizing 14 apparatus, other vehicles, and a total of 63 or so Firefighters for six or seven hours is also one incident, kapeesh?? Furthermore, the "workload" of a Fire Department is not only responses, but also the necessary training, inspections, cleaning, maintenance of vehicles, equipment, etc.
Misinformation response # 1a. Therefore, although the rumored elimination of the First Responder Program may (not my area of expertise) allow certain contractual minimum personnel levels to no longer be adhered to, it will not obviate the necessity to have adequate Fire Companies and personnel available for Firefighting and other emergencies. Sure, no FD is as busy as twenty years ago with fire duty, and certainly not as busy as 30 or 40 years ago. Nonetheless, fires do still occur, and adequate personnel and equipment is necessary for this. There is a very valid reason that similar sized city FD's all over the U.S., and in fact the industrialized world conduct First Responder Programs- the very nature of a Fire Department requires Firefighters and their equipment to be readily available for guess what, fires! However, this ready availability of individuals who are trained to handle emergencies and have apparatus to quickly respond allows city sized Fire Departments to have personnel available to supplement the primary EMS response with First Response capability. This supplementation is able to be done by Firefighters who, for the most part, will need to be there, available, anyway! The Firefighters do not get tied up with transport (generally), transfer to the medical facility, PCR's, cleaning the ambulance, etc. So, they are able to go right back into service as soon as the patient has been placed in the ambulance, or in many cases, sooner, right?
Misinformation response # 2. Oh, here's an easy one- we have 4 Firefighters per apparatus (3 Firefighters and a Company Officer), not 5. That is the manning we have had per apparatus for over 30 years. It's hard to understand how any individual who would purport to understand the situation in Yonkers could state that this is all about reducing manning from 5 to 4 per apparatus, or words to that effect.
Misinformation response # 3. The majority of these runs are nuisance runs. Well, that depends on what you consider a nusiance run. The fact is that if we know in advance the situation is not a true medical emergency, then neither the Fire Department nor the emergency ambulance service shoud respond, right? The problem, which has been studied at the highest levels for many years, is how to deduce from the initial phone call what is and what isn't a "nuisance call"..I don't know how to quantify how many of these runs that YFD (and Empress) responds to are not true medical emergencies, but admittedly the number is significant, as it is in EMS systems almost everywhere. No one wants to respond on any type of alarm where we are not needed, and as soon as someone can find out how to deduce true emergency from nuisance run every time, please let us know!
END OF PART 2 TO BE CONTINUED

Part 3.
Disclaimer- my apologies for spelling and grammatical errors in previous and future posts- there is a lot to cover here and I don't have time or emergy to dot the i's and cross the t's- I hope I am making some sense to most of you nonetheless.
Here we go...I agree with the poster who stated that Empress is "clinically progressive" and who espoused the value of Empress' EMD pre-arrival instructions. However, I should point out that the "Haz-Mat Special Ops support to YFD" provided by Empress is done with equipment purchased with federal grant money (UASI and MMRS), and training conducted by YFD. The nature of this support is generally to provide a secondary technical decon only.
One point that was made by a brother YFD member, above, should be emphasized. Empress has so very many dedicated and professional members. However, the majority of these individuals do not spend the majority of their working lives in EMS, and particularly not with Empress, although some do. Many Empress employees move on to Fire or Police Department careers, elsewhere in emergency medicine, or on to other careers altogether. The Empress work force is nowhere as stable as YFD. This is just reality and I believe is pertinent. I won't give my opinion regarding the effect of a stable vs. a more transient workforce because it is just that, my opinion, and we all know what those are worth. However, these facts should be provided so that all of the stakeholders (particularly city residents) might be able to deternine relevance.

PART 4
YFD has not only CFR-D's, but a very large number of EMT's, as well as several Paramedics and RN's.

I'm done for tonight..when I have time I will post the conclusion to this series of sloppy, but hopefully informative posts, entitled-
THE BOTTOM LINE- Short term and long term consequences of eliminating the YFD First Responder Program, and why, if it ever is eliminated, it will inevitably be reinstituted in 9-24 months.
In the meantime my friends, please...qtip.....

No worries Brother, I qtiped. Merry Christmas and saty safe!

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

You make me proud Wonderboy! Really.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

I was deployed on Saturday morning (Yonkers spare L-78) at about 0900Hrs with a crew of five firefighters and did not get home until Monday morning at about 0230Hrs. We were first sent to Freeport LI and then sent to Baldwin LI. I had a great crew who was willing to do anything asked to help the people of Long Island. We responded to many calls and our relief crew actually caught a couple of structure fires.

The D.C. is the guy with NO turnout gear.

Like what, a Prius? What are they going to use that can still carry their gear, prisoners, pursue bad guys, and not give the officer clausterphobia?