trauma74

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/03/28/fbi-breaks-into-san-bernardino-gunmans-iphone-without-apples-help-ending-court-case.html

EMS is the bastard step child that nobody ever acknowledges. Seth, you have been around long enough and have seen it numerous times. It's sad.

Where are the Field Comm Units located around the City?

That sounds like it could be a cool division to work in.

Who staffs the Field Com Units? Fire Alarm Dispatchers?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/mar/22/brussels-airport-explosions-live-updates

http://www.prolinerrescue.com/recent-deliveries/mamaroneck-ems

GREAT LOOKING BUS! The LED lights in the chevrons are a very cool feature! I have never seen that before.

No rear facing blue lights on the new ambulances? Unless I missed them. That Ford Expedition looks nice. Am I wrong or do the Ford SSVs usually come with steel painted wheels & not aluminum rims?

99.9% of the time, a municipal EMS system is going to better than having a private for-profit ambulance provide these services. If you look at the municipal/quasi-municipal systems in Westchester County, they seem to run very well. Thier employees seem well paid & fairly satisfied with their jobs. These systems appear to be worth the money to the taxpayers who are covered by them. The stability of private ambulance services can change at any moment, leaving municipalities holding their ****s & scrambling to find coverage. Even when Transcare started having money troubles last year, nobody ever thought such a large ambulance service with many years in business, would have gone bankrupt. If this could happen to Transcare, it could very well happen to any of the other private companies that operate in Westchester County. In a perfect world, we should have a County Run EMS System, but as mentioned earlier, home rule gets in the way of this happening. Maybe something like starting a County system & at first, have the Cities contract with the County for EMS services & maybe have the VACs contract with the County to staff their ambulances when they don't have enough volunteers to staff them properly. It would be something to start with & then eventually things can start transitioning to a full County EMS system. Just my 2 cents.

CFR is practical in many situations, such as for police officers & firefighters. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't FDNY have CFRs on the apparatus that run to medical calls?

As far as the requirements for employees to have a class E Drivers License. I do not understand this requirement. A class E license is a chauffeur's license, which is needed to operate a taxi or ambulette. I highly doubt that any of the companies will pay for the upgrade to a class E license. When I was employee of Empress back in the late 90s, I was told that I needed to get a class E license. I did get it and I had to pay for it myself. I can see some companies telling their employees that if they want to work in that system, then they will have to pay for the license upgrade to class E.

I read the RFP. It is pretty extensive, but very thorough. I wonder how many companies are going to meet all of the qualifications? As far as the statements like "They should just give it to Empress", it is very obvious that some people do not understand the first thing about how local government works.

The Bureau of EMS was notified late Friday afternoon that the Trustee handling the TransCare EMS bankruptcy ordered Transcare Hudson Valley to cease operations and to pull their units from service in Putnam. The Bureau was immediately authorized by County Executive MaryEllen Odell to Implement its contingency plan. This evening we are transitioning the County ALS FlyCar system from TransCare to EMSTAR. Fortunately most of the TransCare staff have accepted positions with EMSTAR. Due to the last minute notice we were only able to initially activate 3 EMSTAR Flycars to replace the four TransCare Units. We are hopeful we can have the fourth ALS Unit and a BLS Unit in service at some point this weekend or early next week. This has been a trying time for the TransCare staff and Bureau staff as well. We will do everything in our power to maintain an ALS system that continues to assure the health and safety of all our residents. Please be patient with us as we move forward with our new ALS provider. Thank you. Commissioner Sutton

They gave the test a few years ago and they have not exhausted the list yet, so it will probably be a while before they give it again.

The current owner of EMStar is not the same guy who owned and ran Hudson Valley Paramedics, which eventually became Care1 EMS. The people involved in those 2 companies have nothing to do with EMStar. EMStar has the NY Division and they have a Philadelphia Division. EMStar is part of a larger corporation that owns a series of nursing homes in NY & PA. Their NY Base is in Suffern, NY, with stations in Westchester County and Orange County. They have contracts with different medical facilities around Orange, Rockland and Westchester Counties. They also provide 911 ALS services to Cornwall & Warwick VACs and they get called mutual aid by OC911 if Mobile Life does not have units available. Since all the problems with TransCare started, EMStar has been expanding by adding more staff and more ambulances.

Thanks!

Seth, Can you please post a link for this test announcement? Thank you!

I have confirmed that Jim O'Connor has returned to Empress EMS sometime this past week. He recently "retired" from TransCare EMS, as President of the company. His supposed title is, Director of Marketing.

Do the FDs in Putnam use lowband fireground channels for interior operations too?

You would think, that in light of the recent violence toward police officers around the Country, that they would not want to wear a police style uniform. They do not carry weapons, so when they are mistaken for police officers, they have no way to defend themselves. Also, they used to drive difference colored cars than the NYPD. Now, they drive the same colored cars too. It can be confusing to motorists who think that a vehicle with red lights behind it is a police car, when in fact, it is not.

Out of the remaining VACs in Orange County that are still volunteer, how many of them frequently do not get a crew for a call and have to mutual aid it to another agency?

This is pretty much the same thing that is happening in Rockland and Orange Counties. In Orange County, there is only 2 or 3 VACs that are still operating with all volunteers. In Rockland, I think that every VAC has paid EMTs with the exception of Hatzolah & New Square EMS.

Here is an article about a recent merger in Bergen County, NJ. The good thing is that nobody is losing their jobs.

Update: At this point, almost everyone who knows Brandon, knows what happened to him yesterday. Brandon had surgery today, which went very well. He is still intubated and is easily stressed. NO VISITATION for a minimum of 4 days, except immediate family members. Please respect Brandon's health & other patients and the wonderful job that the staff is doing for everyone. If you want to help Brandon out, please click the GO FUND ME link below and donate to this fund. With everything going on, Brandon is going to need to recover and he will have to keep his stress level to a minimum. This means that he will miss a lot of work. To make sure that he is not stressed out about his finances, please contribute to this fund to help him. He has done so much for others, now it is time for us to help him. There is also a 10-13 party in the works for Brandon. Once the date, time and place are determined, information will be posted. http://www.gofundme.com/pgahqg?fb_action_ids=10153104713483277&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_ref=undefined&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B960559723955389%5D&action_type_map=%5B"og.shares"%5D&action_ref_map=%5B"undefined"%5D