antiquefirelt

Ultimately, many taxpayers feel that their tax dollars should remain as close to home as possible. They also cite "sharing the tax burden" as a reason public employees should live in town. Most do not appreciate the amount of time, training and education public safety personnel have today. They do not understand why we can't just hire some residents and make them firefighters, cops or EMT's. As that perception changes residency rules seem to relax and the "best person for the job" becomes the prevailing attitude.

We have a similar law/ruling in Maine. It's more trouble for us than it's worth. Our EMS personnel are just that, not LEO's. Nothing like going into som SRO at 1 am to find a guy you've helped convict of OUI (DUI). We do not allow our personnel to do alcohol blood draws on duty or while wearing any RFD insignia. A few did this at the request of LE for awhile but got sick of being called 3-4 times a week after 11 pm. If LE needs more trained personnel to conduct this, they should be funded for such training. We like knowing the "bad guys" still think we're the "good guys" and aren't confrontational with the EMS crews.

Interesting, first time I've seen a foot switch for the electronic siren. Is this on a momentary switch? In our case the electronic siren is only used if the mechanical fails or if the operator is alone for some reason (out fueling up etc.)

If a fully involved attached garage fire typically would bring M/A, then a report of an attached garage fire ought to start them. Why arrive and be 5 minutes behind what is needed. Sounds like overall the admin have not planned for alarm responses properly. This member shouldn't have had to call M/A if it was a reported garage fire, it should have been dispatched initially. That aside, maybe the FD was capable of handling an attached garage fire on their own, as they ended up doing?

We've had two fire police only members that were never firefighters, just wanted to do what they could to help out. Their kind of a strange fit, as they don't seem to fit the same typical firefighter mold around the firehouse, but they have consistently been proven to be valuable members on numerous occasions.

Our state is looking at cutting the number of PSAPs drastically. One can see some pros and cons to the arguments. In our case, we consolidated four dispatch centers into one County run Comm Center. Our PSAP is also the dispatch center, which is a requirement under the State's latest plan: no more ringing down to a separate agency. Our regional comm has been slowly working on an expensive self-healing repeater network which covers a large geographical area. If this is center is lost to consolidation the radio network stands to lose if shift frequencies is required due to expanded coverage and and frequency overlap. One thing about a larger agency is that it generally has more opportunities for advancement. In our state with multiple small centers, the pay is low, the advancement is minimal and the turnover is high. This may be corrected in a well planned consolidation effort and hires quality management personnel. But we have certainly seen a degradation in service quality since we lost direct control of our own answering point/dispatch center.

That's a more politically correct thing than we used to call it. We joked we took it from the local redneck cop's locker! We're much more PC these days. We have never used a machine, and have chosen to use the Bitrex/Irritant Smoke tests for all masks: N95's,MSA cartridge masks, and SCBA. As was noted OSHA allows this, I only wondered if NY had a more restrictive ruling. BNECHIS: Not sure what legal issues would arise as I have yet to see an actual study or even published article trying to refute the quality of the tests. Any question that the test was less thna 100% valid would certainly push us toward the portacount, but it's never been a question. In fact our DOL owns 3-4 that they'll "loan" for use, but often suggest FD's do their own using the hoods given the turn over and the time it takes to do all employees. Not to mention we fit test for three masks annually at in the same period. In actuality the "Rainbow Passage" is no longer used, in favor of a multi movement test where the wearer performs numerous controlled movements for 60 seconds each after wearing the mask for 10 minutes to "set up". Using irritant smoke it's very difficult to fool the tester (and stupid).

Bingo! Is there a requirement to do the "porta-count" machine fit testing or is it possible like us ot use the approved irritant smoke and "Rainbow Passage"?

I'd add the concern relayed to us for a very similar situation, is when the bag senses the smaller passenger, then after any impacts, a would-be rescuer applies his/her additional weight to the seat while assessing/accessing the patient allowing that portion of the deployment sequence to arm for the higher un-deployed charge. I think the reason for few lawsuits regarding secondary deployments are that the likelihood of an actual post impact deployment is still very rare, yet they're unable to guarantee it won't happen, thus our precautionary posture. Anyone have any actual numbers of airbag deployments during extrication ops? Short of the Akron incident I cannot recall another. I know Ron Moore and others have been asking for any information of any post crash deployments for some time now.

Just a question, but if both charges can go off at once or one or the other may discharge, does this make it a three stage system? Thanks for the pics, they help relay the story on how these operate. Also to note what was said or asked earlier, word is that even with the capacitor drained the bags "could" deploy from any stored energy such as cellphone plug in or GPS plugged in, or even from a static charge from sliding across the seat! You can create one hell of a measured charge with static.

Our approach is exactly as you've said here. On the second deployment, we've been told by the auto /repair/body/dealers/recovery folks that you "could" in fact have a second deployment of the same air bag. They explained that there are two separate charges, one full power, one at a lesser deployment charge. The same bag and deployment system is present. They explained that there is just as much chance of a secondary deployment as a primary deployment after the crash. The reason is that any deployment of a resting vehicle will indicate a failure of the redundant safety systems in the air bag deployment system. You need more than one sensor to be activated to deploy any bag (nowadays). Such as the crumple zone sensor and rapid deceleration. This is why actual post crash deployments are extremely rare, but given that we're dealing with a crashed vehicle, no one will guarantee anything due to the potential damage to anything and everything. Also the same folks strongly urge not to cut the deployed airbags as a secondary deployment would spew hot gas into the area directly in front of the bag.

Another reason that was explained to us is that the auto manufacturers are using lighter weight materials in the steering wheel so that it folds when impacted. This also works in reverse when the airbag deploys and bends the wheel outward.

Ah, I guess it makes a little more sense where the infrastructure is so large and I assume underground? Our issue is that our lines run throughout on telephone poles and require constant upkeep from fallen trees to salt air corrosion. The frequency of circuits going down has increased dramatically over the last decade and the system has become a real liability. Nothing like getting to an elderly housing complex covered by a box and having the residents ask where we've been for the last half hour, since the alarm never transmitted!

Good news on keeping houses open, hopefully the other nonsense will not come to fruition. I was surprised to other FDNY Brother's making a pitch to keep the alarm boxes? Short of a reduction in nuisance calls that Bloomcrap could try and exploit, I'd think it would be hard to find a downside? Fire alarm division could see cuts? We're dismantling ours this fall. I can't remember the last outside pull or street box we received, nevermind one that was something! In fact with people using cellphones so much, they're more likely to walk by a fire without noticing as they read their texts.

This reminds me when I was a new Lt. and my A/C told me that we'd be responding to school bomb threats and assisting the PD look for the "bomb". I shook my head and asked what type of training we'd be given and he shrugged. I told him that if my crew was ordered to search a building without training I'd be the first to enter and would immediately yell "bomb" while pointing to a fire extinguisher or other object that in all likelihood could contain a bomb. Next shift the policy was amended standby up the street for the "boom". Then there's a few schools who took to having their teachers clear the school!

I think this may have come up in a thread last year here, and then I found that our northern neighbors had been doing it this way as well. We ran on a M/A fire where we got to see this in action. Actually started more "conventionally" and was quickly corrected by those in the know.

I learned last fall that many of our neighbors use the LDH to a manifold then short 2.5" to the direct tank fills. The reason given is that the LDH direct fill are often too high to safely connect and disconnect unless the hose is empty (rarely). Two 2.5" lines into the tanker one open discharge (three-way)to relieve the pressure once shut down. The two 2.5" flow plenty of water, often more than tankers are designed to be filled at. Depending on how the baffles and direct fills are configured, one must consider the pressure and flow internally and second if the air vents allow for rapid fills. Of course FD's that excel at rural water supply plan and spec apparatus specifically for their operations. Those of us who do rural water as a rarity usually slow the process with our conventional thinking and apparatus.

While it sounds different from the FD's you're describing in MN, we call most VFD's POC here as most firefighters receive stipends or an hourly rate for training and incident responses. There are very few truly volunteer FD's in my state.

I think this is the essence of doing it right. If you see dollar signs first and improvements to care second, you'll soon find out this won't work out. On the other hand if you put the patients best interest as your primary goal 100% of the time with all other benefits second to this, you'll likely succeed. There are some fundamental differences between the types of EMS providers, that preclude us from using the service model of one as a business plan for another. Here's what I've observed in my microcosm of emergency services: Private EMS services very often utilize transfers to offset the expenses of emergency work. For private-for-profit service to remain viable there must be some profit. This means the buses must be moving as much as possible and costs must be a low as possible. Keeping buses moving means trying to have just enough staff and equipment to cover all bases, which when done profitably limits what's available for emergencies. A local island used to contract with us for transport from the airport to the ED, but found a cheaper deal with a private for profit service, yet we still do 50% of the calls as the private ambulances are often tied up. Sometimes patient care suffers at the hands of low costs, while some services provide stellar service. There are few opportunities for advancement in all but the largest systems, personnel burnouts is a real problem, few people actually retire from private EMS. Non-profit EMS services must still remain in the black to function and suffer from many of the same issues as for profit privates. Often the combination of career staff and volunteers make these somewhat complex and quality and response coverage ebbs and flows over time. One that I am most familiar with in my area has a large trust of money that allows them to run in the red, and still only charge local municipalities minimal contract fees for service. They also offer some very interesting incentives for their employees and part time staff like the use of a Northwoods camp, frequent EMS conference travel, company vehicles, etc. They still have significant staffing issues requiring multiple tones and mutual aid. Municipal EMS services can use taxpayer dollars to offset losses and can often survive on emergencies alone, requiring less "on the road time" for their buses. Short career ladders often seem to plague all but the largest of these. Similar burnout and lack of long-term employees seems to be common. The only ones in my area utilize per-diem staff only and even getting personnel to work per-diem is getting tougher as more services start competing for the same human resources. FD Based EMS utilizes multi-role staff and are often able to get "free" fire response staffing while the ambulance is sitting idle. The taxpayers pay the difference between the dept's costs and the EMS revenue. Where I work this means the taxpayers enjoy a 4:30 response time to any call fire or EMS 24/7/365. Without 1800+ EMS calls there would be few or no career fire personnel as the work load minus peripheral duties wouldn't sustain it in a good year. We now have two EMS only employees who's positions are paid for out of a contract for services with an adjoining community. Luckily this contract covers 100% of their personnel costs yet yields only less than 1 call every three days, so on average we get 24 hours (they work 12 hr days) of "free" coverage time that takes a FF/medic off the ambulance and puts him/her back on a fire apparatus. Again, this is what I see in my little corner of the US and in talking with others around the country. Just like anything there are many exceptions to the rules.

My comment was based on my limited knowledge that Newburgh's FD does not provide any EMS at this time? If their current primary mission is firefighting, adding EMS as an equally important mission without increasing staff will reduce the time previously spent training and fighting fires. My impression is that Newburgh is economically depressed and fairly busy with fire duty? Providing EMS will with no new employees will cut down first due personnel and result in either slower response times to EMS calls when there is afire or the use of an outside EMS provider? Like your's, my FD is clearly a true Fire/EMS service with both equally being the primary mission. But I cannot say that without EMS our firefighters wouldn't be better firefighters. On the other side, without a fire mission our personnel might be all EMS driven employees helping with some of the "I didn't sign up to be an ambulance jockey" attitudes that come out once in a while.

While I cannot speak for NYS, I do know that we can bill any rate (EMS rates) we'd like up to the Meicare maximum for your "area band". But the reality is that the Medicare and Medicaid (or whatever state plan)only pays specific reimbursement rates. I'm going to go on a limb and say Newburgh would most likely be looking mostly at the lower Medicaid reimbursement rates which are staggerlingly lower than Medicare or most private coverages. I know in our department that runs heavy on the "Medicaid" side of runs, the total "revenue" from EMS billing doesn't even cover 33% of payroll while EMS accounts for 65% or more of the runs. That's payroll and doesn't account for the cost of soft goods or captial improvements (ambulance replacements, new monitors, stretchers, etc). So reasons to take on EMS: Better service than current, faster response times, some return on revenue if staffing doesn't increase to cover ambulances. The reasons one should think long and hard: money is not enough to self-sustain, strains current staffing, requires much more training and ongoing training which takes time away from the current primary mission. I have very little clue about Newburgh's particular situation, and I am a proponent of Fire Based EMS from a service delivery standpoint, but can attest to the pitfalls we face daily from running a Fire based ALS-EMS service.

While it is understandable to help alleviate some financial burden that afflicts the taxpayers may pay off int he long run, it is a fast and slippery slope. Few cities find a way to cut costs one year and stop going back to the same "well" every time they "need" to. A decent benefits package has always been the public sectors draw. While we may see firefighting and police work as "glamorous" and think there's an endless pool of applicants, there are tons of other municipal jobs with far less attraction. Even this job cannot compete against higher paying private sector jobs while upping the ante as a profession and cutting the pay, job stability and benefits.

I know just about every minute I'm sitting at my desk, I wish I was back on the floor. If you think you can be happy with a desk job, then maybe it's not so hard to see your wife's POV. But if you're going to end up a miserable SOB from riding the desk, in the long run it may not be better. I'm fortunate to be able to at least get out on anything above a still alarm, so I can remain somewhat even keeled. It wouldn't even be a choice for me, short of the pay, the lieutenant's position was the most enjoyable.

Aren't all of FDNY's ladders "light duty"? Aerial ratings are based on the tip load and nothingt o do with the chassis, short of being able to carry the load of the aerial. IIRC If your tip load is 250 to 499 it's a light duty aerial, 500-749 is medium duty and 750+ is considered a heavy duty aerial. I think the "rule of thumb" is that if you have only one set of outriggers, it's a light duty and the others require two sets to attain their rating.

Ahh a Thanksgiving Day tradition by Arlo Guthrie. My father actually worked at Alice's at one time, and then went back and lived in Stockbridge many years later. Nice place from what I remember (Stockbridge that is, Alices was long gone as I recall).