Monty

No, the meters are pretty much for situations where we get the call as a "general illness" and find the whole family is sick and things like that. The protocol is pretty much if the meters go off, rapid evacuation/extrication and call for FD

First off, find out how wide the median is.
You posted that you believe the median is only about 20 feet.
If you go into court and tell the hearing officer you "think" or "believe" the median is about 20 feet, you may lose.
If you can measure it, or look up somewhere to find out exactly how wide it is, you can now tell the hearing officer exactly how wide it is. You then have a much better chance of winning. In the street view, I know that it looks less than 30 feet, but you have to convince a hearing officer, if he hears exactly how wide it is, it just sounds better.
"Thinking" or "Believing" something in court is not going to win it for you.
The 2nd thing you have to do is see if there is a "stop here on red" sign at that location.
Looking at Google street view is not going to do it. That image might be two years old.
Take several wide angle photos of the intersection with identifiable landmarks, such as a street sign and numbers on the buildings, the ascending/descending numbers will show which way is northbound/southbound.
These cops may be well aware of the law and use that specific intersection every day because it has a sign. If you are thinking of fighting this, you have to eliminate that possibilty.
If you can answer those two questions to your favor, and you do not mind going to Manhattan for the hearing, go for it.

Ice rescue, while seeming to be daunting, is a fairly straight forward procedure, that when undertaken properly is no more risky than anything else we do.
Equipment, training and procedures are key. Get those things squared away, and you'll be successful.

Perhaps it is the insurance company that made the age restriction. Everyone is so quick to jump on the officers and board about it. If the insurance company requires a person to be 21 years old to operate the ambulance, this made him an uninsured driver and left the corps and himself open to a huge liability. As far as someone asking where the 7 board members were for this call, are they members or are the community representatives? Yes there is a lot of BS politics and personal agendas in volunteer EMS, but it isn't always at the fault of those who govern. Sometimes it's the big mouths and the cliques that cause the problem. Rant over.
Have a happy new year and stay safe!

These would be the least critical patients or the lowest priority. In these situations we should use triage and make these black tags.
The goal is to get to the red tag patients who are bleeding out.
Also as far as just grabbing people and pulling them out, may want to rethink this. No need to pull dead people out and we should consider quick combat type bleeding control and then remove. Green Tags can be directed a safe route out and only issue would be the yellow tags. Would need to consider leaving in place if safe or use resources to remove.
Look at Boston. Most patients who were in danger of bleeding out had some form of bleeding control done, many by bystanders. No spinal immobilization just quick bleeding control and go.

"Risk a little to save a little, risk a lot to save a lot."
Have we forgotten that?

4WD ambulances ride in the back is much worst than 2WD. How many days a year do you really need the 4WD? 4, 6, 10? out of 365 days that you give patients a poor ride.
Before anyone says what's the difference, get yourself secured to a backboard and ride around in the back. I had a sever back muscle spasm 30 yrs. ago and took that ride. I will crawl to the ER before getting in the back for that ride again.
Onspots, nice concept, until you skid in them. they are nice to give you that little extra from not getting stuck, but I have seen them disengage the moment the unit slides sideways and then you have nothing. Most drivers are overconfident with them.
Diesel engines do run cooler and last longer, but they require a longer warm up than EMS ever provides them with. They are designed to run and run, not start & stop. Unless your ambulance is posted to a location and running all tour, the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages.

§139.315 Aircraft rescue and firefighting: Index determination.
(a) An index is required by paragraph © of this section for each certificate holder. The Index is determined by a combination of—
(1) The length of air carrier aircraft and
(2) Average daily departures of air carrier aircraft.
( For the purpose of Index determination, air carrier aircraft lengths are grouped as follows:
(1) Index A includes aircraft less than 90 feet in length.
(2) Index B includes aircraft at least 90 feet but less than 126 feet in length.
(3) Index C includes aircraft at least 126 feet but less than 159 feet in length.
(4) Index D includes aircraft at least 159 feet but less than 200 feet in length.
(5) Index E includes aircraft at least 200 feet in length.
© Except as provided in §139.319©, if there are five or more average daily departures of air carrier aircraft in a single Index group serving that airport, the longest aircraft with an average of five or more daily departures determines the Index required for the airport. When there are fewer than five average daily departures of the longest air carrier aircraft serving the airport, the Index required for the airport will be the next lower Index group than the Index group prescribed for the longest aircraft.
(d) The minimum designated index shall be Index A.
(e) A holder of a Class III Airport Operating Certificate may comply with this section by providing a level of safety comparable to Index A that is approved by the Administrator. Such alternate compliance must be described in the ACM and must include:
(1) Pre-arranged firefighting and emergency medical response procedures, including agreements with responding services.
(2) Means for alerting firefighting and emergency medical response personnel.
(3) Type of rescue and firefighting equipment to be provided.
(4) Training of responding firefighting and emergency medical personnel on airport familiarization and communications.
[Doc. No. FAA-2000-7479, 69 FR 6424, Feb. 10, 2004; Amdt. 139-26, 69 FR 31522, June 4, 2004]

When 60 Control dispatches us to a central station alarm CO activation, they tell us just that. They do not tell us "no reported symptoms" unless they spoke with the reporting person and question if anyone is experiencing symptoms and the reported tells them that their are no symptoms.

Neither of the examples you gave are four digits. What's that say about their numbering system.

Date: 11/10/13
Time: 18:15 (approx)
Incident Type: House fire
Location: 719 Linda Ave
District: Thornwood
Units: Thornwood, Hawthorne Ladder & Engine, Valhalla FAST, Chappaqua Cascade, Pleasantville Engine for cover company
Fireground 8, Trunk 11
Description:
2(?) story wood frame house. Chimney fire extended in to the walls.
18:24 Cancel Chappaqua Cascade
18:26 Fire reported knocked down. Continuing to open up.

Date: 11/10/13
Time: 18:15 (approx)
Incident Type: House fire
Location: 719 Linda Ave
District: Thornwood
Units: Thornwood, Hawthorne Ladder & Engine, Valhalla FAST, Chappaqua Cascade, Pleasantville Engine for cover company
Fireground 8, Trunk 11
Description:
2(?) story wood frame house. Chimney fire extended in to the walls.
18:24 Cancel Chappaqua Cascade
18:26 Fire reported knocked down. Continuing to open up.

Civilians need to use their heads first and foremost.
The one thing that people need to realize is that there are very few if any unmarked cars that still use cherry lights, most unmarked cars light up like christmas trees when you throw the lights on.
I have worked plain clothes for the last 7 years and all of our unmarked cars, even the good cars are well lit so if a car tries to stop you with a single light that looks shady, they should call 911 and tell them their concern while continuing to drive to a well populated, well lit area.
That is of course not to say that an impersonator wouldn't or couldn't go to great lengths to hook a car up to look legit but it is pretty unlikely.
The public also needs to be aware of light colors, if someone is trying to pull you over with a single amber, green or blue light, thats not the cops.
The flip side of this is that a perp can easily try to employ this argument while destroying evidence while he " drives to a well populated area because he is concerned with his safety." As with many things in law enforcement, there is a huge gray area here.
In regards to this clown that has been arrest 3 or 4 times now for impersonating a cop, if someone tries to flash a badge at you ( and a fugazy looking badge at that) and tells you to pull over with no lights and no sirens and you do, you are out of your mind.

Just another thing and I'm done with this thread. Is the chiefs car owned by a municipality or an incorporated department, if its owned by a municipality then yes lodge a complaint with the commissioners of said district and let them take care of it. If its an incorporated department contracted out to provide a service then the town really has no say in the day to day operation of that vehicle

The Ossining Fire Department will be responding to Nassau County with 2331, 2334, Ladder 41 and Engine 99 for a 72 Hour deployment tomorrow morning.
Chief Reddy
2331

Interesting question so I did a little research...
A few storms have hit us especially hard including Floyd, Irene, the unnamed storm of 1938, Donna, and the Nor'Easter in 1992. The tracks of Irene and Floyd were very different from Sandy; they both moved up the coast where Sandy appears to be taking a track more like the 1938 storm (which was about category 5) for a direct hit on the DelMarVa Peninsula. Definitely not good news for them but we're still well within the tropical storm wind cone and will also receive heavy rain and wind.

(Irene is the other track along the coast with Floyd and Donna, the tag got cut off.)

Intensity wise, Irene hit the metro area as a hurricane before weakening as it moved inland. See the track here: http://www.nhc.noaa....loop_5NLW.shtml
Irene was a big storm too. The satellite image shows Irene to be almost one third of the size of the U.S. east coast. The distance from Augusta, Maine to Miami, Florida is 1662.55 miles. Hurricane Irene's tropical storm force winds extended 255 miles from the center making Irene 510 miles in diameter, almost one-third the size of the U.S. Hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from the center, or 140 miles in diameter.

Sandy is also really big, and it’s getting bigger. Tropical storm force winds now reach 450 miles out from the center, so at its forward speed of 9 mph, places could experience tropical storm conditions almost 48 hours prior to the arrival of the center. That's a LOT of rain and wind for 2-3 days.
Floyd hit the Carolinas as a strong type 2 hurricane and eventually reached us as a tropical storm. The issue with Floyd was it's size, it was HUGE - much bigger than Andrew, the hurricane that decimated south Florida. Near its eye, Floyd's winds were 130 miles per hour, earning it a Category 3 rating from meteorologists and it was almost twice the size of typical Atlantic hurricanes, Floyd was some 580 miles across and packed tropical storm-force winds (40 to 73 mph) or greater across that entire span.

The big thing that I picked up from all this research; there are so many variables it is hard to really "compare" storms. Water temperature, wind speed, other frontal activity, location, speed, size, lunar cycle, etc. all make it very hard to say one is more or less devastating than another.
Hurricane Sandy is a very large storm and no matter where exactly it hits we're going to feel its punch.
Stay safe!
More on Floyd for those with nothing else to do today - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1999floyd.html

Wonder if that would get you a shoton Pawn Stars

Monies received by most fire companies I know generally goes to some of, if not all of, the following;
- Station amenities not covered by the district / municipality (this includes cable, phone, internet, furniture, furnishings, etc.).
- Retention events (picnics, dinners, etc.).
- Public Awareness / Recruitment (websites, "members wanted" signs, open houses)
- Community Give-Backs (funding a Little League team, etc.)
- Celebrations (Wet Downs [usually open to the public], Anniversary dinners / parades [often open to the public], etc.)
I really don't think anyone that writes a donation check to their local FD isn't doing so because they want to show their support to those neighbors of theirs who are coming to their aid when they need them. Often times they make comments like "I wish I had the time to help" or "I give you guys a lot of credit for what you do." The ones that don't donate are either doing it because they can't afford to, don't donate to anything or just plain hate us.
jumping up and down, screaming that all volunteer fire departments are ripping off taxpayers, using donations for lavish vacations just isn't true for all of us. We don't even send our Chiefs to trade shows anymore because we realized that more time (let's be honest - money) was being pissed away at meals and lodging. The money we get from our Village for training is used for everyone and no longer pays for 2 or 3 guys to "vacation" in Baltimore. Sure, you sit in on one 3 hour seminar each day, but how many hours of that same day are you at the pool or the bar?
None of us are perfect. And at the end of the day I think most of us will agree that our "system" (to be used loosely) is fractured in New York, but it's what we have and we are all trying our best to do what we believe in - right?
To Mr. Flynn, I appreciate how strongly opinionated you are. We share that trait and I credit it to our similar first name. And believe me, I hold nothing against any one person, one organization or one group of individuals. What I do have a hard time with is anyone that wants to degrade any group or organization for doing something wrong, when everyone (myself included) has made mistakes as well.
I think all of us on EMTBravo should stop making everything a debate and try to put our energies into more prudent efforts.
Let's start by agreeing on one thing - whatever that one thing is - and working TOGETHER to find a resolution. Nothing will ever come from all of us (especially yours truly) getting all hot and bothered here.
To all, I apologize for my lunacy in earlier posts, but I tend to get emotional when my department gets lumped into the poor choices some others (and I am NOT talking about Irvington, so don't hate me guys!) routinely do.
Thanks.

That is not the case everywhere in NYS there are plenty of companies that have requirements for meeting attendance (where nothing to do with firefighting is discussed) and fundraisers have attendance requirements in many cases more than training requirements. Even parade requirements so do not be fooled volunteers who are good firefighters are dropped or quit because they want to be firefighters not beer money beggars. What is also insane is members gain LOSAP credit for meeting attendance and fundraising. When we have the opportunity to examine how volunteer department's are run outside of New York it is interesting how effective they can be. I think this member did not quit in vain he is drawing attention to the archaic system that still exists here.

So, it seems Stamford has been awarded a SAFER grant. How does that play in to the situation? Interesting quote from the press release:

I hope Stamford does more with the grant than Danbury & Westport.

So, it seems Stamford has been awarded a SAFER grant. How does that play in to the situation? Interesting quote from the press release:

I hope Stamford does more with the grant than Danbury & Westport.

Heres a picture before any hose on the street.

Definitely putting words in to Cogs mouth - but my take on what I read is .. In an ideal world he'd like the charter revision proposal changed to have a commission made up of people from various organizations. If he can't get that then the current proposal for the charter revision is better than the current situation.
Assuming he can vote from overseas ..... my guess - and it's obviously only that, is that he would vote for the current proposal.

Like I said in my post above and I want to reiterate to everyone. This is just MY own opinion! Matter of fact I won't even call it an opinion or how it "should" be. These are just my views based on 27 years of experience from having been a volunteer and a career fire fighter in two combination departments. Now don't get me wrong, I have been at calls way back in the day when fists were thrown between volly's and paid guys. I think most of these fights were because of the ego and attitude thing. Some may of been over something that someone did or didn't do right or wrong. But again because of that old ego and attitude thing arguments were started in stead of letting cooler heads prevail and fix the problem at hand and worry about the pissing later which really should have been figuring out what went wrong and finding a solution to the problem. I give a lot of credit to two paid guys from Danbury for ending the majority of the issues between the paid and volunteer departments. One is the current chief of Greenwich, Peter J. Siecienski who was one of the career training officers . He was one of the guys who helped to create what they call the Stop Light System which is a way off identifying who is who and their training level at a glance on the fire scene. Before this time you had to have three fully interior ffs on the engine before it could respond allowing it to match the career engines. Because volunteer numbers in Danbury were dropping and once a guy got into his 50s, 60s, etc some guys didn't want to maintain their interior status therefore putting them off the machine forever.
Hence forth the Stop Light System:
RED LIGHT: Fire Ground support only
YELLOW LIGHT: Exterior Fire Fire Fighting
GREEN LIGHT: Interior Fire Fighter
Now under each of these headings where other qualification like a driver license has. You can be a pump operator, fire police (yes Danbury has a great fire police unit), EMT etc.
This ultimately allowed for the response guidelines to change allowing for 2 Green Light and either 1 Red or Yellow Light as long as they had a driver/pump operator qualification. This allowed those "older" guys back into active status or anyone else that didn't want to be interior. I believe the background of the I.D. tags have the appropriate color for identification (been awhile and not sure if this still how it's done).
At this point in time is when the Career Training Officer began taking over the responsibility of providing the yearly refreshers and other main required drills for the volunteer fire fighters. What they ended up doing was setting up quarterly drills. The drill schedule was handed out at the beginning of the year allowing people to schedule their time to be able to attend. The same drill was run for the career guys as well the volunteers. It took place over several weekends of each quarter allowing plenty of time for everyone to be able to hit one of the dates. At the same time it allowed for better training record keeping. At the end of each quarter a report was generated of the attendance and handed out to the volunteer company officers. Any volunteer who did not make one of the required drills was taken off active response until he or she made up what was required. This really helps to keep OSHA off your back! It also alleviated those responsibilities from the volunteer officers as well as the record keeping and reporting.
The other guy was Jim Thorne who took over as training officer from Pete as he moved up the ladder. Jim (nor Pete) never had that ego/attitude thing (at least not that I ever saw) although he would always tell it like it was. Jim really brought the training together to finish what Pete had started. He taught and treated you as a fire fighter. It didn't matter if you were paid or volunteer because he new that if and when the "Sh_t" hit the fan, he wanted to make sure you new what you were doing and that peoples lives, civilian, paid and volunteer were on the line. It was a no BS approach and I really liked the way he taught.
I have tried to carry this through in my career. I don't care if your paid or volunteer either. To me the bottom line is if you are going to be involved in Public Safety then play the game by the rules. Don't pad the truth, rosters, abilities, etc. and make sure that the training is the real deal. We all know that volunteerism is on the downslide and has been for many years. It's documented by The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC). Most importantly is no one is to blame. It's the sign of the times and the economy. We must, especially the Volunteer Fire Departments, embrace this fact and work out the best situation to mitigate the problem. For me, my above post can assist in this. It's not the end all be all but it "Could" be a start.
Just like an addiction, the first step in recovery is to recognize and except the fact that you have a problem!

I'll throw MY thoughts in here on Pete's question and I mean mine only. No rumors here. I will use Danbury for an example as it is close and similar as far as a combination department. This is all assuming career staff are spread throughout the entire city. This is also based on the fact that like in Danbury, the volunteer pieces of equipment responding are staffed buy a fully qualified crew. In Danbury that is driver/operator and at least 2 fully certified interior FF's (there is an exception to this for tankers and the two squad companies which are air and lighting units). Danbury Volunteer's don't really do EMS with the exception of one company and I'm not sure if they still do.
Example:
A call goes out for an Automatic Alarm in a district that a volunteer department is in. Both career and the appropriate volunteer unit/s are dispatched. Who ever is the first on scene gives the initial size up and proceeds to investigate. They report their findings to the responding deputy chief. If it turns out to be a fire or some other cause then that first due piece does what it has to until the rest of the responding assignment arrives. If a volunteer "senior" officer is first on scene then they will assume command until the deputy arrives. Once he does then they will meet and either transfer command or do what the two decide is best. If more volunteer FFs show up in their private vehicles, then they would report to the command post and get an assignment (accountability, tagging in etc.)
As far as this type of call it's as simple as that. No big deal.
EMS, Rescue, MVA calls are a little different story. As it sits right now having two engines, a fly car, 901 and an ambulance responding to a basic ems call is ridiculous, unnecessary and dangerous to the public.
If the volunteers are to going to respond to them then they need to part of the CAD system. What I mean by this if there is a certified crew hanging out at the fire house and has enough manpower to properly staff an apparatus then they should contact dispatch and have that unit put into the system so the CAD system can automatically suggest them to the appropriate call. This way not only will they be dispatched within their own district but will be utilized throughout the entire system/city if necessary. This should make that "CERT" issue/concern go away. Now that I think about this as i'm typing, this part should have been implemented a long time ago!
By doing the above, for an example, TOR has their rescue staffed with "certified" personnel and have called dispatch and are put into the CAD as available. A call comes in for an MVA on the parkway. Their rescue is dispatched instead of Rescue1 leaving them available if needed elsewhere.
I'm gonna stop here because I could go on and on with different scenarios, departments etc. The bottom line is it can work. There will have to be a little give and take everywhere. Anyone who has been in the "system" for a while, and no offense to the newer guys but I mean more than 20 years, know what changes have taken place. The old days are long gone and we need to be more flexible to stay viable.
Training, SOG's, SOP's, medical physicals etc all have to become standard. This way there is no "he said she said". In Danbury, the yearly refreshers, and main drills are set up and run by the Career training officer. The career staff and volunteer staff go through these same drills. This way there is continuity and everyone is on the same page. This also takes some of the burden off of the volunteer officers and allows them make better use of what time they have to give to their department.
Again this is MY $.02 and Mine only. It's no secret. I grew up in the Danbury Vol. Fire Department and am proud of it. I spent 14 years there as an active member holding numerous officers positions before getting hired as a career fire fighter almost 13 years ago. I am glad to have a lot of my training come from the career guys there. Most of those guys back then where truly seasoned veterans and had "been there done that" and passed on to us what they learned along the way. I am lucky to have had the unique experience of coming from a combination system so I understand both sides. I also am lucky because when I first got involved in the fire service we were still using just long coats, 3/4 boots and a helmet. No hoods or pants. You were a "puke" if you chose to where an airpack to a car fire or dumpster fire etc. I got to see a lot of changes and the majority of them are for the good.
I truly believe if everyone puts their egos and attitudes aside this new system can and will work!