Bnechis

Interesting that everyone takes about the law and what they bought or have not bought. How many depts have actually done a written risk assessment 1st like the law requires? The law is excellent, the stupidity that has occured after the law has been amazing. I've seen depts. actually buy systems for fire police. What are the risks with any system? Has anyone considered that some systems are more dangerous WHEN NOT BAILING then others. Is you system more likely to get you injured or killed when you are doing something other than bailing out?

I do not know if they will go to dutchess but I found this on another thread: DO NOT SHOOT THE MESSANGER..........DO NOT SHOOT THE MESSANGER..........DO NOT SHOOT THE MESSANGER..........I JUST DELEVER THE NEWS

The system was designed to have 2 side; Hazmat/WMD and Tech Rescue. The basic design is based on the "squad system" A squad designation (by 60 Control Definition) means an engine company with a minimum of 5 firefighters and 1 officer who are fully trained/certified firefighters and hazmat/wmd technician and/or Technical Rescue Technicians (the squad is designated for HM &/or TR). They must be equipped with all the needed equipment to get started and may include a squad support unit (SSU) and or a trailer. Currently there are 5HM & 1TR squads (the plan was for 2 - 3 additional squads in Northern Westchester, but that was mentioned in the beat to death thread). The squads are able designed to be a 1st in unit as well as a support unit. The squads must revolve around a full hazmat team or tech rescue team (which YFD provides both). In both drills and actual responses the squads have been able to handle minor hazmat (at the tech level, above the level of most FD's prior to the squads), start to set up and do recon, monitoring &/or reaserch prior to the hazmat teams arrival or fill in and provide any component of the overall hazmat incident. Examples of these components include: level A entry/back-up, suit support/medical monitoring/rehab, research (including plume modelling with Cameo), leak control, Technical and Mass decon, and detection. Each HM squad is equipped to do each of these functions, but the key is they are assigned generally only one function. We found that a serious incident requires at least 30 well trained members to properly deal with it. With this system we have a minimum of 56 on/duty members. The tech side is set up in a similar manor. WSOTF trained over 700 members to HM Tech (including; PD ESU and EMS Special Ops Members), and a similar # to WMD Tech. plus at least 60 to advanced hazmat Tech. I don't remember how many we trained on the tech side, but they all got Rope Rescue, Trench & Collapse. The training was all certified by OFPC &/or DHS, and most classes exceeded the standard hours (i.e. NYS HM Tech is 24 hrs....we did 40). But the big difference is everyone did all skills. Lots of suit time and lots of drills and scenarios. On the Tech side we did the same and got to run some major drills, including the use of the Yonker Race track parking garage before it was demo'ed (got to drop and lift a full ramp, cut thru floors, etc.) FDNY & NYS TF 2 (OFPC Albany) participated in this drill with us. Hope this helps

While this is generally a good way to put it. The WSOTF oversight is provided by the Westchester Career Chiefs and Asst. Chief Fitzpatric is the operations chief and Deputy Chief John Reed (NRFD) is the administrative chief. A handful of other officers and firefighters working directly with them have done the majority of the work listed above.

1) the hospital stripped the patient and never found them (the pt was wearing multiple layers of "heavy" clothing) so as ALS pointed out they may have fallen out. 2) EMS transported her, but I do not know what they reported. 3) The staff that treated her had no contact with MVPD.

I'm shooting for October

When and if we get the funding.

Your answer was excellent. I was answering Chris's question with a question.

The question is should they do anything different because she was tasered? EMS

Thanks for the info. My point was this 60 y/o was tazered (I am not questioning the use of the Tazer, (It makes great sense in protecting everyone) the barbs removed. The person transported to the hospital and admitted for psych evaluation (note: not under arrest). The hospital staff found out that the person was Tazer'ed by: A) the police dept B.) EMS unit that transported the "patient" C) The Journal News (article 24 hrs later) D) All of the above The answer should have been "D" but in this case the answer was "C".

Just a question for the Law Enforcement members, when a person needs to be controlled with a tazer, are ther potential side effects that need to be reported to EMS? What is the potential for a person in their 60's to have underlying medical issues that EMS and the Hospital might look at differently if they knew the patient had been tazered?

Sounds like if they were going to do that it should have been marked as a Utility. HM was designated for HM teams which should be a lot more than a "spill team"

At this point 11,177 people have viewed this thread. I find it hard to believe that none are in the know. Maybe Chief Fitz should call the # and ask if the members meet the standards that were set for the team by the counties oversight committee....Oh wait. they never were allowed to set a standard. I guess one was never established.

WSOTF set up that the 1st unit (squad) should be on scene in under 10-12 minutes with 5 trained ff's/1 trained officer. That shoring and most supplies could be onscene in 20-30 minutes with another 20-30 trained members/officers. and that could be doubled in another 30-40 minutes. Even when trying to set up a system in the North West we were looking at only slightly longer times, particularly for additional resources. What can a local dept. without equipment (& training) do? Stay back. 50% of all trench collapses have secondary collapses. If you enter an improperly shored trench there is a 50/50 chance you will die in it. Can you shore it up? not without the right equipment. do you have the right equipment to handle the loads? If you think some cribbing and 2 backboards will do, good luck....the laws of physics are against you.

Which guys are trying in good faith; the individuals who have volunteered there time to train or the individual or individual(s) who were tasked with developing the "team"? The County Legislature wanted "OVERSIGHT", that includes policies, procedures, rules, standards, etc. Most "Kinks" should have been worked out before "here we are ready to respond". Based on the silence we are not convinced they have been worked out. Chief Fitz spent 100's of hours trying to help as did others from NRFD, YFD, the career chiefs, local 628 (Yonkers), Local 273 (NR) and the 5th District of the NYS Professional Firefighters, along with the volunteers and fire districts. THe fact that our meetings were cancelled before we met our mandate or completed our mission statement is why we want our questions answered.

Having worked EMS there I can safely say that depending on the time of day no one will notice and if they do, it will just be another day in Yonkers.

Thats where the truck(s) are parked. Personnel can be turning out from the 4 corners of the empire. WSOTF had 30+ responders onscene in Howthorne in 18 minutes, responding from Yonkers, Greenville & NR

Thats why WSOTF trained members in Lake Mohegan and tried to establish a squad company there as well as in Yorktown & Somers

The purchase of Ladder 7 and Engine 7 were authorized by the County Board of Legislators for use at the Training Center. they were not purchased for the brigade.

Thats just NUTS

Westchester Special Operations Task Force. Onduty 24/7 6 squad companies (5 hazmat/wmd, 1 Collapse) 1 Hazmat task force 3 Collapse units 2 Confined space teams also 1 MMRS (EMS) 700 personnel trained to Hazmat tech (career fire and career ALS EMS) 75 to NYS Advanced HM Tech (40 hour NYS OFPC course) 600 Confined space 600 Building collapse Lots of additional training Eastchester Fairview Greenville Hartsdale Mt. Vernon New Rochelle Scarsdale White Plains Yonkers Note: a number of additional FD's were asked to participate including: Lake Mohegan [of which 10 members were trained], Yorktown & Somers, also the leadership of the technical rescue team was invited to participate, but the "leadership" did not even advise the "members" of this offer. The reasons given for not joining included: "training standards to high" and "we want to be incharge"(which included "I want the county to give me a response vehicle as the team chief").

Yonkers mantains an on-duty fully manned hazmat task force 24/7.

The career service has a team that is in place, is trained has a minimum of 54 trained members on-duty in the fire house 24/7 and has been there for the last 7 years, why should they participate in a level IV team when they already are on a level III team? Wouldn't that water down the career team? 4 of the leaders of the career team worked very hard on the oversight comittee to try and insure that this team would be able to to meet minimum standards and meet NIMS/FEMA typing. But it appears the county is not concerned with that. The county recieves federal homeland security funding that in the past was shared with the cities, towns and villages. it appears that there is no longer an interest to fund both "local needs" and "DES needs" The career service has stepped up to the plate. When california closets in Hawthorne was struck by a tornado, 60 control called WSOTF (the career team) and they had 54 (or more) members on scene in under 20 minutes (less than 1 mile from 60 Control). We have always been available to help the county, our friends and families. The main reason that the career members have not joined (yes there are a few exceptions) is we already have a team, and when operating under WSTOF we are covered by our depts. for injury/death and are pension is not at risk and our families will be covered, there is no garuntee to the same with the county team. Do you think the county team would ever call WSTOF to back them up? WSOTF has made itself available to any community that requests it. Somehow many here believe it is only available to career comunities. I have never seen any post on this that was negative towards the volunteers that have put in a lot of effort. The issue has been the county is now advertising it has a capability to handle technical rescue and many are sceptical as to what the "counties" ability really is?

Chief as I look back at my notes, I find the team was classified as a type IV team and the Special Operations Taskforce (which 1/2 was at the Eastchester incident) was classified as a level 3 team. The Albany OFPC team is a Type II and the NYC FEMA USAR TF1 is a type I Note a type III team needs a minimum of 28 responders in its initial response.

The team did not purchase any vehicles the county did before the county "team" was even recognized as a team (yes there was a group started prior to that that was trying to get it self established0 and for those with really short memories there was an attempt in 1988-89 to start a team, that gave the county a petition signed by all but 2 FD's in the county (1 vol & 1 career - not YFD, they signed). I'd love to know more about it, thats why I was on the oversight committee, we were charged with determining all of those items, but as I previously wrote, the county stopped having meetings as soon as we got up to minimum standards. Maybe thats why some here are a little skeptical.