Bnechis

On the FD side of it, can a department be held liable for property loss or injury as a result of them not being able to respond in a timely manner?

Of course they can. State law requires local government (City's, Villages, Fire Districts, etc.) have to provide fire protection. Thus they have a "duty to act". If the chief, commissioners, or gov officials are aware that a problem exists, then they have liability for not providing the service.

There are a lot of costs to fire protection and staffing is probably amongst the lower costs. Think of the cost of hydrants, fire and building code enforcement, insurance premiums (commercial and residential), apparatus, equipment, training, etc. The world is changing and it is the obligation of both town government and departments to adapt. Look at what your town's ISO rating is. Then figure out what the savings to taxpayers would be if you could significantly improve that rating. We did this excercise in our town when we wanted to add career staff and found that the nominal cost to taxpayers in terms of increasing our budget was far outweighed by the reduction in the cost of the homeowners' insurance premiums. Improved fire protection lowers insurance costs.

The answer is not quite as simple as hiring career staff. It is that, it is constantly recruiting volunteers, and it is educating governmental officials and taxpayers. It is automatic aid agreements on the first alarm instead of mutual aid. It is being creative on service delivery. It is monetary incentives for volunteers. It is housing for volunteers. It is getting grants. And, the list goes on.

Nobody wants higher taxes, but maybe nominally increasing taxes in order to achieve a larger offset that actually puts more money back into taxpayer pockets is an acceptable solution.

Well said chief

I'm wondering if it's anywhere in the County's agenda to compensate the Communications Operators and Supervisors at 60 Control with what they deserve, a fair salary that's comprable with a Police Officer or firefighters.

If you have been reading the news over the last month, County gov is more concerned with what the part timers at the top make.

I was shocked that the Chief Of my Fire Department makes more then double what the Chief of 60 Control makes (according to Westchester Magazine). The Chief of 60 Control has a LOT more responsiblity on his plate, and less staff to help him, then my department's Chief.

When you say "chief" of 60 Control are you refering to one of the Chiefs or the Commissioner?

Maybe your chief makes more because he has seniority, most public safty jobs pay more based on seniority.

Or maybe its because your chief actually had to pass the NYS Chiefs Civil Service Exam to earn the title.

I'm not in a union but not totally anti-union but how does one argue that give-backs should occur if the City offers a paineless medical test that involves collecting something your thrown down the drain anyway and will ensure the safety of it's members?

When the union requests something added to the contract, the city insists we "pay" for it. So when the city has asked for this, is it not fair that we ask them to "pay" for it.

Even Home Depot has a program for testing it's employees. I'm sure there are hundreds of other jobs where there is nobody's life or property at stake that require random testing, or mandatory testing under reasonable suspicion.

Yes, its called condition of employment. And the unions are not against it, but we work under a legal contract that covers all aspects of the condition of employment. When either side wants something changed you negociate a new contract.

I can't see where the labor union even has to get involved. There is no trade-off. No bargaining. Submit to testing, that's it.

See above. Thats not how conract law works.

Not to start a war and I know this is a hot topic in the Boston area right now but I could never understand the push back on the concept of drug and alcohol testing in FD/PD/EMS. I know the concepts of how the testing will be done should be straight forward and steps including to address those with abuse problems but I don't think the headline "Firefighter's union againest drug testing" really doesn't goes over well with the public. I've never used drugs and never been under the influence at work so maybe its not a concern to me but I would certainly like to know the guy or girl who has my life, the lives of his partner/crew, and patients is clear headed.

Am I missing something or am I just simple minded

We have testing for hiring, promotion and major cause (like MVA with vehicle). The city wants random testing but its a contractual issue.

THe union is not against it (they favor it) but they want the city to give something for it. which most members see as fair.

I am curious to know how many calls departments in Westchester ran during the April flood.

I know that Bedford ran something like 45 calls during the flood. A record for a 24 hour period.

NRFD documented over 900.....we know we lost a bunch of calls (document wise). We are building a new EOC and dispatch capability to deal with storms to prevent some of the documentation and duplication of service issues we had.

Last i heard the State was looking to melt the B and I program together, doing away with intubation altogether and replacing that with less advanced airways like the combi-tube. Now, as far as what would happen with IV therapy and cardiac monitoring, i don't know. The biggest problem with this potential plan is i don't know how you can expect volunteers to maintain those advanced skills - whatever they may be (hence why I'm not really sure if i beleive the state will ever melt the two programs together...)

I've heard that rumor for almost 20 years....I don't see it coming anytime soon.

Personally, i wish the State did away with the B program altogether and had EMT-I as the base standard. It would not only up the initial level of care but would also filter out many of those who simply do not belong on the street.

Georgia did that, some say with the intention of eliminating vollunteers.

The interesting issue is in NYS you need 120+ hours of training to "treat" a life and death issue, but you need over 1,000 hours to cut my hair.

And Seth you are right - Captain Nechis is a great instructor whom I have taken a few EMS and Fire classes with.

Barry - are you still teaching anything up here at the WCFTC?

Thanks

Not much, too busy in NR.

I am on the DOH regional faculty so I do teach in the CLI & CIC program. I also taught all of the Decon Trailer Programs.

In NYS, EMT-I's really are underutilized or obsolete, depending on how you want to look at things. In most agencies, they don't use EMT-I's. I personally feel that every ALS ambulance should be double medic, and if not, at least an EMT-I to help with the skills.

I reccomend the class to any EMT who's not immediately planning to go to medic school. It's great to have the extra knowledge and skills, even if you're just working at the BLS level.

I agree, but your never going to see 2 medics in most cases due to cost and availability.

I also feel the basic EMT does not give enough, but I dont want to see it longer. I like the idea of being an EMT for a while then upgrading. You have a better sence of it and hopefully your skills are sharper then.

FAC911 was in the class with me as well, and only a few others. I believed we were allowed to use our skills under the direct supervision of a paramedic, but couldn't use the skills independtly. FAC, you remember anything about this? Also, I believe Yorktown VAC had an EMT-I program, but I don't know about that program, it's terms, or if it's still around.

WCREMSCO and NYS DOH has the structure in place for EMT-I's, but the concept has never really taken root.

You can use them under both direct & indirect (if the agency is an "I"). It would be useful, but the paid system is unwilling to pay for it and the vollie side never took interest.

I took my EMT-Intermediate class at Phelps in 1999 with Barry Nechis in the sub basement of Phelps. Was an AWESOME class, Barry was a great instructor and made lthe coursework fun. Not only did he teach us EMT-I skills, but also helped us to sharpen our EMT skills. It was also a great "primer" for Paramedic School, and really helped me while in the field as well. I remember the fun tabletop MCI excercise-that was the best! I've applied lessons from his teachings multiple times. If Phelps Hospital and Barry Nechis were to have offered a Paramedic class, I would have definetly taken it there.

Thank for the compliment. Nice to see it in writing.

My intention always was to make it a pre-medic. Some just want that far and decided it was as far as they wanted to go, others used it as the prep to being a better medic.

So we have another situation of lets stretch legal terms and throw in the lawsuit fear factor that many still live by in the EMS world.

Anything can be interpreted as anything by any lawyer.

Having testified a few times (as a witness) I was amazed at how far the lawers stretched the terms.

for example I was grilled for over 45 minutes on the little times box on the PCR. One of the lawers was able to make a 3 minute response time look like it could have been 12 minutes in the jury's mind. We could have walked the 10 blocks in that time.

I have not read nor heard of any cases involving patient abandonment that did not involve some adverse outcome for the patient. If stopping what your doing could compromise the patient outcome or cause you to stop a skill that involves your ABC's...don't leave.

Agreed. My point was that I think there are safer ways to deal with this. I think this is a system that is used by commercial services to control employees, when proper training, supervision, personnel selection and equipment would be better.

As said above, there is a button inside the patient compartment. The crew member in the back can press it without leaving the patient. Hopefully he glances out the back window while doing it to warn the driver of anything behind the rig.

That tells me that this system considers that a spotter is only important sometimes. It solves the abandonment issue, but if you hit the inside button, then the driver backs into something, I think your liability just went way up.

You need a system that works every time.

Back up sensors

Camera's

BackStop bumper mounted break system, etc.

Getting out to spot a vehicle is not pt abandonment.

While there are times you may have to leave the patients side, the lawyers will beat you solid on it.

This is from a EMS Law firm:

Abandonment

EMT-Is may terminate the medical relationship without fear of being held liable for abandonment under the following circumstances:

· Patient does not require medical assistance

· Patient terminates the relationship

· Patient care is transferred to another medical professional

Getting out may be interpreted as temporary termination. Particularly if there are other methods to safely back the vehicle.

In Fundamentals of Emergency Care By Richard W. O. Beebe, Deborah L. Funk

They claim that leaving the patient for any reason is abandonment.

On the stand when the lawyer asks you to read the highlighted portion.......you will have a problem. If your defense is its company policy, but the training from the state and the textbook say otherwise.

The button doesn't need to be depressed constantly. You put it into reverse, the system notifies you (via a beep) that you need to be spotted, your partner hops out presses the buttom and then steps to the side - out of your blind spot - and backs you up. If your dumb enough to hit back up at like 50mph and run your partner over you probably shouldn't be driving an ambulance

I've seen lots of people who should not be driving an ambulance.

You can still back up your truck if the button is not pushed , like celtic said, if you don't hit the button you will get a lower score but it's not as if it disables the truck from backing up, it just spits out a really annoying audible buzz and records that you backed up w/o a spotter.

My quote was based on the statement "you can't back up without hitting it"

I still question the wholw concept. While having a spotter is a great idea, if you don't have a 3rd, I believe you are abandoning your patient to stand behind the vehicle to back it up. Even if the pt is minr or BS...its still abandonment.

In 1986 my ambulance (NYH-CMC HRIT) got a back up camera and that solves this issue. With the camera, the driver has no blind spots and with the audio system you can hear anyone who yells out. I see these camera's commonly on campers, busses, fire trucks, trucks and now mini-vans. But very few ambulances.

It appears to me that municipal agencies are not turning to this system, but commercial servces are. Why is that? Is it there a difference between the two?

While shooting New Britain, CT's EMS fleet a few weeks ago, I noticed when they backed up the bus, the spotter hit a button in the back of the ambulance.

This is part of the on-board "black-box" computer. It confirms that a spotter was there. I think the vehicle has to be in reverse, but won't budge until the spotter hits it.

Pretty neat idea. Does anyone else employ this practice?

It's just a little button on the drivers side rear of the ambulance. Hardly noticeable.

While it sounds like a good way to confirm that someone is back there, and save the agency money on the vehicle insurance, its a good way to get the crew killed.

1st the last place i want a crew member to go to when the rigis ready to back up is the drivers blind spot.

2nd I have been on a number of calls where the crowds got out of hand and the only way to save my patient, my partner and myself was to back out. If we had to get out of the rig, a) one of us was going to get killed and the rig still could not back up.

3rd I know of at least 3 calls in westchester where EMS raced in to a reported officer down and came under fire from the gunman. 2 cases were able to rapidly back up the 3rd, the gun man waited till they were out of the rig before he started shoting at them...they spent the next few hours under the bus. One of the medics proudly displayed the trauma box with the bullet hole thru it.

While this does not happen often, installing these systems apears to be an extreme reaction, and shows that managment does not trust its staff (It could be that the staff can't be trusted, but thats another issue).

OSHA is federal government. How can BFD not fall under their jurisdiction?

The stiger Act of 1970 is what created FED OSHA. The law is to protect workers in the private sector (not government). States were given the option to be "State Plan" states.

If the State wanted to keep the feds out, they had to agree to enforce the law on private and public sector.

The following States are full plan states:

Alaska, Arizona, Californa, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, No Carolina,

Oregon, So Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, & Wyoming

The following states agreed to split to program with the feds:

Conn

NJ

NY

They cover the public,and the FEDS cover the private.

The fine structure for private sector can be very high and even with reductions commonly is in the $100,000's

The fine structure for public sector is often a joke. But it may open the door for major litigation and civil judgements. Since most governmental liability laws dont cover the gov if it has broken the law.

As I see it the real issue is not "OSHA is the LAW" to worry about.....but the laws of physics. The fines for breaking those law can not be negotiated.

DOC,

Are they staffed by DEP Police?

BTW that's a great looking new police building over in Eastview.

Nope, they are staffed by DEP Hazmat.

Just looking at it from the view of a taxpayer, which we all are whether you are career or volunteer member. Stop for a moment and think. The residents of towns that have 100% volunteer depatments are saving the taxpayers a fortune. Think about how much money they are saving you, the taxpayer. Look at the Village of Rye Brook. They wanted their own firehouse, manpower and rigs. They spent millions of dollars and they only work a 7am to 7pm shift. Imagine how much it would additionally cost them to run a 24hr fully paid department.

Just because you have 100% volunteers does not mean you are saving money. This is the biggest misconception in the fire service. While it is possible you are saving money you need to look at all the facts.

1) The cost of fire prevention.

Most people consider the FD Budget the cost of Fire Prevention. THe real costs include:

Water supply - If you have a municipal system, the cost is in the 100's of millions.

Insurance - My estimates of premiums in my community is 35% more than FD Budget, not including renters insurance and stock/merchandise insurance.

Construction - Non combustible construction cost more, but reduces your insurance

FD Cost - is less than the 3 above (even in full paid depts)

Sprinklers - cost more, but reduces your insurance

Code Enforcement - Communities with high quality C.E. have fewer fires.

Fire Prevention Activities - cost time/money to provide.

2) ISO concepts.

3 on call ff's = 1 on-duty ff (in house)

minimum response required by ISO for dept with no on-duty FF's is 36ff's & 1 IC. For on duty its 12 & 1.

How many of the VFD's in this area get 36+1 on every report of a structure fire (not on the 2nd alarm)?

These numbers mean that to keep our ISO level (2) we use 168 career FF's (had 160 when we got it), but if we were vol we would need at least 500 volunteers.

3) FD Costs

Cost is based budget and size of Tax Base. When newsday came out with the cost factors we saw that many of the taxpayers there were paying more for vfd's than our home owners, and we give them a big cost savings on insurance.

If you have a VFD with about 12,000 residence and your budget is over $1 million and your ISO rating is 5 or higher your residence pay more (per resident) for fire protection than my 100% career dept.

For every $1 million we spend we save $10+ million in premiums.

Also how many VFD's have LOSAP's? Do they work? What are the costs? And are they properly funded? The State Comptroler says many are under funded by millions. This is tax money that will have to be raised to pay the bill. but it will have to be raise 10-20 yrs from now and those costs are to pay for services today not when the bill comes due. If the depts hire personnel, they will still have to raise this money to pay for volunteers who are retired.

For the record

I am not against volunteers. I was one, I still work with them, and they have a major roll to play, and yes they can save a community money, but just because they are volunteering, does not mean the dept is saving the community money. The ISO rating system is over 100 yrs old and was started before most career depts. 3 VFD's in this country are ISO 1's (the best rating) so it can be done, but almost 15,000 of the 43,000 depts in the US are ISO 9/10 (the worst rating).

At my last count 25 of the 58 departments in Westchester were ISO 9 or partial 9.

First of all, I could care less how many vollies quit because of this. I am only trying to figure out if this whole situation is costing or will cost the taxpayers more money and was it reaaly the best decision for the Village of Larchmont? Was it really worth the lawyers fees, raise in salary, possilbe staff increases to have a chief who is now an employee instead or someone who was donating his time? If it took the chief 20 minutes to arrive at a fire scene, where does he live? Shoudnt he be required to live relatively close to town?

Lots of comments on the boards about the communities not being willing to invest in the depts and not trying to improve them. Here the village took a bold move, knowing it may cost them more and everyone throws stones at them. How many mayor are willing to stick there necks out like she did?

If that many vollies quit over this, how reliable were they in the 1st place. In other locations when they have had a mass exidus the dept improved cause they got ride of the guys who showed up but never willing to go in. That being said, I do not know any of the vol. who quit, so I do not know there abilities or commitment level, but having lived in the area I've heard/seen many times over the last 30 yrs this group threaten the village that if they did not get there way they would quit.

The mayor decided that she could not fold to their blackmail. At least she has a backbone.

Also known as trungine 14....

Good thing your retired, calling it truckengine 14 was a no no. LOL

Good Question. I would presume (and would think would be logical) that YFD Pagano, NRFD Kiernan, FDMV Everett, and the White Plains Commissioner of Public Safety would all be part of the study. Does anyone know who is on the panel?

There are multiple panels, some have yet to be completely established (they in many cases would more likely be needed towards the end of the study)

Panels operating now include:

Operations (which is working on the mapping and layout of the system, particularly in relation to NFPA 1710, Fire Service Acredidation, and ISO)

Legal

Financial.

Future Panels that have been identified, but have not been formed include (but not limited to)

UFFA (thru the 5th District NYSPFFA)

Volunteers (to cover the volunteer issues in the district that have them)

Operation Details (SOP's, Dispatch, intigration issues, etc.)

Political (including Fire Commissioners)

etc.

Just out of curiosity, are any Yonkers FD Chiefs members of the Career Chiefs Association and are they in full support of the Study?

All of the career chiefs were in agreement to have the study performed, even the depts that would not be included in the study, supports the study

This way, all areas of the county would be properly staffed, equiped, and managed, and NOT left up to the political paperpushers within the City, Town, and Village Governments to control.

Are you saying that political paperpushers dont exist in county government only in smaller jurisdictions?

The local papers have spent a lot of ink on county politics lately and I have not seen too many letters of support in the letters to the editor section.

It's a pie in the sky concept in Westchester because no one wants to be the ones to take the first step in gathering the departments (career/vollie) and unions together in a common cause, second step to approach local government as a unified group, and third step approach state government to legislate it into a legal reality.

Someone's got to be willing to stick their neck out there to get the ball rolling. I used to preach about this all the time, but most people were afraid of change and how it would effect their slice of the power so they instantly took a defensive view on the matter. Now I'm 1000miles away and now no one really cares what I have to say.

I'm surprised anyone even took the time to read my thoughts.

The career chiefs did. they got a state grant and commissioned PACE Univ. to do a study....details to follow

Turk is 100% right about the Unions yea there would be things to work out but a union with 400-500 members is stronger than individual 50 - 175 member locals

Fairfax county FD's Union is very strong they play the political game and they get what they want...and they are in a right to work state...meaning the union is of little protection. But the strength in numbers...they get results