velcroMedic1987

So many unanswered questions about this tragedy. First and foremost my condolences to the family of the victim and the agency suffering through this loss.

Trying to learn from the incident may be valuable to others in the future so I have the following thoughts- and we probably don't have any answers relating to the Arkansas shooting but may be able to discuss it generally.

Where was the wife and why didn't she warn Adams that there was a gun in the room?

Why don't we wear uniforms to properly identify us? Being a volunteer is not an excuse and, as evidenced by this incident, it can have tragic results.

How can we prevent something like this from happening again in the future?

The person who shot Adams has been arrested and charged with manslaughter too.

IT'S WINTER IN THE NORTHEAST!!!

IT'S GOING TO SNOW!!!

Everybody needs to get over it and stop buying all the toilet paper!!!

It was only for an EDP, not a medical emergency. That can wait shouldn't be going by ambulance anyway.

And the title shouldn't read Sleepy Hollow refusing mutual aid if it was only one call and they didn't refuse anything.

Please don't ever come to treat me or my family with that attitude. "EDP" calls can be drug related, diabetic emergencies, and even if "just" a mental illness they deserve the same level of care as anyone else.

To dismiss a call based on dispatch information is very irresponsible.

Are we really going to start talking politics here?

Aren't there enough other forums covering this nonsense?

I would love to see a "summit" of all the EMS agencies in the county where the system is discussed and opportunities for improvement are discussed and a long-term plan for an EMS System in Westchester County is discussed. We are so badly compartmentalized that this has never happened.

Hey Mark:

I didn't know before now how Empress got the contract- no idea it was by a default. I had assumed it was a lost bid. before my time.

If I recall correctly, when Empress lost it the last time, it was becasue of a $50,000 difference in bid price. Not sure if that was $50,000 per year, or spread over the 3 year length of the contract.

Your post begs the question WHY did Affiliated do that- rotate guys out, put medics in ambulletts and other seemingly silly things? I mean, why annoy your staff to the point that they leave and you lose the contract??!! When they left Affiliated, where did they find jobs?

Also, did Abbey actually lay off, or did guys just leave on their own?

In the order of a history lesson, I believe it was under Transcare that the contract fundementaly changed. Originally it was set up that NR paid the provider a set amount; I think I once heard $1.3 million, in exchange for 1 ALS unit 24X7 and a second one for 16 or 18 hours a day. Again, not sure if that was per year, or over 3 years. The providor gave the City PCR copies ( no HIPPA bac then) and the City billed. Some years they broke even, most years they lost a few thousand, once ot twice there was a small profit for the city. NR basicly bought wholesale ambulance service, and sold it to their callers for retail.

Then Transcare went to a zero-bid deal. They billed directly. That was when Pelham jumped off of being a NR add-on and contracted with Empress for service. As I recall, NR had been getting paid by Pelham $90,000 for use of the NR contracted ambulance when NR was paying for it. When it went to zero bid, NR still wanted to charge Pelham for a service that was costing NR nothing. Pelham didn't like that and so they made their own deal with Empress.

Mark, I defer to yourself and Barry who may have better information and memory than I. ( I am sure Barry THINKS he does anyhow!).

Affiliated and NY Ambulance were offshoots of an ambulette company. There weren't EMS professionals running it and their focus was solely on one thing... $$$$. Affiliated came in and low bid the contracts taking both NR and MV until they screwed things up badly enough that they lost them in both cases to Empress, IIRC. I believe NR fell first and MV followed. Ironically the owners were ultimately convicted of fraud and the entire Schiowitz empire crumbled.

EMS in the 80's was far different than it is today. The only jobs (outside the city) were with privates and you just endured the trials and tribulations of contract time.

Before the current model, Yonkers went through the same thing. I believe it went hospitals, Yonkers VAC (BLS with ALS provided by Yonkers PD paramedics on "e-rigs" or precursor to fly-cars), AA, Abbey Richmond, Empress but there may have been another round of rotations back then. Amazing how the memory fades with age. YPD continued providing paramedic services for quite some time, I'm not exactly sure when they stopped.

Wow. Those are ALL rare benefits for private EMS.

So, costs are mostly the same, reimbursement should be fairly equal, depending on collection rates and ability.

First question that comes to my pea brain is .... If empress can do it, and clearly do it fairly well, why can't everyone else?

And my second question is for those other companies: WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?

Tremendous corporate overhead in some cases.

Over extension is another big flaw of these companies that grow like weeds for a while then die out when they can't sustain it. They proclaim that they can do the service for $5.00 but that doesn't tell the customer (town/village/city/district) that the actual cost is $25 and they're subsidizing it with funds from other places.

It's a giant house of cards and when it fails, it fails big.

Look, I'm not trying to be a Negative Nancy but you got to look at the situations at hand. Different communities, different paid providers, different village administrations. Not everybody is going to be happy happy about consolidation. People aren't happy with each other, let alone bringing four different agencies together. Is it possible to be done? Well, anything is possible with enough positive attitude and willpower. But, I don't see these four very different villages getting together to do this. Transcare just lost their contract in New Rochelle, Empress is gaining more ground in the county, and OVAC has a nice set up going with Sleepy Hollow. If you're truly saying money isn't an issue then God Bless because all I hear about is contracts here and contracts there. EMS is a business and business is always booming. No one is going to miss out on it if they are already in it. And if I'm not mistaken, Briarcliff Manor is technically part of the Town of Mount Pleasant so, are you saying they need to consolidate as well, even though they have a contract with OVAC as well? It can't be a pick and choose who joins or doesn't. It wouldn't make sense to have a "Mount Pleasant EMS" if not all of Mount Pleasant is involved. Just saying!

It could be done. It may not be easy but it's possible. EMS is even more fragmented and disorganized than the fire service. If agencies are having a hard time getting out the door, working together could be a good option. There are also fewer laws and regulations in the way for merging or consolidating EMS agencies than there are for fire departments.

Used to be the standing joke back in the day that medics wore Velcro patches because the companies changed in the cities so often. Sometimes it was a change for the better. Sometimes it was just a change.

All in all it's not that big a deal.

Let's see who we had in the cities...

AA
Abbey Richmond
Affiliated
Empress
TransCare

Who else am I missing?

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What's "normally in a sanctioned manner" mean?

Go Modern, Go Gas, Go Boom.

When I monitor the radio, I often hear requests for Con-Ed for either gas issues or electrical service issues that require immediate assistance to mitigate an problem that is hampering the firefighting operation. The initial calls are usually followed by requests for updates on their time of arrival, then followed with a response that is non committal. You know, they'll get there when they get there.

Why doesn't Con-Ed have a 24/7 emergency response vehicle (lights and siren) with specially trained technicians and equipment to respond to fire calls with gas or electrical service issues?

Why should they respond to fire calls with lights or sirens? They're not a fire department.

Don't they teach us to mitigate most hazards or at least operate safely until they get there?

They've done a lot of training for local agencies and explain this quite well in their class. If a complaint to Con Ed meets certain criteria (multiple calls, sensitive location, symptoms, etc.), they automatically notify the local FD and simultaneously dispatch their crews. Following the fatal explosion in NYC a couple years ago the State has mandated even more notifications to the local FD. The PSC also requires a response by the utility within 60 minutes to most complaints (there might be some complaints that require a 30 minute response but I don't remember the criteria) so they don't respond as quickly as an FD does.

I'm not sure that home rule or unions are the problem or would alter the situation if they were different.

The problem is no standards!

Quite frankly there are a lot of so-called career departments operating every day with no regard for staffing standards so the lack of standards is not strictly a volunteer issue.

Take nothing for granted and always fully assess your surroundings!!!

Yonkers Mask Service Unit

Dragged 50 feet but thanks to Mt. Pleasant's past experience with an officer being hit by a car and the current climate toward law enforcement, they didn't respond to this use of deadly force with deadly force.

Speedy recovery!

I think cutting funding (prematurely, IMHO) for new apparatus and equipment unfairly punishes the Mahopac firefighters as a whole, as well as the community they protect. They still need tools to do their job to properly protect the citizens. Cutting funding for these items also compromises firefighter and EMT safety. Running a fire department and EMS service of that size ain't cheap.

The financial issues are of serious concern. They have failed in their responsibility and trust they have placed in them by the taxpayers to spend the money appropriately, and account for where it is going. A few thousand is one thing, but having $5 million dollars go missing over 10 years and have no one notice, that's a situation that needs deep investigation and serious reform. All the details have yet to be presented, so it's hard to speculate how it actually occurred and who needs to be held accountable for all facets of this. I'm sure we'll find that out in the coming months.

However, until the investigation and forensic accounting is completed, I don't think slashing funding by the town, not replacing a tanker, not maintaining the current fleet, and not maintaining the stations is a smart move and is premature. In the end, it punishes the taxpayers more. Not giving the Mahopac Firefighters and EMT's the equipment they need to do their job just hurts everyone all around. But, these items do need serious oversight by an outside party until everything is back in order. As does how they spend their money and on what. Maybe freezing spending, on things such as social items, would be more wise. For example, $77,000 yearly on parades is a lot of money, and a compromise would show good faith in the meantime. In the end, transparency will be key in regaining taxpayer trust.

You started this with "I think". Everyone has an opinion.

The community is up in arms because they've been paying taxes for fire service and they've been building a cash cow that allowed someone to allegedly abscond with 5 MILLION dollars.

What is the annual budget of the department?

How much "reserve" do they need?

What is their financial PLAN?

Do they have a plan?

The taxpayers who paid for all this are understandably upset. Demanding accountability before spending millions more is not unreasonable. The investigation and accounting will not take long at which point they can reassess the needs of the department and plan accordingly.

To use your line... "I think" it is safe to assume that there won't be a $5M reserve there in the future.

Makes us all look bad and is a travesty!

But we don't share turnout gear, helmets, hoods, gloves, etc. The mask is fitted to us, so why is it any different then the rest of the PPE?

But you could. Nothing says you need your own custom turnout gear.

As for the masks, you are not fitted with a custom mask. You wear the size mask that fits you. S M-L or XL. Nothing special about it and at 300 bucks a pop, that's big bucks to some departments with lots of members.

It's a disgrace and the city should be ashamed of itself. Newburgh is already understaffed and this is only going to make it worse.

To expect the feds to continue funding their fire department staffing forever is ludicrous. It was an infusion, a shot in the arm, it wasn't forever.

I hope the displaced FF get jobs elsewhere ASAP!

You mean the deal to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and replace the nuclear weapons material with power generating material? Sounds like a lot of peace to me. That $100 billion will do wonders modernizing their infrustructrue and spreading American goodwill in the region.

This deal will not prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the middle east and it will not change the centuries of hatred, venom, vitriol and violence in the region.

100 Billion dollars would do wonders to the infrastructure right here in the US or our homeless problem rather than sending it to a country that has traditionally not been an ally of ours.

When are we going to acknowledge that the system is broken? Fire and EMS in Westchester is a collection of varying agencies but we have no system. The Yorktown fire station construction 1500 feet from an existing fire station in another district and this situation with the mutual aid effectively shutting down a department highlights just how screwed up we are.

And EMS is no better off. The patchwork of different agencies all doing different things at different levels with varying success shows that we really haven't changed all that much since the 80's when the Journal News published their "where you live could cost your life" series of articles.

What do you do when you call for a department and they send ALL of the career staff on the engine, leaving no one to man the remaining apparatus. Then 5 minutes later a call comes in for their department. No one is in town to cover the call and the call gets given to the neighboring department. Should that department have been called in the first place ? Should they have refused to respond to the mutual aid fire ?

That's the 64,000 question. We still have no system - in fire or EMS - and we have inadequate career departments, inadequate volunteer departments, and other problems. But without anyone in charge (of anything) admitting we have a problem we are still stuck with the same rut spinning our wheels.

I have NO idea what lead those departments to set their run cards that way. Some ideas:

-Level of training of members a department sends on a mutual aid response.

-number of members responding on each piece.

I was a volunteer in a town that would go mutual aid into a local city with a career department. They made it quite clear that only members with FF1 and a crew of 3 of said members would be tolerated at their fires. Anything but that and we were sent home.

Could be the same there. Got tired of asking the volunteer departments to meet a standard. Easiest way to deal with the problem is to call departments you KNOW will show up with the right number of trained members.

There are tons of other threads on this subject of but I think it does boil down to that. There's two disparate classes of training in NYS and absolutely no requirement for the volunteer sector to comply with it so there is no guarantee you're getting apples when you order apples. When a truck of oranges shows up what are you supposed to do?

No, many people volunteered and others were from agencies that dont' have presumptive bills associating cancers and other 9/11 illness with a LOD issue.

Thanks for the clarification!

Not defending the politicians at all but isn't someone who develops a 9/11 illness covered by disability in their agency? Same as any other LOD illness or injury?