RC2389

Glad to see Wal Mart got the blood cleaned up and the doors back open a few hours later. Would have been terrible if people hadn't been able to get their $9 DVDs just because somebody died. :angry:

A great way to save money on books is to buy used copies directly from people who took the class last year/semester (and then you can sell the book to next year's students when you're finished with it). Maybe something could be coordinated through the Buy/Sell/Trade section?

He seems quite...hostile.

Black rubber mats designed to "break a child's fall"? My playground had pebbles.

What, did he expect that nobody would recognize him?

Unfortunately, this isn't enough. The problem I see is that there don't seem to be many follow-ups after the incident. I can name at least two people I went to high school with who have both had accidents while driving drunk (one of which I responded to, which made for an awkward moment to say the least)...and nothing changed. Maybe they now have higher insurance premiums, but they still have their licenses and are still on the road. Since neither accident resulted in bodily damage or significant punishment, I don't think they got the impression that what they did could have serious consequences. It isn't enough to just pull over drunk drivers (teenaged or otherwise). We need harsher penalties, and we need them to be enforced.

While I agree that 21 seems to be a random number, if the drinking age was lowered I'd want it to be 19, not 18. Ignoring the issue of teens using fake IDs or stores that don't card to buy alcohol, some get it from older siblings who happen to be over 21. If the age were lowered to 18, it would mean that half the senior class could easily buy alcohol whenever, which means that practically every kid in the school would have a friend who could buy it for them. However, there are very few 19 year olds in high school. As a freshman in college, I've got to agree with you to a point. The people who have had the most trouble with alcohol are the ones who never really drank before. But that isn't to say that there aren't people who drank in high school who still drink way too much...it's more of a maturity issue.

My experience at Thunder Ridge wasn't a very good one. A bunch of the trails were closed, and the main big one was closed off to the public so the ski team could practice. I do like Butternut, though. It's about a 2 hour drive from Westchester, and it's especially great for new/intermediate skiers. There are discounts for FD/PD/EMS workers and their families on Sundays. www.skibutternut.com.

This is exactly how I've been feeling all day. I live in Manhattan, and I did not see or hear a single mention about September 11th today. All day I was expecting some sort of university-wide e-mail at least mentioning it, and maybe asking for a minute-long moment of silence on campus. But absolutely nothing happened. It was just another Tuesday.

I was in 7th grade at the time, and remember sitting in my 7th period art class when we found out what had happened. The news slowly trickled down from the high schoolers (MS and HS shared one building) that the had been some kind of attack, and that the WTC had collapsed. What stands out most in my memory that day is standing outside, a bunch of frantic 12 yr-olds trying every kind of pay phone and cell phone we could find to call our parents who worked in the city to make sure they were ok.

I took my EMT-B class at Irvington VAC in the evening, and it was a great class but the commute from Briarcliff was a pain (especially during rush hour). I took the class during my senior year, so here's my advice: Keep reading the book as it's assigned. I made the mistake of putting off reading until the day of the unit test, so having to study all of that (plus study for the next day's physics test and finish a calc problem set) wasn't a good idea.

Those so-called police brutality stories are utter garbage. I wonder how people would react after seeing the whole video? That might be interesting to film. Show members of the public the 30 second news clip, get them all worked up, and then show them exactly why the cops felt the need to use force. Suddenly the "victims" seem a lot less innocent when it turns out they are career criminals that are threating the police with a weapon. And really, if they don't want to get taken down by force or tazed, they shouldn't put themselves in the position where the police are dealing with them in the first place. And of course, if they didn't move in, they would have been blamed for letting the fight go on.

Local medical facilities using the 911 service for transports has become an issue in our district. It is rare that we arrive and they tell us the patient is being brought to a specific hospital floor as opposed to the ER, but all too common that we get there and the patient has no immediately life-threatening issues, and we were called because we can get the patient off their hands faster than a transport service. A number of calls are similar to this: "Ma'am, what seems to be the problem?" "I have terrible pain in my back." "And how long has this been going on for?" "About a week." In my opinion, either EMS should have been called the moment the pain started, or a transport could have been called if they were going to wait so long anyway. I remember one specific call from the same facility where even their medical staff acknowledged that the patient had no medical issues, but was being "abusive" to staff members and thus by calling 911 they could get rid of her faster. Some sort of training and protocol is needed for the staffs at these facilities, because it isn't fair to the rest of the area to have the primary ambulance and a full crew taken out of service because it will take 2 hours for a scheduled transport to arrive.

If the demonstrations at the parade made the FFs uncomfortable, they should not have had to stay. However... I don't think that quote is going to be doing them any favors.

That's a great idea. Every time I see Christmas trees I think of the video we saw in FF1 where it took about 45 seconds for a real tree to catch fire, completely burn up and heat up the tiny test room it was in enough to flash over. Based on where I've seen friends put Christmas trees, half their houses would be up in flames in just minutes.

I believe that an employee's break is his or her own time, and that the complaint of butts on the ground is fairly trivial (what public place doesn't have cigarette garbage?). Cigarette butts can be thrown out. That seems to be the main issue. The smell of cigarettes sticks to fingers and clothes, and that probably bothers a lot of patients especially because there is physical contact between patients and nurses/techs. If there is a way to get rid of the stench, then I say let 'em smoke during breaks.

I think they edited that part out for TV. His actions, and those of the people with him, were extremely immature and embarassing. For us, that would be considered conduct that damages the reputation of the department, and could result in a suspension or a dismissal. I don't see these guys being members of that department for much longer, and rightfully so. On the other hand, I'm not overly sympathetic to the homeowner's cause. Don't like the siren? Don't buy a house next to a fire station. If you're going to sue anyone, sue the realtor who didn't mention it. I don't know how it is in Mahwah, but in Briarcliff our siren only goes off during the daytime (8am to 9pm, or somewhere thereabouts), so it doesn't wake up the neighbors. Also, not exactly a fan of the news reporting here. They're "living in fear"...because the firefighters shined flashlights at their house? It was stupid, immature behavior, but not entirely uncommon for people to hang around the station, especially after a drill.

Well that was fast. I'm still a little unsure how money can stop her seeing these flashbacks if years of counseling can't, but maybe that is just me. Anyone else reminded of that episode in Rescue Me where Lieu is sharing his 9/11 poetry with the PTSD group, and they're all breaking down and it turns out they were barely even indirectly affected?

Now that is ridiculous. I've missed plenty of calls because I didn't get to the station fast enough, but I'm not going to demand that patient care is delayed so I can ride along. If anything, its my fault for not getting out the door fast enough. What we do, though, is put the people who showed up but missed the ambulance on the attendance sheet so they still get credit for coming out.

Maybe the SOP was oddly worded or it was miscommunicated? Maybe (hopefully!) what was meant is that after 6 minutes, if a full crew doesn't show up, it goes mutual aid and thus the mutual aid ambulance waits 6 minutes before leaving. I can't believe that any VAC would purposely add 6 minutes to their response time.

I hope the two FFs recover quickly, and I also hope that they take away her license...there is absolutely no reason to be driving drunk.

I knew absolutely nothing about different companies when I first called the number on the "Volunteer today!" sign. I was told to come to a Tuesday night engine meeting. Had I gone to the Monday meeting, I probably would have joined the ladder company. Of course, I also joined as ambulance-only at first, so all I really cared about at the time was becoming a member of the fire department in general so I could join the ambulance corps.

All alcohol appeals to underage drinkers.

So essentially the apparatus becomes a gardening truck? I hope they unhitch the trailer before they have to respond to any emergency calls. Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly, but is he saying that if a call comes in, the two lawn mowers (with their "emergency lights") will respond to the fire behind the truck itself? Now, I don't know what kind of lawn mowers the town has, but having used a tractor-style mower for the past seven years to cut my own grass, it'd be more timely to just walk to the emergency.

Legally, I don't believe his right of freedom of speech is protected in this case because his words can be interpreted as advocating violence against police. The Supreme Court has dealt with the issue of "fighting words" a number of times, and since the lyrics glorify and promote violence (especially against police officers, which is representative of the government), they can be censored. Personally, I think it was in bad taste. There are other ways to gain street cred.