12 Years Of EMTBravo.com Forums - Who I Am And The History Of The Forum

[EMTbravo 312]

Members,

Today (Nov.14) marks the 12th year that EMTBravo.net (Forums) has been online. EMTBravo.com, which is what these forums were born from, will celebrate it's 14th year this upcoming January.

(The name, "EMTBravo", originated from my AOL screen name which I had for years). Here's a little about me. I started at 14 years old, in 1993, as an Explorer with the Ardsley Fire Department in Ardsley NY where I Explorer Post Captain for almost the duration of my time there. I then continued on as a volunteer firefighter and Explorer post advisor with Ardsley FD when I turned 18. I took my EMT class at Irvington VAC, and went to work as an EMT for Empress EMS, which helped shape me and gave me a solid foundation for the rest of my career. I also worked part time in the ER of Stamford Hospital as an ER tech. I was lucky enough to get hired by 60 Control, where I worked as a Dispatcher. My dispatcher ID was 635, which is why I'm also known as "x635". During that time, I loved working for 60 Control and loved the people I worked with and the job I did. However, during the course of my employment there, my father was tragically killed and my Grandmother died a year later after a long battle with cancer, leading me to re-evaluate what I was doing and where I wanted to be in life.

In 2003, I decided to go to college, and moved to Woburn, MA and attended Paramedic school at Northeastern University in Boston. After graduating in 2004, I moved back to Hartsdale and went to work for Westchester EMS, and worked the "45 Medics" flycar system, and dispatcher. In September of 2005, my dream of being a career firefighter came true, and I got hired by the Hartsdale Fire District. I was blessed to have academy instructors who served as great role models for me, and I did things I never thought I could do. To this day, I still use the lessons they taught me.

In January 2007, I was injured severely. After several months, I was declared unfit to be a firefighter due to a traumatic brain injury and a spinal cord injury. My department did not have any light duty positions, so I was out of a job and couldn't work as a firefighter again. I loved being a firefighter in Hartsdale and the loss of that career was devastating, and still bothers me to this day. I decided to move to Round Rock, just north of Austin, in the central part of Texas to try and start a new life. I worked as a Police Dispatcher for the busiest sector of a large urban police department, and as a Paramedic for a busy rural/urban EMS service. However, a divorce dealt me another devastating blow in my life, but gave me my greatest gift, my beautiful daughter. I also had some health issues along the way. I moved back to NY for a job and other personal reasons, and I went through some more adversity which included a brief period of homelessness. A very generous person and great supportive friend went above and beyond, to say the least, took me in and got me back on my feet which was key. Another great, generous, supportive and understanding friend and mentor gave me a chance after all this, a job, another friend prepped me for the role I am in, and, for the first time in a long time, I am happy in my life and love my career (and my work family) with the leading firefighting equipment company in the area.

Why am I giving you my bio? Because I feel that many people on here don't know me and there are some misconceptions. This site is an extension of me.

Getting back on topic, the idea for a forums portion of the site sparked from the very successful "News" section of EMTBravo.com, in which people sent me news and photos and I posted on, what at the time was my personal small website (this is WAY before Facebook, etc even existed). From my apartment in Boston while attending Paramedic school at Northeastern University, the idea sparked and I pulled an all-nighter to get the forum going. It was meant to create an online community where those and those with an interest in the emergency services community could come together and communicate. And every day I log on, I am amazed that the snowball of this forum that keeps growing and has such a great, knowledgeable membership . We also have another EMTBravo forum, EMTBravoWest.com (Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, etc)

Of course, there's been negativity and controversy on and about this site over the years, but the good FAR outweighs the bad. There have been members who wish to cause trouble or spread rumors or don't accept modern social media, but I believe that we have been on the forefront of trying to keep this site positive and on the right path. Before this site, nothing like this existed for the emergency services communities in the areas we serve. A lot of valuable information has been spread on these forum, friendships forged and reignited, and all the other benefits a website such as this provides. We will continue to spearhead a new path and become an even better resource for our members, using our member's knowledge and feedback as our fuel. We will bounce back from the past couple of years of, for lack of a better word, quietness. There are a lot of copycats out there with tons upon tons of different Facebook groups, but EMTBravo offers something unique and special, And we're proud that we don't depend on someone else's homogenized software and servers to run our site, we can define it however we'd like.

I'd like to thank all the dedicated and loyal members of this site, who post, contribute, and read the site and make it what it is. Many have been with us since day 1. I'd also like to thank those that generously donate funds or advertise on the site, so I am able to afford to pay for this forum.

And most especially, the active members of this forum who post and make use of this forum, and share their knowledge and opinions, for which if they didn't, this forum wouldn't be.

Once again, THANK YOU to all the members and staff that make this site possible for the past 12 years, and I, with the EMTBravo team, look foward to making sure this forum is the best it can be for our EMTBravo members!!

If you have any questions about EMTBravo.net's history, please do ask on this thread, and I'd be more then happy to tell!! And please check out our new logo below (and read the other new thread about it)

Seth Granville AKA "EMTBravo" aka "x635"

Here are some quick stats 12 years later:

-1,000 member and guest visits a day

-8,000 registrations

-45,334 topics

-266,665 posts

-47,446,021 topic views

-39,500 personal messages sent

-Members from over 16 countries, and visitors from over 30 countries

and still growing

[Officer Ed 59]

Thank you, Seth my friend, for posting this. I knew that you had faced adversity in your life, but I didn't know the depth of it. Like you, I also lost the career I loved due to an injury. In my case, it was as a police officer and the injury was incurred in the line-of-duty. I then started an online business selling emergency vehicle equipment.

Regardless, EMTBravo is a great site and an asset to firefighters (I was once a "volly", as they're called on the site). I still enjoy reading the posts and the comments.

Take care.

Ed

www.dash-flash.com

[BillyG 0]

That's some story, Seth-you have been through a lot but kept on going-THANKS for all of your work on this great site!! All the best for a bright future!

Billy G