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Reading about today's fire of a Greenburgh PD EMS flycar, it didn't suprise me that it had 130,000 miles, as Greenburgh tends to keep their vehicles for quite a while. This vehicle used to be the ALS flycar for the 6 villages in the Town Of Greenburgh, so it racked up a lot of mileage. Which makes me wonder. When is a converted OEM stock SUV (Chevy Tahoe, Ford Expedition, etc) deemed done in emergency services? No matter how great the maintainence, at what mileage do these cars become unsafe and be unfit for use? I mean, even for a civilian vehicle, that would be a lot of mileage. With the torture an EMS flycar goes through, including operating in all weather conditions and responding code 3 on a variety of roadways 24/7, at what point does the structure of the vehicle "give up". Is there a point where there should be a standard? Even if it's a "reserve" vehicle.

I've had that problem....twice. Once in the middle of a major bridge while I was in the back with a vent patient in an ambulance. Another while I was brining a flycar back to the station after advising my supervisor that I was taking it out of service because it didn't feel right. I was told it was the 4x4 which the mechanic said couldn't be fixed until it broke and to keep it in service. However, I felt differently, and on my way back, wheel started violently shaking (please do not name agencies), so I pulled into a parking lot, only to see my tire rolling fast down toward a plate glass storefront. Luckily, it was intercepted by a nearby worker. It did body damage to the vehicle. The lugs just completly sheared off. I could only imagine what would have happened has I been on a highway. And even luckier, this was all captured on the dash cam, both the wheel falling off and my reaction.....lol BOTH were in vehicles that had well over 100,000 miles on them. Both were attributed to metal fatigue, something which is hard to detect.

The woman responsible for this horrific tragedy has fled the country, avoiding criminal charges: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7990398 http://www.khou.com/home/HFD-chief-The-worst-thing-we-did-was-trust-Jessica-Tata-117268578.html

FULL ARTICLE AND PHOTO: http://www.lohud.com/article/20110303/NEWS02/103030421/Fire-destroys-paramedic-truck-Greenburgh-police-headquarters?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage

Although this site mainly addresses Wildland Fire operations, a lot of the lessons and incident reviews posted on this site can be adapted to structural firefighting. http://www.wildfirelessons.net/Home.aspx One of the best features is the "6 Minutes For Safety" feature: http://www.wildfirelessons.net/uploads/6mfs/home.html

The "Willis Tower" is actually best known as the Sears Tower, but Sears sold it a couple years back and the name changed.

Bump for THIS weekend! Will be an national conference quality seminar very close to home!

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.lohud.com/article/20110225/NEWS02/102250322/Mount-Vernon-will-sell-ladder-firetruck-to-Pennsylvania-collector

I recently read that Thornwood FD basically donated their former Engine 290, which was replaced a few months ago by a new Sutphen engine, to a department in Maine. Not only did they donate the engine, but they stuffed it full of surplus equipment. I know there are some other Westchester fire companies that have done the same (such as Millwood and Harrison, off the top of my head). Given how most Westchester departments have plenty of funds for new apparatus, it's nice to see some donate their surplus apparatus to the many departments in need in THIS country. And, also not letting their old equipment pile up in a storage room and collect dust.

I stand corrected:

The broker was Red Truck Sales International, K & T Fire Equipment, led by TFD Commsisioner Brian C. Dwyer and Chief Dave Dwyer. The Department was Masaridis FD, Maine. As far as "Homeland Security", what about our own homeland? There are plenty of departments still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina and Rita. Especially now since building code requires buildings in these flood prone areas be at least three stories. Most of these departments don't even have a aerial anywhere nearby. And, in places like Lousianna, fire departments are not required, so you have no fire protection in some very rural places. You have members of the community who do they best they can to provide fire protection with what they have. Some don't even have enough turnout gear or SCBA's. Some departments first due apparatus is from the 1960's. It's really shocking that these conditions exist in the USA. There are departments across the nation that are in need. Of course, we have a duty to help less fortunate countries, but our first duty should be to protect our own country.

Note the Empress logo on the helicopter......

Very interesting article about MedStar, which provides EMS for Fort Worth,TX and other municpalities in the Tarrant County area. Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/28/2884609/as-patients-get-larger-medstar.html#tvg#ixzz1FOaB6cc9 Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/28/2884609/as-patients-get-larger-medstar.html#tvg#ixzz1FOZSZR1t

That Lego firefighter is awesome! Wonder who created it, and where I can get one, lol!

Williamson County, TX (my home county) has taken delivery of 6 new Ford F-450 Super Duty/Wheeled Coach ambulances, with more on the way. These are the first ambulances's to feature Wheeled Coach's "Cool Bar", which intergrates emergency lighting with the front mount A/C unit. They also have air-ride suspensions. They are remounted onto a new chasis at around 40-60k miles. After another 50k, they are replaced and put into the spare pool for about 2 years, most often less. The oldest frontline ambulance is a 2008.

It is part of the A/C unit. It is a large radiator (coils) to help dissipate heat that the A/C system creates. The A/C sytem is completly independent from the chasis A/C

Is this the same one that was sitting at the Tarrytown Fire Training Center? (photo taken in 2006) Was the engine by any chance a Waukesha?

Rosenbeaur is an excellent product. I'm suprised that they no longer represent Ferrara, I think there was some politics in there on the Ferrara end. Now that ALF is starting to establish dealers again, I wonder if Garrison would be able to sell both?

There is a grill to exhaust heat on the drivers side of the module toward the rear City Of Austin has a dual-medic system. There are rumors that they may go Paramedic/EMT, but I highly doubt that. If anything, they would use EMT's for BLS calls. San Antonio EMS runs dual paramedic. The City Of Houston runs some dual medic ambulances, some dual medic squads, Medic/EMT ambulances, and BLS ambulances. Dallas runs all ALS ambulances, staffed by firefighter/paramedics, along with ALS Engine companies. A lot of other areas in the state run dual medic, and a lot of FD's operate ALS engine companies. There are still parts of the state that have EMT's though, however they are becoming more extinct.

I'm not sure, but I got this photo. Hope it gives you a better idea. To note, the air ride suspension lowers the loading height when loading and unloading, and I believe they will be using the new Stryker stretcher lift for ambulances. Sorry for the crappy shot.

Fellow members, It seems like more often then not not, Incident Alerts (IA's) overwhelm the "Recent Topics" section on the main page, thereby drowning out good discussions and diluting other forum content. So we're going to try this for now. We are going to remove Incident Alerts from the "Recent Topics" box for a little while. I realize that the IA's are important to many members, so in the meantime, visit http://www.emtbravo.com to view the latest IA's broken down by region. Also, you can directly go to the IA sections on this forum, and they will continue to show up on "View New Content Since My Last Visit" lists. In the meantime, we will be developing stricter guidelines on what is an IA and what is not, to reduce the seeming increase in the amount of IA's "spammed" at one time, and IA's that don't meet IA guidelines. Once this is resolved maybe IA's will return to the Recent Topics list. Please feel free to give feedback on this thread, which will help to guide me on how to resolve this issue. Seth

Acutally, aluminum wheels have benefits besides appearances. That's why you see them on city transit buses. They dissipate heat from braking better, and resist corrosion. Are very tolerating of punishing conditions. Amongst other things.Also, they usually put them on in the last steps, as they don't want them to get damaged during construction. Thanks Andy for the shots! I know another one is scheduled to appear at FDIC in April.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110226/NEWS02/102260328/1018/news02/Firefighters-slug-out-Bronxville-blaze

100% agreed. Does Mount Vernon still have the other Seagrave/Aerialscope? On another note, I also found it interesting that the Journal News did a story on this.

Looks like the Journal News has a new website. It's going to take some getting used to from me. http://www.lohud.com/