JBE

So would it be a thread jack to say that I have used a CPAP for my own medical condition(Sleep Apnea) and I have torn the thing off my face at least twice and I didn't sleep any better with it than I have without?? The concept of using it is actually pretty interesting in the applications described above.

One other thing I wanted to add to this when it comes to overblown responses for minor incidents. The locals have what dispatchers in the Bronx like to call, The Playbook. They will use certain buzzwords when talking to a 911 dispatcher or to an FDNY Alarm Receipt Dispatcher, to elicit a response from either agency. Simply put, they will make stuff up or embellish. It usually starts with how many kids they have, or just that they have kids. Followed up by I got asthma. Followed by I locked myself out and I got a pot cooking on the stove. Never mind it's 3 in the morning. The boiler turned on and the whole building shook.(Water hammer in the pipes, or the boiler really is that rickety) We Fire Alarm Dispatchers tend to have a pretty good BS detector when the playbook is put to use. I don't see the PD doing that, since they transferred calls to us for lockouts and know full well we don't go. Or they hear those buzzwords and transfer it to us. Now, they just put it in as a run, the built in BS detector is now removed from the game. Oh yeah and another thing, this is for my colleagues in the field, you don't go to fires where the call back comes back to a cell site. Meaning the address of the fire is the cell site PD got. You will be going now. 10-6 kids, Bloombergs grand vision at its finest!!!!

Ask and you shall receive Mac!!!! Guys, I was around for the cut over Monday morning, and I haven't been back since. I am hearing horror stories from my colleagues right now. A little bit of advice, If you need the FDNY for ANYTHING!!! Call the following phone numbers. Manhattan 212-999-2222 Bronx 718-999-3333 Brooklyn 718-999-4444 Queens 718-999-5555 SI 718-999-6666 Do not trust your safety, your lives, or the lives of your loved ones to a bunch of under trained amateurs. Call the professionals!!! What the papers aren't telling you is there is a clever ruse behind all of this. The clock does not start ticking on FDNY response times until it reaches the Decision Dispatcher at the respective FDNY Communications Office and we decipher the PD lingo and get it to the units in the field. An NYPD UCT theoretically could be on the phone for 5 minutes before we get it. Average response time by the FDNY is just about 5 minutes. What could have been a simple kitchen fire with extension to the cabinets is now blowing out the windows and extending into the rest of the apartment. Two 10-45's at the apartment door. All it will take is one angry resident and a TV crew. "Why did it take the Firemen 10 minutes to get here??!?!?!?" Our clocks say it took us 5. Secondly, to the FDNY Firefighters out in the field, you are going to be hating life. SOC Matrix responses for collapses, when all it is is a piece of plaster falling from the ceiling because of a water condition. Reported Electrical fires from sparking lights due to water conditions, Reported Haz Mat jobs which are nothing more than gas leaks from stoves. You are going to be running and running a lot. When the real deal comes in, you may not even know it till you're there or you'll be tied up at something of lower priority. There have already been at least two mistakes this week. One in Queens that ended up in 10-45's, and another in Brooklyn which was a good mile plus away from the actual incident. How it should be done simply is this. The caller dials 911, get the PD operator, asks for the Fire Department, and the PD operator asks, what borough and transfers to the appropriate borough. Secondly, instead of interrogating the caller, the PD operator should remain SILENT while the FD Alarm Receipt Dispatcher interrogates the caller and the PD enters the info into their CAD. The PD should only talk to FD when absolutely necessary. But hey, what do I know??? I'm just a supervising dispatcher with 12 years experience, who has seen my dispatchers call the PD for something and say. "This is the Fire Department, Dispatcher 129 in The Bronx", and get transferred to one of my Alarm Receipt Dispatchers on the other side of the room because the NYPD 911 operator isn't paying attention. Garbage in, Garbage out. One last thing to the FDNY Firefighters out there, bosses included. You guys know PD is marking anything resembling fumes, odors, CO, car wrecks with washdowns, etc. as Haz Mat. I implore you, as I have on other message boards, including that R one, anytime you go out on any of those conditions, put in the proper code. Be it a 10-33, 10-32, 10-38, 10-36, 10-40. Then, announce a 10-80 no code. Get those Haz Mat numbers up!!!! Fear not!!! We are actually keeping records of every correction we have to make and every screw up that comes down the pipe. Not like it will amount to anything but we have the ammo to prove that this was rammed down our throats and it's not gonna work. No offense intended, but this is not a small municipality like Putnam where you have the call volume that a unified call taker can handle. The burnout/turnover rate is going to be flat out ridiculous. I've said it before, as have a number of my colleagues, this is not going to go away till you have multiple 10-45's, or God forbid a Firefighter buys it.

Can you say, EPIC FAIL?!?!?!?

Summer of 1996, about 545-6 in the morning. Up off of North Terry Hill. I knew the patient. He was one of the local cabbies. Big guy, too. We walked in, he was sitting on the chair, red and gasping. I barely got the words, "What seems to be the problem, sir??" out of my mouth, and out he went. Couldn't get the oral airway in so we went for the naso airway. Shocked him three times, and no, he didn't launch into the air like you see on TV. It took 8 of us, 3 or 4 on the ambulance, two cops and a couple of guys who came up on 17-6-1 to get him into the back of the bus. The medic met us at the scene, and off we went for Putnam. I had switched to bagging the poor fellow when the medic tells us he can't hit a vein in the guys' arms. He says to me, "Jimmy, whatever you do, don't move your arms." The medic runs the needle between my arms and hits the guy in the neck for the jugular vein IV. My eyes went wide, I had never seen something like that before, and I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see. We worked him up the better part of 25 minutes. Unfortunately, he didn't make it. I didn't feel a rush of anything, moreso a feeling of desperation to get this guy help or get him back. It was just "Let's do it". I have only done CPR on maybe 3 or 4 people in the short time I was an EMT up there. But, like the saying goes, you never forget your first. Sorry if this was too graphic.

I remember most of those rigs except for the old rescue. I remember the brush truck. It had a sprinkler cap on the back end.

That's a nice rig!!! It's definitely an evolution on the front mounted pump design a la Put Lake's 23-2-5..

You need it when you pump off a large diameter watermain, supplying more than just a couple of handlines. Possibly supplying a couple of tower ladders, placing copious amounts of water to a scene, only using one 2,000 gpm pumper to do it. That's on top of however many engines are supplying handlines seperately. Say for the sake of argument, those single engines are pumping off the same watermain, and it's only an 8 inch main or a 12 inch main. Up comes E-9/SAT-1, they hit a 36 inch main about a block away, and they can supply more water without taking anything away from the first few engines operating. Hope that helps. PS, the Satellite Water System is one of my specialties and I do drills on it pretty regularly.

Sometimes, older can actually be better. Is that the Hall of Flame??

Wow, impressive. And all I was gonna say was 50's era ALF..

OK, here's the question. How is the CFD going to explain this??

Wow, very well written, and hits the mark in a lot of spots. I do hope it eventually leads to something brighter.

roof, here's another situation where you and I will agree to disagree. But kindly put the spoon down with the lazy remark. I will stand by my statement that no matter what this guy did, he was wrong not to make the necessary notifications. The situation went horribly sour, but blame can't be placed squarely on their shoulders. There are other factors, like the mindset of the perp, who I truly hope rots in jail or gets the needle.

I think that's a bit much. Even if he had told the cops this guy was armed, would it have stopped the shooter from pulling the trigger?? We can't speculate that the inactions of the call taker cost these cops their lives, it may or may not have changed the situation. That's like saying if I don't relay to the first in truck that we got a report of a person trapped that I am responsible for that person dying. I didn't kill that person, the smoke or fire did. You can't say that even if I had told the first in truck this person was trapped, that they weren't gonna be killed. To hold this guy criminally responsible is too severe.

No way should this have been swept under the rug, kept out of the public eye, whatever you want to call it. This dispatcher screwed up and screwed up royally. I just hope some grieving relative doesn't try to extract their pound of flesh out of this guy with a lawsuit. He's gotta be suffering enough.

RIP Major, I salute you.

Nice rig, wonder if the siren plays Jingle Bells..

Not sure about Philadelphia, but booster reels on the backstep were standard on FDNY Engines up until the late 1980's.

And here I was thinking it was the red smear of an unlucky deer meeting Mr. Tractor Trailer over by Exit 2. Silly me..

Flipping chips, fire tickets, tapping out boxes, borough calls, and nobody available, fun times.

He was looking for his liter of cola..

Could it be ManBearPig???

Always remember, just because they got lights and sirens going doesn't mean they are travelling at breakneck speed. I remember a survey a number of years ago where the people polled thought the rig using lights and sirens was going nearly ten mph faster than actual speed.

What a way to go.

Yet another who gives good honest buffs a bad name.