ny10570

Everyone is so quick to blame teachers, but in EVERY STATE. Whether they be right to work or union states, they have the same problems. Charter schools are successful by limiting class size and/or selecting students. NYC's select admission high schools do phenomenally on a national level. These rubber room teachers and pension abuses pale in comparison to the losses as a result of CityTime, PSAC I and II, NYCWIN, and trasit communications. Then there are social initiatives like bicycle lanes, his million trees goal, and street scapes that while nice can wait until better financial environments. These failures go back to Guliani. When before 9/11 and wall street was booming the pensions had big surpluses. These practices continued through the current administration. The employees don't have the option of withholding our contributions. The city did and now they're crying that they have to make up for their short sighted financial planning.

It only plays out this way because of public and political pressure. Let me be clear, this is a very real threat that if bloomy gets his way will happen. If people do not step up to the fight these cuts will happen. The same is true for every agency facing cuts, however on this board I figured I'd get a better response talking about firehouses than about the library cuts and after school program reductions he is again floating out there.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/nyc-fire-union-looks-to-speaker-quinn-to-block-fdny-closures/ A few days ago the mayor released his fiscal plan for the next few years. In it he included $50 million budget cut for FDNY. The only way they're cutting $50 million is to close houses. For anyone watching the past few years this should sound familiar. He will soon begin ramping up the media support for firehouse closures. In 2 to 3 months a revised budget will come in with an unexpected surplus from increased revenues in yadda yadda yadda. He will still push for the cuts because they are necessary to maintain a balanced budget in the near future. Come June he will submit his budget including the company closures to the city council. A few weeks of political wrangling later, the city council will approve a budget with funding restored for the firehouses. Bloomy gets to come away looking tough on those fat cat firefighters and public servants while the damn liberals in the city council continues to undo his hard work. I am sick of this BS. I'm tired of giving up sunny afternoons for another rally at city hall. I'm tired of sitting in on long boring city council meetings. I'm tired of e-mailing and calling legislators. Sadly for another year we must continue this fight. This is a war and we have to fight every battle. If you're a teacher, cop, EMT/medic, sanitation worker, transit employee, secretary, or any other city employee this story should sound painfully familiar. He is forecasting another substantial reduction in employees on the city payroll, so look for cuts everywhere. He is also forecasting Billion dollar deficits in the coming years and claims to have exhausted the city's rainy day fund. There will be more pain and it will be wide spread. Please get involved with your union. Its going to be an election year, step up and support your local's political action agenda. Thank you for indulging my rant.

With each new standard OFPC included a list of equivalents to catch a member up from the previous level. They never said people were required to catch up, but to continue in the progression of classes you would have to taker the missing classes first.

Every time they changed the requirements they posted an equivalents list. I had taken essentials and initial fire attack, but to take advanced firefighter there was a list of a few classes I had to take in order catch up. That list should still be floating around OFPC

Who does that? I know NY and medicare only reimburse for transport. Since insurance companies generally follow the medicare guidelines I'd imagine they would refuse to pay those as well.

You nailed it right here. Too often I see prosecutors doing backflips for plea deals because they're guaranteed convictions. The most conservative judge in the world can't lock someone up for the crime they committed if the DA presents a "fair and reasonable" deal. That really just means, that so long as the plea is fair to the perp it is approved. I've only seen one case out of dozens that resulted from calls I was on or cases involving injured MOS that went to trial and that was only because the dummy didn't take the no brainer plea. For a little while I went out with Bronx ADA, and EVERYTHING was about clearing cases. The only way to keep your job is to negotiate. Go to trial too often and not only do you get buried with more cases but you will soon find yourself out of a job.

In most cases the EMS agency cannot pursue the patient for additional money. There are a few important distinctions here. First, is this only applies to emergency treatment and ground transport. Any 911 call qualifies, I'm not sure how it works for emergent commercial transports, so we'll stick to 911. Are we talking about patients with comprehensive healthcare coverage or catastophic or other types of coverage? Only with comprehensive coverage are patients required to be provided with ambulance coverage. Few catastrophic plans do and certain limited coverage plans do. As long as your plan covers emergency prehospital ground transport this applies. Next, does the agency have a participating provider agreement with the insurer? If they do, then whatever billing rates are agreed upon apply to all transactions. For example, the insurer could agree to pay the first $500 and the patient would be on the hook for any additional billing. Without a participating provider agreement in place the patient is responsible for any co-payments or deductibles and nothing more. The insurer is responsible for paying a "customary reasonable allowance". This customary and allowable allowance is often higher than, but close to the medicare rate. Any attempt to further collect that debt would be illegal under NY Insurance law article 32. Depending on how aggressive they are in collecting their money, violations of General Business statutes and Executive orders may apply. Currently FDNY is proposing a new fee schedule to start some time this month. An increase from $515 to $704 for BLS, $750 to $1190 for ALS1, and $850 to $1290 for ALS2.Mileage and oxygen will be going up as well, $50 to $60 for oxygen and from $7 to $12 for each mile. I think medicare is currently paying around $250 for BLS, but even that doesn't matter for FDNY since we receive a percentage of HHC's annual payout from Medicare and Medicaid and no individual disbursements from those funds.

EMD. Prioritize the calls and send the medic on ALS calls. An added benefit of FD response is the extra hands. 2 EMTs and a medic cannot effectively work a long arrest. You think you can, but after the first few rounds of CPR even 2 minutes results in a drop in quality. Then once you get that patient back you have the dash to the ER. Even in the burbs with the narrow stairs and crappy layouts more help is always appreciated.

I'm assuming the round didn't fully go off. I can't think of another way to get shot in the head at close range, and not only survive but suffer no major trauma.

I wouldn;t hold my breath on the chevrons. They're only spreading to more vehicles and more surfaces. One thing I can say for them is there's at least some behavioral science to justify the theory that they'll reduce accidents. As opposed to vehicle or light color, where people keep assuming that brighter is better.

Maybe some LE guys or gun aficionados can explain this one to me. How often do you get rounds that don't fully fire like that? I'm guessing there was either insufficient or damaged powder in the cartridge. I'm sure the skells weren't working with the highest quality rounds or maintaining the weapon with the strictest of care, but I'd think an incompletely loaded round would be pretty easy to catch during manufacture.

Thats absolutely a problem, however there are work arounds for that. PBA has a copyrighted logo and as long as you avoid the specifically forbidden items the shirts can still be made.

Hopefully the members will be inundating the office handling exception approvals with requests to keep everything from key chains to yankee hats. Simply banning the use of the logo in any way that brings disrepute or banning all non-licensed NYPD merch would have addressed the problem. Instead they go overboard and create unnecessary headaches.

At some point more lights don't help. If the siren isn't working more light than what's already on these lightbars isn't going to make someone look back. In theory the new lights provide greater visibility from the sides.

Call it a turd badger for all I care, just make sure everyone calls it the same thing. For my sake I think everyone should adapt FDNY speak, but I can understand why others may disagree (bus just sounds cooler).

This should have no bearing on the other VFDs. This essentially a group of people who decided to start responding and picked up an old discarded dept name. This is would be comparable to the White Plains FD Volunteer company buying an engine and suddenly responding to alarms. Aviation was disbanded. The other 9 VFDs chartered or not, are all operating in the same way they have been for years and this should have no impact. However if Aviation's actions were to directly result in the death or serious injury of a civilian or firefighter this will absolutely bring greater scrutiny upon all of the volunteers and their operations.

Thats great, but why wouldn't Pleasantville go to Mt Pleasant PD?? They're nearly surrounded by Mt Pleasant.

Its not so different from the t-rex trikes http://www.campagnamotors.com/ As small cars have proliferated the IIHS recognized there was an omission in their current testing. Clearly the small cars lose out to big SUVs and light trucks, but when compared to small sedans they still get destroyed. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/small-cars-rate-poorly-in-new-crash-tests/

Are you nuts?! Stop with the self pitty. A quick look at the Police and In Memorium forums I found 2 LEO LODD in 2012, that combined have not received as many posts as this one thread. Too bad there have all ready been 12 officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty this year, including a detective in New Haven. As this is clearly a forum dominated by all thing fire related, did they fare any better? Nope, 7 LODD so far and I see zero mention of any of their deaths. Yet the medic that no one here knew, no one here worked with, and died not while confronting an armed assailant or saving a life has gotten more attention. Her death was no less or more important than any other. Like every single other death her family, friends, and co-workers are devastated. This is not the issue to plant your flag on the issue of disrespect. Express your condolences as you see fit and find a more appropriate forum for sharing your views on the perception of EMS.

Never. I just know a much better post when I see one, and that was ALS's

Why would remac be any more capable of administering the training? Most have a hard enough time filling all their advisory positions. No matter who is in charge it is up to the individual agency to maintain the training and certificate standards. REMAC or the state just establish a minimum and ensure compliance. If remac followed the same recert standards as the state you'd still have people just handing over cmes and getting their card.

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I don't know about any medic. Many medics, absolutely. Chest thumping aside, I wouldn't hold my breath on the 5 year card any time soon as we're reviewing substantial changes to the program. Turns out there's a big difference between training and doing. In my opinion a smaller agency with more oversight would be better suited for the 5 year recert. There's just too many differences in experience amongst the 5 boroughs. An overnight unit is Staten Island just isn't staying as sharp as an evening crew in East New York or the South Bronx. The details aren't final, but we're probably going to a 3 year challenge refresher. I still think 5 years is better with the annual core concepts training and then a challenge refresher, but the system is so large they can't do anything simply. Quick addition, Its more than just treating patients. Its about actually using the skills. There are some Manhattan units that are through the roof in call volume but in the basement with the more intensive ALS interventions. Treating 100 sick calls isn't the same as running 10 "mega codes". That is not to dismiss those 100 patient contacts. assessment is an invaluable skill that needs patients to develop, but at some point you need to use your skills and protocols or you lose them. In the Bronx I was doing Asthmatics so frequently we set up a little asthma kit with all of our drugs all ready in it. Now, in Manhattan I had to pause for a second trying to remember how much Mag Sulfate to give. It's been over a year since the last time I'd given it. In exchange for my Asthma/APE experience, now my knowledge of recreational pharmaceuticals and psychology has grown exponentially.

Licensure vs certificate has no bearing on the perception of EMS as a career or just a job. It has zero bearing on our pay or our respect as profession. Its a semantics argument and nothing more. Guess what, doctors and nurses have to regularly recertify with their various boards through testing and continuing education. Instead of paying the state for our license and then some private group for their seal of a[[roval we just have to pay the state to retest us. I don't want someone stepping away for a few years and then being able to come back and work just because they've been paying their dues. We b**** constantly about the decrease in standards yet people would encourage something like this??