ny10570

Over the last 20 years did the employees get to stop funding their pensions because the economy was doing so well?? I guarantee the politicians in Ohio and every other state were at the very least trying to divert their annual obligation to the pension fund to other projects during the boom times of economic excess. Those failures to properly manage their budgets must be shared by the people who chose these idiots to be in charge. If that means future hires get screwed, then so be it, good luck recruiting quality workers. If you have to tax your constituents into oblivion, then so be it, good luck getting rehired. Every decision has to have consequences. Completely farking your city's/county's/state's pension is a failure that should send these politicians to the curb. The Fed enabled the failure, they did not force it. The changes they made to Fannie and Freddie did not obligate them to enter into the shyster mortgage deals they began to pursue. Every major bank took on the same shady deals because they were all blinded by greed. The fed had no control over the actions of Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sacks, and the rest of the financial world. Limitless growth DOES NOT EXIST. Anyone who is buying or selling that lie is an idiot.

I hate these firehouse.com articles. They spend zero effort on digging up details or any sort of truth with these stories. The find an exciting headline from a local paper and run with it. Why was the fire company found negligent? If the reward is public, then the judges decision should be part of that record. What did they actually do to mitigate the situation? So in a few minutes of Googling, it appears that the victim and his wife were home when the wires came down. After checking the scene the FD turned it over to the utility, NJP&L. Around that time the couple attempted to leave their driveway and came into contact with the live wire. Their argument was the the FD never notified them that a hazard was present on their property. This award is absolutely getting reduced if not reversed upon appeal. Look for a final settlement of no more than medical expenses plus lost wage. Pain and suffering without gross negligence or depraved indifference is a tough sell.

The proper thing is to honor all previously negotiated contracts. If you want to change things going forward, that's a different story and the time for the public to have their say.

Assuming the rope ladder was already rigged it would take minutes to be over the rail. No passive security measure could have stopped him in time. Every year people scale NYC's bridges. The security measures are there to prevent significant threats. An individual on the deck or climbing the superstructure without some serious explosives is not going to do any significant or lasting damage to the bridge. Even a decrepit bridge like the Tapp.

Should FDNY call in Yonkers for a rescue in Riverdale or Greystone? Yonkers is closer. NYS had the resources available and handled a job within their area of responsibility. The team is prepared to respond all over the state. Responding to Tarrytown is really not all that extraordinary for them.

absolutely. A simple sling harness or if he's compliant and relaxed a clip on seat harness would be very doable.

One of the better obits I've read... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/sports/joe-frazier-ex-heavyweight-champ-dies-at-67.html

Not really. Just need to give him a harness first before attaching him to your line.

You'd be crazy to try and get him if doesn't want to be rescued. Once he's compliant it's a relatively straight forward rope rescue. Only question is up or down.

As comical said, the union as far as I'm aware has never had an issue with the volunteers. Before they were taken out of the system they were not being assigned calls over the 911 units so they weren't really a concern. Of course from the union's perspective we would like to run everything; central park units, grand central, all the 911, the beach patrols, Governors Island, etc but we are a very long way from that. Our concern now is taking over as many of the 911 transport units as possible. As other hospitals flirt with bankruptcy and the coming 911 administrative fees there are rumors of other hospitals looking to get out of the Ambulance game. If that becomes a reality we will be extremely busy trying to catch up on that front. We're actually not that understaffed. The call volume per unit has increased slightly over the past few years and our bigger issue is transport and hospital turn around times. In areas of a demonstrable need for additional resources the voluntaries have added 3 units and a 4th became a 24 hour unit. The voluntaries may preach they're ready and willing to run more ambulances, but just like FDNY they have a budget to justify and adding more units for the sake of adding them isn't in their best interest either. They want to replace FDNY units, not be added alongside them. The harassment is part of the game, but some have a personal vendetta against the voluntaries. There are plenty of stories about bosses being unreasonably strict when interacting with a crew, not realizing one of them was an FDNY*EMS member working their side job.Adding more units no matter who runs them is a boost for the EMS officers union. They're constantly fighting over span of control issues with the city. More units in the field equals more conditions cars on the road. I'll be in the street for a long long while. Especially now that EMS officers are required to be paramedics there is almost no financial incentive for taking the promotion. For all of the extra responsibilities and liability you assume as an officer an increase in pay is the standard compensation throughout every industry. I am not going to take a job now and ask for proper compensation later. I continue to hold out hope that my peers finally recognize this and follow the example set by the NYPD. Once the city could no longer get enough people to take the sgts test they were forced to address the compensation disparity. We're a long way from that point.

Avoiding duplicates on the same dispatch frequency is hard enough. Across different frequencies, we might as well be different agencies. By listening to PD and self dispatching you guys will be better informed and more efficient than becoming another cog in the machine. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see locations like Central Park and Grand Central, with their own first responders, integrate into the system and utilize their knowledge of the area. Dual dispatch the local resource and EMS. Once "on scene" or at least close we could then contact the local unit on a point to point tac channel and get an actual location, best access, pt status, etc. The people that are paid to make that happen do not share the same views as me.

Lens is the way to go. Saved my butt twice. Once was the courts mistake and the other was mine. Both times Lens was the only notification that I received. Otherwise I would have found out in the back of a police car.

Why should they be integrated into the system and more so, why would you want to be included? When the dept needs help, the call goes out and volunteers are integrated. Otherwise, its more units for FDNY to compete with and supervise. Operating separate from the system, all they have to do is monitor the precinct radio and go to the jobs they want to. No BS equipment audits, 89 checks, and other FDNY harassment.

We're slowly chipping away at that. They've lost a good chunk of their ALS and now citywide they're running more BLS than ALS. We're still a few ALS units behind in Manhattan, but that is not likely to change in the near future. Continuum and Presby are relatively healthy and should be able to handle the up coming ambulance fees.

Damn, ol Joe ain't even dead yet and you've already consigned him to rest in peace?! He is one of the greatest heavyweight fighters. He fought Ali three times. First was a brutal 15 round decision. At the time called the fight of the century and still today considered by many to be amongst the best. Third fight was the thrilla in Manilla. Ali won, but if you watch the fight it looks like Ali was refusing to return to the ring just as Joe's corner threw in the towel clearly against his wishes. It was such a brutal fight both fighters were hospitalized after. Joe was an incredibly fast and furious puncher with a punishing left hook. He was an undersized fighter that brutalized many an opponent. The garbage city of Philadelphia continues to honor rocky, a fictional character over one of the greatest fighters of all times. A man from Philly, raised in Philly, and returned to Philly where until his hospitalization was still training fighters in a local gym that he lived above.

The volunteer units are self dispatched. They have private numbers that local members of the community can utilize. Depending on agency rules the at times will also be "flagged"(monitor the radio and show up on your own) on assignments in their area. Since they operate outside the dispatch system they can be assigned to anything. Most of the agencies I worked around were very responsible and any calls that were possibly ALS would get a call into the 911 system for backup. I'm not aware of any that receive regular funding, but for larger purchases the city council often can be pressed to pitch in.

Synthetic marijuana has been growing here. Extreme paranoia and psychosis which can very quickly lead to violence. Luckily we've had an EDP sedation protocol as a medical control option for a little while now, and our doctors are becoming more and more comfortable with allowing it. As this point before it even turns violent I'm on the phone getting orders. I've witnessed enough PD, EMS, and even patients suffer some pretty significant injuries. Its never been worth it.

The American Society of Civil engineers commissioned a study of America's infrastructure a couple years ago that put the bill at over $2 Trillion in the next 5 years to just catch up to the deterioration of our infrastructure. Plugging leaking water supplies, repairing crumbling bridges and roadways, replacing outdated transit systems, stopping sewage system overflows, etc. That doesn't cover the cost of continued maintenance or expansion. Of much greater issue for our electrical grid is on the generation/transmission end. Distribution is relatively up to date. Data is much cheaper to bury and has a much higher profit margin. Nothing here is saying power lines cannot be buried. The issue is money. People will pay a premium for digital internet connections rather than the same old dial up. Who is willing to pay twice as much for the same electric service? People will not pay a 100% increase in the electric bills just to bury their power lines. How do you propose the utilities pay the tab? If they could save $1 on storm losses by burying the lines, they'd be buried already.

Easy there. I'm not defending that kind of delay. Far too often regular civilians and yes even the family that had to wait those extra 20 minutes are later praising all of the responders(volunteer ambulance included). You may very well be the only one laying blame on the system rather than making up excuses for the delay.

Its not even close. Maintaining an above ground system is far cheaper than burying the existing lines. An estimate out of Florida put the rate increase between 90 and 120% At a new development in north Jersey my cousins had property in about 10 years ago this was a big debate. Buried lines won out only because most residents didn't believe they'd be there at the end of the system's service life and agreed to pay for all repairs and replacement as is came up. In just paying for the simple instal before there was anything more than staked out lots and felled trees they paid a 20% premium over above ground lines. After a massive ice storm several years ago in North Carolina(?) blacked out nearly half the state they commissioned several studies on the feasibility of burying all of the states power lines. Outages were less often, but repairs are much more time consuming and expensive. Service upgrades and end of service life repairs are many times more expensive and again take much longer. I believe it was a trade off of 50% fewer outages in exchange for 50% longer duration. In the end they chose to maintain the current system and bury lines in areas where the opportunity presented itself at a reasonable cost.

The band-aid is already in place. Whether it takes 5 or 25 minutes to get an ambulance on scene do the agencies suffer? There's already a cop or 4 and the medic on scene. The patient, family, and any witnesses see a very fast and substantial response and assume that all is well. Kind of like a big red fire truck with one firefighter.

At this point point EMD is fairly simple to implement and I believe 60 already offers this option. To say agencies have to respond is nice, but doesn't acknowledge the reality of the system as it is right now. We already have agencies that have trouble at times getting crews out the door. That is an issue for one of dozens of other threads about getting ambulances on the road and hiring staff. While you're banging out the second round of tones or the third mutual aid bus for the injury that due to caller error is actually an arrest/CVA/whatever, the patient is dying. Other systems address BLS shortages by sending ALS units, but they often still have gaping holes. An example you're familiar with, NYC. No BLS available and ALS are assigned high priority BLS jobs. But what about when BLS is greater than 10 minutes away and ALS is around the corner? The system doesn't address it. ALS greater than 10 minutes and BLS closer gets an automatic response from the system. My point is, we know that there will be times when BLS cannot get on the road in a timely manner. While we wait for the agencies to address this is there a compromise between sending ALS on everything and a straight triaged system where the medics can still be used to fill the gap?

Its not to say that something can't be done, but that begins to complicate things on the dispatch end. If you were going to implement BLS only response for certain calls then there has to be back up. After x-number of minutes the medic get assigned or only do BLS solo when the vac has a rostered or even better, on site crew. How complicated can the dispatch algorithms at 60 get?

If BLS was faster and more reliable triaged dispatching would be more viable and free up the medics from many of the BLS calls they're sent on. However when you can't guarantee a timely response from BLS the risk of a incorrectly triaged call resulting in serious harm or death is too much.

They have reevaluated the system, but the towns didn't want to pay. It was something about disproportionate use of service or some garbage. If the downs don't want to pay then WEMS has little recourse.