NWFDMedic

Seth, you've taken away my number 2 source of entertainment. At least you've also taken away the desire to make posts that were inappropriate.

That area of the Town is actually one of the furthest to SFH, but if you know the roads, you can be in SFH in 25 minutes code 3. If you're closer to the 9W area, it's only about a 15 minute ride.

Kudos to the NPD, NFD, Mobile Life, and SLH staff. The entire emergency service staff did a great job getting rescuing these folks, treating them, getting them to the hospital, and then getting them expeditiously to Jacobi.

The IAEP definitely leaves a lot to be desired. I can remember when they came into Sloper. They kept telling people "Do you want to make $20/hr, vote union". At that time, that figure was significantly out of joint with other services in the Hudson Valley. Of course, all the young kids and those who didn't know any better saw dollar signs saw this as a very attractive option. I can remember reading the contract proposal prior to a meeting at the Holiday Inn with the IAEP people. Not only did the contract include pay raises that Sloper would be unable to provide, it also included forced practices that would drive up the cost of overtime significantly. To make matters worse, the contract was full of misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and inaccuracies. I brought a marked up copy of the contract to the meeting only to be shut down when I tried to ask questions. The end result of the union presence at Sloper was bankruptcy. The good employees and senior employees at Sloper were offered jobs at Alamo but generally got a raw deal if they went over to Alamo. A lot of people worked at Sloper for the very reason that it wasn't Alamo, now the union (and bad management practices) left them without their company. Several years later, many of those same employees have seen Alamo go by the wayside as well and, of course, another raw deal if they decided to go to TransCare. I'm neither for nor against unions. Clearly they are beneficial in some situations and not in others. I think it's more about labor and management working together to provide the best for the employee while maintaining the resources for organizational advancement. That can happen in either union or non-union shops and it can also fail in both situations.

These contracts get awarded all the time without a bidding process, but generally not to a commercial service. The ambulance service in my town gets $300K or so from the town and the service doesn't go out to bid. Many municipalities don't go out to bid when they find an ambulance service that they are happy with and just opt to renew or renegotiate a contract. Most often, the contracts that go to bid are the municipalities looking for a change although some municipalities bid the contract every time in an attempt to keep prices in check. There's little disadvantage to going to bid as the municipality is not required to go with the lowest bidder for a professional service.

I'm more surprised that the defense attorney didn't object to the testimony as the paramedic is not qualified to make the statements he did. Rigor mortis has been documented to begin within a half hour of death of some patients and in fact, the paramedic incorrectly stated that rigor mortis tends to set in quicker in cold weather. Rigor actually sets in quicker in warm environments, so even if he was assuming the incorrect "3 hours" for the onset of rigor, the sweltering temperatures would have accelerated the rate of onset and progress of rigor. The last time I went to court for a case, the defense attorney asked with pretty much every question how I was qualified to make a statement and I had to explain my qualification. It seems the attorney in this case was asleep at the switch.

Contracts for professional services do not need to go out to bid in New York State.

I don't think the purpose of a fire department is to respond to calls to justify a budget. Their job is to provide necessary services to the community. As far as the DOH is concerned, a fire department can still be a first response agency without doing calls that are strictly EMS because they respond to a number of incidents where medical care may be needed. So long as they keep their agency code, they should be fine for funding.

It's about time we got away from the white plates.

http://www.recordonl.../NEWS/911090318 Interesting concept. If it passes the legal system, it might be something Fairview (Dutchess) might consider.

I think the biggest question when you consider the 24 hour work schedule is the amount of work that the firefighters do. If they're running 15-20 calls in a 24 hour shift, it is not unreasonable to consider that the firefighters are not in good physical condition to tackle a job during the 23rd hour of that shift. However, if there is significant down-time or rest during the shift, the 24 hour schedule can offer significant benefits. Knowing nothing about the actual work requirements of WPFD, I can't really comment as to whether the schedule is good for them.

How many chiefs do you need at a command post? If you have 6 departments operating, do you honestly think there should be 6 white hats sitting there instead of performing other tasks? If you have proper communications, an incoming department chief should be assigned a position (if incident command has spread that far) or he should be given a task by command or operations. At that point, he can either supervise his men or act as a member of the team, depending on the task and manpower.

Thirty-one career guys and the SCBA aren't being properly maintained??? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It sounds like the violations cited were more related to training than manpower. The article never says that they failed to use 2-in/2-out, it says that they failed to maintain the proper training and evaluation of the standard's use. I cannot imagine that they are rolling up to a scene without 4 firefighters.

A lot of the Newburgh P.D. guys do the impossible on a nightly basis. We know how overworked they are but it seems like whenever we call them to "assist Mobile Life" they are there in force and in no time. Occasionally they may not be able to get to a non-priority call quickly but when we need help they are always there.

This is horrible. These guys are overworked to begin with; I can't imagine cutting 20 more.

I know Dutchess is quite a ways along in their pandemic planning and information distribution. I attended a pretty informative CME at St. Luke's-Cornwall on pandemic preparedness as well. It's really staggering when you consider that we may have to respond to a 30-40% greater call volume with 30-40% of our staffing calling in sick at any particular time. On an agency level, our effort thus far has been on information regarding precautions and treatment of flu-like symptoms but there are pandemic plans in place should the need arise. If H1N1 starts heading toward pandemic levels, I think the state and federal governments will have to become involved too. They have to inform people that the best place for a flu patient without comorbid factors is to stay home. Also, I'm guessing they might allow EMS providers to suggest and possibly even refuse transport to patients with flu-like symptoms that are otherwise uncomplicated, possibly delivering medications or prescriptions to patients in the field.

I would bet that the vast majority of newer apparatus with these systems have them mysteriously "not working".

Yeah, I sat in the not moving at all portion for a while. I think they had limited PD resources in the beginning. Eventually, I think it was an MTA unit that ended up blocking off 9D and directing traffic flow. There was actually another fender bender that happened right in front of me while in traffic but no injuries and no damage... both parties got back in their cars.

Best of luck to my friends that were at Alamo. May whatever path you choose next bring the best for you all.

Your stab would be correct Rob. This is the mess that caused me to have an hour trip home from work for the second time this week. :angry: Traffic control, or lack thereof, took a long time to get in place.

There are so many laws on the books that are antiquated that I just can't count them. The only issue I have with blue lights is that some of these newer blue LED lights have gone beyond warning and into the category of blinding. There is a local police agency that has these rear-facing lights and they leave their lights on at medical calls as "EMS indicators" to help us find the residence. However, I've noted that the newer lights, as you approach, actually blind you even if you don't look straight toward them at night. These lights were so obtrusive that I couldn't see my spotter the other night as I was backing into a driveway because of the light put off by a police car that by this point was on my passenger's side. I think they need to engineer a night setting for these LED's... I know the lights are lifesavers on the highway but the LED's are just too much.

I'm all for getting rid of drunk drivers but this is WAY over the top. There is too much potential for abuse and it's potentially unconstitutional.

It's surely a resource that is needed but how many? Do Orange, Sullivan, and Ulster really need their own? Why not have one for the Hudson Valley region?

Seems like a lot of money to spend on something that's going to sit in a garage and become obsolete. If the thing is going to take 90 minutes to staff, can't you get state resources in an similar time frame?

I can only speak for my department but 2000 GPM has been a requirement of ours for several years along with 5 inch LDH as opposed to 4 inch. Mainly it had to do with research done by an ex-chief regarding water flow needed to attack a fire at the "fuel farms" in our district. That's also why we maintain a foam engine.