gamewell45

Bnechis, thanks for reinforcing my point!

This is one of the reasons why unions, in particular, some public service unions are held in disdain by the public in general. You'd think that fire unions would put some value on public relations with the public and at least attempt to foster a working relationship with volunteers as a whole. Right or wrong, the public often preceives unionized career firefighters as being more concerned with making overtime & their own welfare over that of the public. I often wonder what kind of leadership is running these fire unions; their agenda appears tp be primarily focused on a very narrow segment of the population, that being their membership. While i can understand they have a duty to represent their membership, in the big picture of things, they fail to realize or at least give the appearance of indifference or outright rejections on issues that would benefit their image with the public. But no, they keep handing ammunition to those who are anti-labor to shoot back at them. The topic in this thread is a perfect example of that. Its high time for the fire unions to re-think their position on career members serving as volunteers and the volunteer service in general.

If its job related he should go out with a disability pension; if its not job related then the FD should have the right to terminate his employment.

why damage perfectly good car(s)? Force her to listen to the Grateful Dead at the wrong speed for the rest of her life.

Hopefully the state takes the child away from her for good.

I understand your position, but I think we are in agreement that we disagree.

Chris, I think your looking at this from an entirely different angle then I am. First off I am not under any circumstances suggesting that FD should not be against FD's doing EMS type work. What i'm saying is that its quite possible in some situtations depending on the person, that if involunarily made to become certified as a "CFR/CPR, first Aider, and so forth, that person might not be of much value on an EMS scene. He/she might not have the stomach for direct patient contact. Even if you are first on the scene, you can most certainly let them know that medical help is on the way and in the meantime, relay important information to the responding agency, whether it be fire or EMS of the location of the patient, whether the patient appears to be in any kind of distress, whether the patient appears to be concious or not; whether the patient is bleeding and so forth without touching the patient. Wouldn't you agree that its better to have someone voluntarily working on a patient as opposed to one who hates what he's doing, doesn't feel comfortable having hands on, fainting if he sees blood and can't stand the sight of it? or he's doing cpr and feels the ribs break and passes out on top of the patient? or vomits when he smells or witnesses someone else vomit. This is what i'm talking about, i realize that with proper training in cpr and first aid 95% of most firemen can likely handle EMS calls, but there are a few who woudln't be able to and thats what i'm referring to. This has nothing to do with the so-called 51 hours of training. There happens to be a human element involved here. Its basic common sense. Being honest with the public is alot more respectable then deliberatly misleading them. Finally while you might find it "disgusting to suggest that promoting minimum training standards such as this should be opposed by the fire lobby", you need to be a little more realistic and take into consideration that not everyone is capable of doing ems work

I can't agree with that rationale of thinking; someone who can't handle certain types of EMS calls can still be of value on non-EMS scenes, such as firefighting and so forth. If the person can't handle 99% of EMS scenes, then he shouldn't respond on EMS Rescue calls and on fire scenes, just stay away from the person being treated. Understand that some people will be able to function on EMS scenes, such as extrication, but will not want to have any "hands on" involving a patient. Its not just black or white; your going to have gray areas depending on the persons ability to be in an EMS-type situation.

Your right, it shouldn't normally be, but unfortunatley in some cases it will be. Some firefighters won't be directly at the accident scene but instead will be performing more support functions such as pumping, fire-police, lighting and so forth. Those that have no desire to become involved in vehicle extrication will never become certified on the hurst tool. Thats how they avoid getting too close to the scene.

My response would be "medical assistance is on the way" and i've done it plenty of times with no grief from the public. LIkewise i'm not worried about lawsuits; if you go through life with that mentality, you'd be afraid to open your front door and go outside. The public may see us as a "jack of all trades" but they need to be educated that this isn't the case. Not every fire agency provides medical assistance; thats why they have volunteer Ambulance corps or paid ambulance services. To require everyone to be able to administer first aid as a CPR/First Aid Level is not only unfair, it could be dangerous particularly if the person arrives on the scene and starts or attempts working on a patient and for whatever reason can't stomach what he is doing or has to do and freezes up. Then how does your fire department look to the public??? You could mandate first aid training for every single emergency response person on the planet, but there will be some who don't have the stomach for it and can't deal with another person in pain; Thats why you have EMT's and paramedics; they are trained to do this type of work because they have the stomach and desire for it . You could say what if this and what if that? but you can't prepare for every eventuality. What comes easy to you may not to another. We all have to work within the scope of our knowledge and training and if the fireman wants to become a CPR certified, CFR, or EMT/ Paramedic, then so be it, but to require mandatory training is unfeasible and i suspect that many departments would never allow it nor would the state allow it to become law for the above reasons.

No, I don't agree with your response; the question of adequate training of volunteers is certainly open to debate, with the paid firemen taking one position on training and volunteers taking another position. Either way whatever the paid firemen's position on training obviously works for them and the volunteers position on training for them works quite well. And of course those volunteers who feel they need more training are encouraged to take the various training courses they want. LIkewise i'm confident that if a paid fireman wanted additional training the department wouldn't hold him back from it. And to answer the last part of your question, every fireman, no matter what training he has, can be used to the abilities that he has been trained for so i likewise would disagree with your rationale.

I don't think it should be a requirement; there are some people who'd be useless in a emergency medical situation as they may have no stomach for blood & guts, etc. I think keeping it voluntary is the way to go.

If Aviation is out of service, I think that leaves 9 volunteer companies in the city; although i'm not counting the so-called volunteer Fire Patrol in the Bronx. I"m not sure if its legit or not.

The answer is plain and simple. The driver stays with the apparatus (except Ambulance); there is no reason for a driver to have to leave the truck unattended for any reason. As far as ambulances go, if the duty crew has to leave the immediate vicinity, they should ask the fire-police to keep an eye on it or if no fire-police or extra FF's are available, then they should either ask for police to keep an eye on it or shut down the rig and lock it up. Once your on the scene, most of the time there's no need for your emergency lights to be on anyhow.

Seeing this thread reminded me of attending the muster. I still have a beer mug with their logo on it from one of the musters. The flea market was second to none. You could find just about anything you wanted.

The American people are responsible; They put them in office in the first place. Now we gotta clean up their mess......again. We never learn from our past mistakes. The entire system needs an overhaul. Badly.

I think its a problem common to many areas of the state and country. Unless its something citizens feel is very controversial, they tend to ignore it, but are willing to complain later when they get the tax bill.

Weighting in on your response, it would seem to me that no matter whether your a member of FASNY or not, being a member of the fire service, if you believe there is a serious safety issue that, with the change of laws, could save lives, you'd be inclined to bring it to the attention of FASNY for discussion irrespective of what you think of the organization or its members. Or perhaps if you don't feel comfortable doing that, perhaps your union could contact FASNY and request in this instance, they form a working partnership to address the issue as it is a common goal that benefits both career, volunteers and the public at large. Finally-- as i'm sure you'll agree-- the IAFF believes that life safety is a 1st priority, but at the same time, the financial welfare of its members (Whats in it for me) is likewise paramount. I know this because i constantly read this in various labor journals, there are constant battles for safety, benefits and living wages for their members. And while i'm sure safety is no.1 on their list, you can bet the other two items are likewise very high on their lists. In my opinion, FASNY is no different in that aspect. While some may think they are not moving fast enough, they are working to promote safety in the fire service and at the same time keeping the welfare of the volunteers right behind safety.

I honestly think if you can convince them that this is the way to go, they'd most likely give consideration to lobby to change NYSUFP&BC. It would mean arranging a meeting with them and giving them a presentation stating what your trying to accomplish. I don't think you'd have to be a member of FASNY to meet with them and they'd listen to what you have to say. As far as lobbying for "Blue Lights" and "tax Breaks", I think the blue light issue is more or less resolved for now; as far as the tax break issue(s), I think thats going to be an ongoing lobbying effort long term. However it doesn't mean that they won't lobby other issues simultaneously if they can be convinced that its the right way to go.

The long and short of it is that we can debate this subject all we want; ultimately, the taxpayers of the fire district will decide what will happen.

Nice to see Bobby Mauro still active in the fire service; he's probably one of the longest serving chiefs Fairview has ever had.

Bring back Ed Kranepool.

Probably the best thing to do is to add up the population and then divide it by the total number of apparatus in the county; that might at least give you an idea of apparatus per person percentage.

Goose, don't take it the wrong way, i'm just trying to make sense of your post; furthermore, do you mean "gouge" or "gauge" ? There's two different meanings; which one do you mean?

I don't believe that VFD have the authority to levy a tax; To be more accurate i think you should substitute the word "Fire District" in place of VFD. That would make your posting more accurate and credible.