mfc2257

Millwood, Mt. Kisco, Fairview, Greenville, Hartsdale, Grasslands, Pound Ridge, Irvington, North White, Vista, Montrose VAFD are dispatched off 33.96 also if my memory serves me correctly... Don't be confused if you hear these departments broadcast over 46.26 on a simulcast or retone as well.

I'm not hearing any solutions to this issue. How about starting here.... If it looks like (for whatever reason) there is a young officer that is coming up in the near future, lets have some senior members of the department step up to mentor such an individual by helping them understand the complexities of being an officer at such a young age. Also, if there are any senior members who were officers at young ages then even better to mentor the current youngblood. ALSO it is easy to get frustrated inside the confines of a single organization when there is no one who is well suited to mentoring a young officer (just because someone is old and salty doesn't mean they are the best choice to help a young officer do the best job possible). Don't let pride get in the way. Sit the young officer down and explain what you want to do in order to better help him in is role as a leader. Then, shop around to some other departments that might offer good young leaders as examples to live by. Whatever we do though, don't let a young officer fail because no one wanted to spend the time to help him or her.

I agree that we must be wary of young officers. However there are some out there that are the exception to the rule and even though this conversation isn't ment to offend, we should commend those who are capable of filling slots as young officers... One of them is a close friend of mine. He is a 26-27 year old Assistant Fire Chief in Gettysburg, PA. (click on the link below for his bio) A department that runs 500+ fire and 1500+ ems runs annually. He was also a Career FF with Franklin County Company 7 (Fayetteville - Chambersburg) at age 20 and a Career FF with Washington DCFD at age 24 or so. I can honestly say that at his age he is perfectly qualified to fill his role as the Asst. Chief of a busy Volunteer FD. Besides having 10 years of Vol. FF experience and 7 years of career FF experience he's got the pro-board qualifications to back it up. http://www.gettysburgfd.com/eiker.html I too was a young officer (So was Remember585) and had I not taken a year to live in the city after college, I probably would have been an Asst. chief at 27 as well. So if you do see a young officer don't necessarily label them as worthless. Listen for a minute, they may be wise beyond their years.

Find some old carpet (1/2inch) that has a good glue fiber backing. Cut a piece about 6 inches long by 3.5 wide. Take a scrub brush and cut all the bristles off and apoxy carpet upside down to the bottom of the carpet. Apply Mothers/Noxon or whatever you use liberally to surface and work it with the carpet. Have someone else follow right away with a good towel to get excess. Buff after drying as ususal.

If I recall there are four tracks on the lower level that circle around. There aren't used any more mostly due to the fact that the wider electric cars used in todays trains were getting damaged while traveling through the loops. With the lack of a defined front and back to an electric train there is no need to turn it around. I also believe that the diesels are all running these days with the locomotives on the north end of the train (for the most part) and thus they don't need to be turned around either.

The Metro North Commuter Railroad was not named as such 50 years ago or whenever that car was last used. The New York Central Railroad would have been a proper name for the time and it was originally founded as the New York and Harlem Railroad. MNRR wasn't founded until 1983 when the MTA took over Conrail's operation of commuter service on the line. I would guess that any markings referencing MNRR on a car that old, would have either been added after it was already sitting there, OR they were coincidental.

Agreed... I used to get a ton of crap from folks who thought it was annoying to ride with me when I would run the electronic siren on high-low along with the "Q". Much of the reason why many European juristictions continue to use air powered high-low warning is the fact that the change in pitch is what gets drivers attention, not the volume. Along the same line, a Federal Q or any other mechanical siren is actually at its most effective when spun all the way up, and then allowed to growl down at least half way. Don't get me wrong, when I'm frustrated I'll pin the "Q" but its a bad habit. As far as keeping distance from apparatus in front, I can't agree more. Unfortunatly the scenerio while responding as the 2nd due engine to Kings College presented some situations that placed 2251 and myself in E-247 nose to tail for a short period of time. The details will bore everyone, but my crew and I as well as a motorist that wasn't paying attention were lucky that a buddy of mine shared his unfortunate story with me.

Going to the Kings College Fire a few years back I recall an instance where I was following the at the time 2251 SB on RT100 in E-247. A motorist moved over for him. I moved into the empty oncoming traffic lane just in case. It was a good thing that I did, because the motorist didn't pay attention to anything but the chiefs vehicle and pulled directly back into the SB lane of traffic. I'm not really sure how it all happened to come to my mind at once, but I moved far to the left because of a story that I was told from a buddy of mine in PA who was driving the wagon behind the truck on the way to a long distance mutual aid call on PA Rt30 towards Chambersburg. Same scenerio, the motorist pulled over for the truck, but back in front of the wagon and got hit. Thankfully no injuries. Had I not heard that story, the "Q" would have been sitting in the back seat of the car that yeilded to 2251 and not E-247. BTW my pet peeve is when an emergency unit passes, and cars don't have the decency to slow down so that those who yeilded to the unit can pull safely back into the lane of travel instead of sitting in a dangerous spot on the shoulder.

Jared - 0% of our training nights were spent on washing apparatus for parades. If you reviewed my post, I indicated that 3/4 Tuesdays were spent on training, rigs were washed on Mondays (for a Wednesday parade) or Thursday (for a Friday - Saturday parade). Sure parades are a non-essential firematic task. There is no doubt about that. But for many people, after they've worked a long week, been to their regularly scheduled training, put dinner on the table, helped the kids with their homework, fought off the flu that got picked up at daycare, and ran 5 calls between the hours of midnight and 6 am that week... etc etc etc etc.... A parade is a nice way to hang out with your buddies. NOT everything in the world has to be all serious all the time. Maybe we should write to the FDNY and Boston FD hockey teams and tell them that they should stop playing because they could use that time to do more training. People are allowed a break.

In short, very rarely did preparing apparatus for parades conflict with training. In detail.......When I was Captain in Millwood, in a 4 week month we had 3 Tuesday operations drills, from 7-9:30 or 10:00pm plus a company meeting on the remaining Tuesday. I also hosted Captain's drills or drivers training on Wednesday nights every 3 weeks or so where younger members or folks looking for refreshers could work with me on Q&A items and hands on examples. Parade prep was usually done on the Monday or Thursday before a parade. If possible the current 2252 coodinates with the younger more motivated members to wash the apparatus on thier own time then the company would get together to detail the apparatus on the Monday or Thursday immeadiatly before the parade assuming that it didn't run a messy job in the time following its washing.

The station that I used to run out of had a great system to prevent this. After the tones dropped, there was a system that unlocked all the exterior pedestrian doors to the apparatus bay for 5 minutes. In addition, any bay door opened via the garage door opener in the apparatus itself closed as soon as the apparatus had crossed the threshold of the bay. So not only did you not need a key to get in if you were responding (side doors open for 5 minutes) but once the units responded the bays were closed. Kind of a cool system. I've never seen it replicated. I'm certainly no expert, but by definition a robbery is larceny from the person or presence of another by violence or threat..... If there was no violence or threat, and the victim wasn't present, it sounds like a burglary...

For those who haven't read this yet... July 25, 2006 -- Doctors amputated the right leg of an elite firefighter who was badly hurt when an out-of-control taxi cab pinned him against a firetruck on the Upper West Side last week, sources said yesterday. John Walters, 37, of Rescue 1, had his legs crushed in last Wednesday's tragic accident, which also injured firefighter buddy Mike Schunk. A team of doctors at Bellevue Hospital worked nearly 12 hours to stabilize the more seriously injured Walters. The firefighters, who had stopped to buy dinner, were walking behind their rig, double-parked at 71st Street and Columbus Avenue, at around 10:30 p.m. when they were hit. Cabby Mohammed Ali Kharmis told cops he was cut off by another car and forced into the lane where the firetruck was parked. Kharmis was not charged. Schunk was in stable condition at New York Hospital

It is great that individual departments have allocated funding and resources to their own communications initiatives. This does not solve however, the massive county wide problem that exists when most agencies aren't on the same page. Every department should have the same core frequencies in their radios both on apparatus and portables. If a department wants to add a talkaround freq for drill, or non emergency items thats fine. The county needs to license 8 fire freqs for use aside from 46.26. Assign 4 freqs to the southern end of the county, and 4 to the northern end (with all 8 freq's being programmed into all apparatus regardless of their location for use in those rare occasions when a unit from northern Westchester ends up down county). Dispatch on 46.26 and when a unit calls 10-17 the dispatcher acknowledges the response and assigns them a channel immeadiatly to switch to. The apparatus switches to that channel and never speaks over 46.26 again. But until the county mandates the way apparatus communicate instead of letting departments choose on thier own, there is still going to be a rats nest of communicatios problems in the county.

The entire county wide system is a piece of junk. I've said it here a million times with concrete examples of how to make it work.... But again the way to make it work isn't to have more dispatching agencies. The way to make it work is to hire a county fire coordinator who is successful in taking a totally unorganized county like Westchester and setting a standard for communications and operations for the entire county. The problem is that everyone is still communicating the way that they "want" to... Instead of the way that the county should mandate them to. If frequencies were set and SOP's for communicating crossed municipality lines by mandate, this problem wouldn't exist. Until someone is willing to take Grasslands by the horns the county will continue to be a communications mess. This is a fact !

In my mind, if you are committed to a certain facility then that's where you are going, unless you get a report that the facility in question is on divert itself due to a lack of beds for the class of patient that you have OR if the patients condition changes and requires a different type of facility. If you have departed for a particular facility and the patient changes their mind, they can be checked into the hospital that you are originally enroute to, and moved at a later date via an ambulance service. My opinion is, that Acute Emergency (911 dispatched) EMS providers are not taxi drivers. It is their obligation to take the patient to the nearest facility that can treat the condition which the patient is suffering. Beyond that, it is up to the patient or their family to get them to a facility of preference after the Emergency Room as stabilized the patient and prepared them for admission. Emergency care should be transferred to a medical facility ASAP so that the patient not only has the full resources of a hospital ASAP, but so the unit that transported them can return to service ASAP. Just my two or three cents.

Well... They kind of are.... Think of it this way Aside from running thier RIT operations off the Tower.... They are most likely first due in the following municipalities: Bedford Village, Katonah, Pound Ridge, most of South Salem, most of Goldens Bridge, parts of Armonk, parts of Vista... All departments without an aerial device who don't necessarily need to go purchase one either. They are second due to: Mt. Kisco, Somers, Banksville, parts of Yorktown, parts of Croton Falls (I think), They are third due to parts of Chappaqua, parts of Millwood, and even parts of Croton possibly (it's not far across 35 down to 129 and into Croton's eastern box) SO if you get a big job (remember there are big houses as well as commercial property in those juristictions) chances are there might be three trucks there. Chances are Bedford Hills is going to be one of them, especially if other departments in between have already been tapped for Engines or Tankers.

Given TPWS's indication that this forum should have been about departments not providing mutual aid if they aren't prepared to still protect thier own first due, then I totally agree and I'll delete my littany of quoted replies to his prior posts which you may have seen in this space a moment ago.

Back filling doesn't appear to be the hot button here. Just packing up and leaving a "scene or station" because you want to, are sick of being there, or for another call isn't right under any scenerio. If you are on the scene, you are committed to the scene. If you are filling someone's quarters, and there a county wide accepted system for backfilling, and the department for which you are standing by for participates in such a system then fine you can leave to take the call so long as a next due unit is alerted immeadiatly to cover your assignement for the standby. Overall though, outside of large citys, I wouldn't favor a system of backfilling. It's easy to move Truck 16 across Central Park to fill Truck 4's quarters. It's the same department. If Brewster is relying on Patterson to fill their quarters, I wouldn't want to worry about Patterson leaving to take calls, locking the building, waiting for Kent to arrive, make sure someone can unlock the building.... etc. I would hope that if Patterson has a rig in Brewster, that the remainder of Patterson's department is aware of that and diligent about covering calls in their box. If they get a job that requires additional resources, activate the mutual aid system again. Just my 2 cents....

Ditto

WOW..... I can't believe you actually posted that..... Just because someone else left your job doesn't mean that it's ok for you to do it to someone else. When your tones are dropped for a M/A response, you are part of that fire command and the scope of their needs until released. Even if there isn't chapter and verse to say so (which I'm sure there is something in the county M/A charter that says that there is) it's common respect to stay until you're not needed. THEN even after you aren't needed any more it's the right thing to ask if the department would like your assistance back in quarters to finish getting back in service. WOW... WOW... WOW.....

I think the use of hybrid electric busses is great. Not because I think there is any weight behind all the crybaby global warming complaints that Al Gore and crew are shooting around (the earth heats and cools in cycles over hundredes & thousands of years) but because of all the obvious benefits to practicality. Less moving parts (no transmission), smoother ride (no annoying shifts from the bus driver who loves to mash on the throttle then lift all the way off), smaller diesel engines (a 5.9L was quoted which sounds like the Cummins powerplant that is offered in Ram's and light commercial applications versus a huge 60 series or M11 etc.) less fuel costs, less soot to cover the winshield of my car when following etc.... I think there are other places where this can be implemented sooner than later... Garbage trucks make a perfect fit for this. They are on the road every day making tons of stops where regenerative braking will benefit and their automatic transmissions take a massive beating (again... garbage truck chauffers love to jam on the throttle, run 1st gear to redline, lift off just in time to have the tranny shift, then pounce on the brakes to make another stop.)

This isn't a response to any one post or thread... but rather a response to a theme that I see developing.... There are several threads that have come across the board in the past few months where individuals have taken the point of view on saftey and other similar topics that it is their choice to do what they want, and if something happens there is no one to blame but themselves... So what's the big deal? It's a very big deal and here is why..... No matter what it is that you are doing, when you are a member of an organization, ultimatly that organization and it's leaders are responsible for your actions. Boy Scouts, Fire Department, VFW, or even a major corporation's leaders are held accountable for their subordinates actions. For example, the Duke University Lacrosse Coach was forced to resign because of the way that his players were conducting themselves off the field. There have been several instances of public officials who have been forced from their posts (Fire Chief's included) because their men (women too) were doing things that were considered inappropriate or unsafe. We as emergency services providers, when we gather amongst ourselves for sports, vacation, beers at the pub, etc aren't just looked at as a bunch of blokes getting together for fun that did something inappropriate, the press looks for the first common element amongst us to title us. It's not a bar brawl started by a bunch of 30 year old Westchester residents, but rather a bar brawl that was started by a bunch of XYZ Firefighters.... And guess who law enforcement or the press is going to want to put on camera to expain what happened.... The Chief... Who is going to be the first person fired, stripped of command, or charged with a crime for lack of oversight... you guessed it, The Chief. So my point is, that before we all go and decide to do something that on the surface looks like a personal choice to take a risk, lets take a step back and see what the real long term ramifications are when the crap hits the fan. You may be putting other people at risk who aren't even present for whatever stunt you are about to pull.

I was a 35 and pissed off that I wasn't closer to 40...

I've never been one for flashy displays of rank, title, organization, etc... Badges, blue lights, whatever it is. BUT This is crazy. If the badge is illegal and the EMT didn't know it then confiscate it and be done. Holding an EMT for 72 hours is out of control. Law enforcement needs to take a step back in this situation and ask them selves what good to the community are they doing by holding someone (an emergency worker who could be out helping others) for 72 hours. FINALLY There are plenty of goobers in our line of work who love to put on a huge show with all sorts of gear. My advice is unless it is absolutely necessary as a part of the duty that you are performing while ON A CALL.... leave the "look at me I'm an emergency service provider" gear in the bag or at the station. It'll keep your tit out of the ringer.

By BRYAN E. BLEDSOE M.D. In a small community hospital in rural Indiana, a 63-year-old man is suffering from heart problems. The treating physician determines that the patient’s condition is serious and makes arrangements to move the patient to a larger hospital with more resources and specialists. A medical helicopter is called to make thetransfer. No one questions the increased cost of using the helicopter — or the extra risk inherent in flying. There is nothing remarkable about this scenario. Every day, patients in communities across the United States are transported by medical helicopter. But the 63-year-old patient on this flight didn’t arrive at the larger hospital; the helicopter transporting him crashed en route. With the others on board too seriously injured to help him, he strangled to death on a restraining strap. The injured crew and pilot were transported by another helicopter to a trauma center. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ruled the cause of the accident pilot error; before the flight, the altimeter was known to be malfunctioning. This disaster is one of 35 medical helicopter accidents that occurred in the United States in 2004 and 2005. Since January 2005, nine crashes resulted in 23 fatalities, a rash of medical helicopter mishaps not seen since the 1980s. It is widely assumed that medical helicopters provide a significant advantage for patients and save lives. However, recent studies have begun to demonstrate that few patients actually benefit from medical helicopter transport, even during most emergencies. Helicopter transport is appropriate for patients who have conditions that require a time-sensitive intervention, such as life-saving surgery or cardiac angioplasty. These conditions are rare. Medical helicopters were first used for civilian health care in the 1970s. Initial scientific studies in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that patients transported by helicopter had improved outcomes over those transported by ground. Therefore, many hospitals purchased helicopters and began offering helicopter transport. Today, there are nearly 800 medical helicopters in the United States. In metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, alone there are more medical helicopters than can be found in all of Canada. One of the reasons for this proliferation is a change in health care regulations. In the late 1990s, the air ambulance industry was successful in pushing federal regulators to increase Medicare payments for air transports. With an improved reimbursement scheme, an opportunity suddenly opened up for commercial operators to enter the arena. Many helicopter transport companies opted for less expensive, pre-owned, single-engine aircraft — scores of which had already put in decades of work ferrying oil rig workers to platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the commercial operators also kept salaries fo pilots and medical personnel relatively low in order to field additional aircraft. Medical helicopters became commonplace. Recently, researchers have again studied the helicopter transport of ill or injured patients and have drawn considerably different conclusions from those of the researchers working two decades earlier. There is increasing evidence that only a fraction of the patients transported by helicopter derive any significant benefit over patients transported on the ground, a change likely due to improved capabilities of land ambulances. A 2002 Stanford University study evaluated 947 patients delivered consecutively to a California trauma center by medical helicopter and found that only 1.8 percent needed immediate surgery for life-threatening problems. The researchers concluded that only nine of the 947 patients possibly benefited from helicopter transport and that for five patients, helicopter transport was possibly harmful. Last year, a group of university researchers, including myself, and state officials from Vermont and Wisconsin conducted a study of 37,350 trauma patients transported by helicopter from the accident scene to a hospital. We found that approximately two-thirds of the patients had injuries that, based on validated trauma criteria, are considered minor. (The abstract was published in the journal Prehospital Emergency Care, and the full article will soon be published in the Journal of Trauma.) More research may be needed to demonstrate the scope of the problem, but questions about the utility of medical helicopters extend to the highest levels of the medical community. “There is simply not enough science [measuring the utility of medical helicopter transport],” says Richard H. Carmona, U.S. surgeon general and former medical director of the Arizona State Police medical helicopter program. “I am concerned that resources, such as medical helicopters, are used appropriately and cost-effectively for the benefit of the patient.” Carmona suggests that air ambulances be incorporated into the emergency medical system and be dispatched using a common communications system and be held to standards that decrease expenses. Right now, the air ambulances have a lot of influence over when and where they fly. Overworked hospital physicians will gladly authorize helicopter transport — just to get a patient out of the hospital so another patient can fill the bed. Cost is often forgotten or not considered. Likewise, at accident scenes, helicopters are easy to call for. Helicopter operations often provide volunteer fire departments and ambulance squads with free pizzas, coffee cups, key chains, and even medical equipment, and encourage the rescue workers to call for the helicopter before they arrive at the scene — long before they have a chance to even lay eyes on their patients. This adds to a system already out of control. Many families are now being left with air ambulance bills ranging from $8,000 to, as in one case in Arizona, $40,000. Patients are being billed because Medicare administrators and private insurance carriers are more carefully scrutinizing compensation for helicopter transport, possibly because the number of flights paid for by Medicare alone was 58 percent higher in 2004 than the number paid for in 2001. Many of the for-profit helicopter operators hire collection agencies to aggressively pursue patients for payments of these unexpected bills. Besides cost, safety is a consideration. The proliferation of medical helicopters has been accompanied by a marked increase in the number of accidents, prompting the NTSB to issue a safety advisory for medical helicopter operators last January. The bulletin recommended that ambulance operators improve qualifications of dispatchers, enhance preflight risk assessment, use night-vision imaging, and install terrain awareness and warning systems in all medical aircraft. The air medical industry is slowly beginning to initiate measures to enhance safety and clearly wants to dissociate from the idea that operators are the sole source and solution to the problem. “Air medical providers are taking the NTSB recommendations seriously,” says Edward Eroe, president of the Association of Air Medical Services. “We want to partner with them to improve safety, as we all have to work together to make real improvement.” But the increase in the number of medical helicopters has also resulted in a marked decrease in the number of qualified pilots, flight nurses, and paramedics available for hire. The rise in demand, accompanied by the retirement of Vietnamera pilots from the medical helicopter ranks, has caused many medical helicopter operators to drop the minimum number of flight hours they require of pilot applicants. Furthermore, because flights equal revenue, some pilots are being pushed to fly in questionable conditions. The tremendous increase in the medical helicopter accident rate prompted Johns Hopkins School of Public Health researchers to evaluate emergency medical service helicopter crashes from 1983 through April 2005. They found that being a member of a medical flight crew is now among the most dangerous occupations in the United States — six times more dangerous than standard occupations and twice as dangerous as mining and farming — similar in riskiness to the duties of combat pilots in wartime. Here in the land of plenty, we have created a system that has taken a useful tool — the medical helicopter — and transformed it into the most dangerous and most expensive transport modality available. be.