LFD34

The Bureau of EMS was notified late Friday afternoon that the Trustee handling the TransCare EMS bankruptcy  ordered Transcare Hudson Valley to cease operations and to pull their units from service in Putnam.  The Bureau was immediately authorized by County Executive MaryEllen Odell to Implement its contingency plan. This evening we are transitioning the County ALS FlyCar system from TransCare to EMSTAR. Fortunately most of the TransCare staff have accepted positions with EMSTAR.  Due to the last minute notice we were only able to initially activate 3 EMSTAR Flycars to replace the four TransCare Units. We are hopeful we can have the fourth ALS Unit and a BLS Unit in service at some point this weekend or early next week. This has been a trying time for the TransCare staff and Bureau staff as well. We will do everything in our power to maintain an ALS system that continues to assure the health and safety of all our residents. Please be patient with us as we move forward with our new ALS provider. Thank you.  Commissioner Sutton

I hope those words don't come back to bite him in the ass. If there's a fire or injury (or worse) I suspect he'll be hearing about it.

Well deserved promotion

Congratulations. Just remember the road of a 1,000 miles starts with the first step. Modernization takes time, start with the easy things.

VMFD actually was called to that fire. They had an engine called to the scene, that encountered water supply issues. I believe their ladder was also on standby.
Their are decisions that are made by the chief of a department both during the preplanning and at the scene of a fire that are the responsibility of the chief and the chief alone as he becomes the person responsible. Some of these decisions include how to fight the fire, and what resources to use to figth that fire. When we give someone that responsiblity we must also give them that authority.
I think as has been reiterated many times in these posts is that if we want all resources considered equal by chief officers we have to ensure that they actually are. This includes many of the points brought here such as training, response time, manning, equipment and I'm sure a few other items.
I think one of the starting points for this would be to have the county take over all in service training in addtiion to the formal training given now. In that manner the training could be tracked and standardized.

VMFD actually was called to that fire. They had an engine called to the scene, that encountered water supply issues. I believe their ladder was also on standby.
Their are decisions that are made by the chief of a department both during the preplanning and at the scene of a fire that are the responsibility of the chief and the chief alone as he becomes the person responsible. Some of these decisions include how to fight the fire, and what resources to use to figth that fire. When we give someone that responsiblity we must also give them that authority.
I think as has been reiterated many times in these posts is that if we want all resources considered equal by chief officers we have to ensure that they actually are. This includes many of the points brought here such as training, response time, manning, equipment and I'm sure a few other items.
I think one of the starting points for this would be to have the county take over all in service training in addtiion to the formal training given now. In that manner the training could be tracked and standardized.

VMFD actually was called to that fire. They had an engine called to the scene, that encountered water supply issues. I believe their ladder was also on standby.
Their are decisions that are made by the chief of a department both during the preplanning and at the scene of a fire that are the responsibility of the chief and the chief alone as he becomes the person responsible. Some of these decisions include how to fight the fire, and what resources to use to figth that fire. When we give someone that responsiblity we must also give them that authority.
I think as has been reiterated many times in these posts is that if we want all resources considered equal by chief officers we have to ensure that they actually are. This includes many of the points brought here such as training, response time, manning, equipment and I'm sure a few other items.
I think one of the starting points for this would be to have the county take over all in service training in addtiion to the formal training given now. In that manner the training could be tracked and standardized.

Congratulations. Just remember the road of a 1,000 miles starts with the first step. Modernization takes time, start with the easy things.

I'm Glad it looks like Yonkers is going to get a very qualified commissioner. However with a job as deep and professional as Yonkers didn't they have a deep stable of talent internally to pick from?

I agree 100 % with Barry on this. I believe that we need to show the public and hte politicians the benefit of this. This needs to be made a regional effort to overcome the trades. This can't be handled one municipality at a time as then the local laws are to hard to get approved in Albany. This has been seen when municiplaities have passed their own sprinkler ordinances just to get overturned as being to restrictive and not in line with the state building code. This effort needs to be made at actually changing the State building code, to mandate residential sprinklers and other appropriate protection measures.

I believe that this just points out the need to formalize the training needed, before operating emergency vehicles. I bleieve that more than EVOC is needed. New York is one of the few states that still don't require CDLs for vehicles that would require them if not in use by the Fire service. I would go a step further and mandate an Emergency Vehicle Operator endorsement for any operator of any emergency vehicle that would formalize the training such as provided by EVOC

IF NYC can ensure such accountability why can't every department that requests mutual aid on a daily basis expect the same. We need to enforce consistency on every incident, instead of just planning for the "big one"

IF NYC can ensure such accountability why can't every department that requests mutual aid on a daily basis expect the same. We need to enforce consistency on every incident, instead of just planning for the "big one"

See Incident Alert for more information about this accident!