fireguy43

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

First of all, you are so wrong on so many aspects of this post that I don't even know where to start. How would you know the debt structure of a privately owned company? How do you know what their financial statements look like, and what they own vs. what they don't own? And if you are running an EMS service, shouldn't you try to have vehicles that are "nice and new" as opposed to old rust buckets that are unreliable? When did that become wrong and reason to criticize? Running an EMS agency with a fleet of vehicles, each equipped with the standard load of equipment, eats up a lot of cash. That means that an EMS provider usually has a fair amount of debt. How much debt is really none of your business, has nothing to do with the level of service provided, and has zero impact on response times. Your earlier post that this happened because the Chief was a female was laughable, but now you crossed the line to an uninformed rant.

First of all, you are so wrong on so many aspects of this post that I don't even know where to start. How would you know the debt structure of a privately owned company? How do you know what their financial statements look like, and what they own vs. what they don't own? And if you are running an EMS service, shouldn't you try to have vehicles that are "nice and new" as opposed to old rust buckets that are unreliable? When did that become wrong and reason to criticize? Running an EMS agency with a fleet of vehicles, each equipped with the standard load of equipment, eats up a lot of cash. That means that an EMS provider usually has a fair amount of debt. How much debt is really none of your business, has nothing to do with the level of service provided, and has zero impact on response times. Your earlier post that this happened because the Chief was a female was laughable, but now you crossed the line to an uninformed rant.

More uninformed hatred. A quick search of public tax records deeds MLSS HQ, Newburgh, Middletown, and Kingston stations to either Mobile Life Support Services or a LLC with the same Newburgh PO box as MLSS. A common practice among medium-large businesses. As for vehicle leasing, who knows if they own or lease, another common practice among successful medium-large businesses. Maybe that's their trick, they incorporate traditional business practices into their plans as opposed to the traditional public safety methods of spend spend spend.

This is irresponsible and obviously you have some sort of ax to grind against MLSS. Whiskey and cigars? You state that there was no recent relationship between the town and MLSS, but don't they cover Monroe and Goshen? If I'm the Town Supervisor, the logical first call would be the service that covers the towns on either side of me. What a novel thought......the articles in the press allude to slow response times, complaints by town residents, fiscal problems, and a lack of communication with the town board. To represent that this was all a scheme by MLSS or the Town is just ridiculous and apparently baseless. Unbelieveable....

This is irresponsible and obviously you have some sort of ax to grind against MLSS. Whiskey and cigars? You state that there was no recent relationship between the town and MLSS, but don't they cover Monroe and Goshen? If I'm the Town Supervisor, the logical first call would be the service that covers the towns on either side of me. What a novel thought......the articles in the press allude to slow response times, complaints by town residents, fiscal problems, and a lack of communication with the town board. To represent that this was all a scheme by MLSS or the Town is just ridiculous and apparently baseless. Unbelieveable....

This is irresponsible and obviously you have some sort of ax to grind against MLSS. Whiskey and cigars? You state that there was no recent relationship between the town and MLSS, but don't they cover Monroe and Goshen? If I'm the Town Supervisor, the logical first call would be the service that covers the towns on either side of me. What a novel thought......the articles in the press allude to slow response times, complaints by town residents, fiscal problems, and a lack of communication with the town board. To represent that this was all a scheme by MLSS or the Town is just ridiculous and apparently baseless. Unbelieveable....

This is a ridiculous blanket statement, and this along with comparing the Muslim brotherhood to the vast majority of Muslims shows that you have only a vague and/or slanted understanding of Islam.
Look, I agree that the rules are the rules and that no one, regardless of their religious practices, should be exempt from rules that are designed simply to keep them safe. Its obvious that head coverings of the kind at issue here would be dangerous on a number of rides in the park as they could become caught in tracks, etc. And I agree that the event organizers, having been informed of these rules, didn't do a very good job of communicating this to event goers ahead of time. You'll get no argument from me that this is largely to blame for this incident occurring in the first place. But I also know from accounts of people who were there (and no one has mentioned this possibility so far) that the park rangers involved in the initial altercation didn't do a very good job of diffusing the situation. It's mentioned in one of the articles cited here that they pushed some of the women who confronted them which, unless they truly felt threatened (and come on, seriously?), just seems like a really bad idea. Putting your hands on a woman in a confrontational way in front of her husband or any male relative would surely escalate any situation regardless of the religious persuasions of those involved. Oh and by the way, those rangers are totally fine.
Long and short? I'm saying that there's blame to be placed pretty equally on both sides of this situation. And chalking this up as some kind of anti-American Islamic riot or an attempt to impose Sharia law in the US is just completely absurd. It was the unfortunate result of poor planning and poor communication, nothing more. This could have happened with a Jewish group, a Sikh group, or anyone else who's religious beliefs happened to conflict in any way with park rules. Making this out to be the fault of Muslim "animals" trying to take over our country as many of you have just makes you sound like close-minded buffoons. Sorry, but it's the truth. Should we blindly adopt some of their more out-dated (and little-followed) views as our own without questioning them? Absolutely not. But should we, by the same token, write off all their beliefs as "savage" and demand that they give them up without first questioning that logic? Absolutely not. A little cultural sensitivity isn't the same as being stupidly "PC" and a little worldly education goes a long way in averting this kind of incident.
Bring on the hate, I know it's coming.

I have no horse in this race so this is not personal.
How would the FD takeover of EMS save money for the city? They would have to staff ambulances in addition to the minimal fire coverage they currently provide and probably require more personnel with attendant salaries, benefits and pensions.
How many of their members are paramedics? How many of them are EMT's? How much EMS experience do they have? If they've never been doing EMS and suddenly jump into it there is a legitimate concern about the quality of care that would be received.
Given that the FD is pathetically under-staffed for fire suppression, they should be lobbying to do that better and not expand into another discipline for which they have no experience, no resources, and no money.
I hope you're not surprised that MLSS made a pitch against it. The FD proposal would cost EMS professionals their jobs and arguably, based upon provider experience, reduce the quality of care.
Does the City pay MLSS under the current EMS contract? Does anyone know how much $$ and for what number of resources? That information would help make this a more informed discussion too.

LOL- Wasn't "schwing" the word that Wayne and Garth (Wayne's World) used to describe the reaction of a "certain member of the male anatomy" to the sight of a beautiful girl? Can't believe no one picked up on that and commented about getting the Schwing up at a fire scene.... I must be getting too old.

Can i ask what you mean by "The whole dutchess saga" ???

Amazing...... someone notices that four calls went unanswered in Croton, and asks, very innocently enough, if anyone knows why. Two pages of thread later, people are coming out of the woodwork to declare that Croton EMS needs fixing, when not one fact was shared as to what the real, factual reason was for the lack of response in the first post. Not only does Croton apparently need paid EMT's, but we really ought to be talking about consolidation and regionalization! Maybe all Croton needed today was a good mechanic, but we don't know that, do we?
Perfect example of the rush to judgement and advancing one's own personal agenda without bothering to learn the facts.
I have no affiliation to Croton EMS, but I hope someone from that agency speaks up and at least puts on record what the real situation was today.

Amazing...... someone notices that four calls went unanswered in Croton, and asks, very innocently enough, if anyone knows why. Two pages of thread later, people are coming out of the woodwork to declare that Croton EMS needs fixing, when not one fact was shared as to what the real, factual reason was for the lack of response in the first post. Not only does Croton apparently need paid EMT's, but we really ought to be talking about consolidation and regionalization! Maybe all Croton needed today was a good mechanic, but we don't know that, do we?
Perfect example of the rush to judgement and advancing one's own personal agenda without bothering to learn the facts.
I have no affiliation to Croton EMS, but I hope someone from that agency speaks up and at least puts on record what the real situation was today.

The same guy who lets people from the city come north of Westchester County

SUNDAY September 12th, not Saturday

That was a totally uncalled for statement. There are still many volunteers out there who are extremely dedicated. Unfortunately, due to larger call volumes, those "handfuls" of volunteers who are willing to drop anything and run to a call cannot do it all themselves. Whether you are a volunteer or not, you still have work, family, and personal committments.
Yes, a true volunteer does it from the heart and does not expect anything in return. You totally missed the point here and just used it as a chance to criticize volunteers.

Tommy- You can't just post other people's pictures as if they were your own with no attribution or credit. That's just not right.