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I personally would love to attend and learn or refresh on techniques and have some more terrorism training, as well see FDNY Rescue techniques and tour the NYC WTC site, but I work during the week, and this takes place on Thursday and Friday. Cannot afford to miss work, but would thoroughly enjoy the training. Silly Bills and stuff. Some day......Don't see myself getting a chance to see the WTC site any time soon either, but that's my problem...Sounds like it is well worth attending for those who take firefighting seriously. Buck's Hollow sounds interesting, but cannot afford "toys" in this economy. Just the way it is...

Our Department runs Fire and EMS, but to help with the day time calls has a paid day crew consisting of a Paramedic and an AEMT or EMT from 6 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday. They are not considered members of the FD, which means we are not a combination Department. Same with the Departments that staff a paid AEMT or EMT that will respond with a volunteer - they are a separate entity paid by their EMS employer indirectly by the FD or Town or city, but are not considered part of the FD per se - they are employees of the EMS provider.

Well done documentary - just wish there were no commercials. Those who perished and those who survived are still in my thoughts and prayers. The visions of what those who initially responded and who worked on the pile afterward saw unfortunately may never dull with time, as evidenced by those interviewed. You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. Hope they and their families know we still care about them............and some of us, although not the best at what we do, will continue to try to carry on their work, because that is what we train to do, what we feel is our calling, what we almost MUST do, for others and ourselves, because we are needed........... God bless them all.

Thank you very much for mentioning this - it only hit our local paper after you posted this and I left copies of the Danbury Railway Museum flier for all three Companies thanks to your heads-up. Hopefully the train afficionados and the children will take advantage of it. Had to look a little to find it again to recheck the info before reminding the FD people. Thank you again, and hope you are feeling better and things are going much better for you and your family.

That, and if you are searching and performing a rescue without a hose line on a floor above the fire, close the door behind if it is safe to do so; then the products of combustion from the lower fire floors don't build up in your search area/room and create a similar incident. And thanks for the posting - excellent reminder for us to look at all aspects of a fire.

If we have found the problem and resolved it, or found no problem and investigation determines it is just a malfunction or an accidental set-off, we will try to reset the alarm system for businesses, the school or homes. Sometimes for homes, we let the homeowner reset it themselves or have them contact the alarm company if there is a problem with the system. If we cannot reset it for some reason - due to a continuing malfunction or something similar - we will try again, then if we have to we silence the audible and leave the system in alarm, but notify the fire marshall and have the key holder contact the alarm company to have them come and resolve the problem as soon as possible, especially for schools and businesses. If there is no key holder and there is no visible reason to gain entry on an outside walk-around and thermal camera search, we notify Dispatch to tell the alarm company (if there is one) the alarm sounded but there was no reason to force entry and no problem seen, and if it is an alarm with no company attachment, try to leave the same message for the key holder so they can have it reset, and then we can leave. I would imagine there would be far more liability for not trying to reset it and just walking away than for resetting it and leaving the place with some form of protection... Antiquefirelt - is a RP similar to a Fire Marshall, or is a RP a totally different entity with different responsibilities?

Congratulations, Hopewell Hose, on your 100 years of volunteering and giving your best to your community. I have only heard great things about your personnel, and wish you all many more years of making East Fishkill proud. Enjoy your party - you have well earned it!

No offense, but shouldn't your old gear be returned to your firehouse where you received it to begin with so a newer member can "play" too, since the firehouse may be the one who paid for it to begin with? You should not be making money selling off your Department's equipment - in my Company and Department, that would be called "theft". Just saying.... Saw post #6 - Congratulations on the weight loss and the new gear purchase, and I apologize for the above - sometimes different rules in different places for how to get appropriate NFPA gear when you join - but same rule for self-purchased stuff, which is that it is yours to do what you want with it when you no longer want it. Good luck.

If we have a high degree of suspicion (certain medications, overall appearance and presentation, past history with patient, Police giving us a heads-up on the side, evidence of possibility on scene) we may ask, but if a regular Joe falls down and is bleeding and we walk over and ask for a medical history from him, we are not going to ask "By the way, do you have AIDS, ebola, HIV, Hep-anything, TB or anything we would almost want to call a Haz Mat team for?" We hope they will be honest and tell us if we ask the general questions, but we have enough problem getting patients tell us the normal stuff ( "I have no medical problems. " "Why are you taking this med. (from the 2-page list)? "For my BP" "And this one...?") Some patients may even get very offended if we ask them the contagious list. So we usually do not, and hope for the best. Remember BSI always, keep an eye on the patient as much as possible and watch for sharps, and sanitize what you can if it gets in contact with everyone but you, and even then......

Good luck to all of you in the Allingtown Volunteer Fire - er, the City of West Haven Fire Department Allingtown. I know that you have been working hard to maintain training and cover your district, and have faith that you will continue to do so, hopefully making it easier with the City support. Keep us posted, and glad you have your Charter protection to prevent takeover of your resources by the new Board of Fire Commissioners. Hopefully they can straighten out the general fund deficit and pension liability issues in due time, making everyone's life a little easier.

Sincere condolences to the Becerra family, and very sorry Pete did not live long enough to see the people that would have showed up for the fundraiser and in physical and moral support. The whole family has served others well, from the sounds of it, and they and his FD and Law Enforcement family are in our prayers and thoughts in their time of mourning.

Is Governor Malloy still fighting meeting the minimum requirement staffing level passed by the Legislature years ago, or would these candidates just fill the available pool should the number slip down enough that job slot openings occur through retirement and attrition at some distant future date?

The attack and immediate aftermath were in the papers, because I read about it either in the NY Daily News or, more likely, USA Today a day or two later. I hope Mr. Strait is recovering from his physical injuries, although the emotional scars may never heal. We thank him for his service, grieve his loss, and hope he and his family can find comfort in knowing that people do care, and hope those non-human cretins are brought to full punishment.

FFPCogs: In the Stamford thread post #1798 you have been in Stamford attending every meeting except Tuesdays, and here you are in Afghanistan. Where are you right now? PS: Saw your update: Hope you heal well, and glad you keep involved in everything wherever you are.

FFPCogs: In the Life in Afghanistan thread you are in Afghanistan right now, but here you have been around attending every Charter Sub meeting except for Tuesday's due to your annual meeting at the FD. Where are you right now? Saw your update, and hope you are getting better and feeling better. Nice to know you keep up with what is going on no matter what part of the world you happen to be located in at the time. Your perspective and view on things is colored by your experiences, and you seem to bring a lot to the table. We do appreciate you sharing them with us.

The site looks great - very impressive. Never knew you could see details about members by putting cursor over name at "who's on/visiting site" (lower User) section - neat touch. Thank you for spending so much time and effort and probably stressful moments too trying to make the site more user friendly. And, like this post, it is sooooo nice to have it auto saved so if it does not post earlier, and you have to go back to work in the real world because break is over (boo, hiss), you can find it again and toss it up there just so the over-worked EMTBravo stff member(s) who make this site so enjoyable and are trying to accomodate all of us with our different likes/dislikes/bells and whistles preferences can have fun playing. Thank you, Seth!!!! And thanks to the moderators, who keep us in line.... Plus, I just edited my post.

Rest In Peace, Officer Tvelia. Our thoughts and prayers are with your wife and children, the family and your police family. Very sorry that you are the one needing an Honor Guard now, when you were on your way to serve as part of one for another Officer's mother. Way too young...

Firemoose827: When was the last time you had a full checkup???? You are starting to worry me with your "symptoms", and absolutely do NOT want to read about you in a RIP post - please follow up - you know the warning signs, and the big RED flasher is going off - either that or I am overreacting, but...... Please.

Rest in Peace, Lt. Neary and FF Sweeney. Our thoughts and prayers to them, their families, friends and the firefighters and emergency workers of Philadelphia. Something has to be done - Philadelphia and the suburbs have been burning like the Bronx in the 70's, and too many firefighters and emergency workers are being hurt and worse in way too short a time span with these arsons.

Rest in Peace

Just spent good part of almost two hours reading from the first post on. I never forget why our troops are there, and that they are there, and fully support their mission and their efforts to try to eradicate a threat that should never be supported by the people there, but is because, as you mentioned in an earlier post, they have nothing else to fall back on, and without our support they would have no other option but to fall under their rule. Our men and women are working hard to try to give them independence of thought and action, to see there are other means and ways to live their lives rather than as mindless followers of whomever walks in and threatens them into submission, to educate their people, and to help them work together instead of as isolated tribes to make the fledgling thought of democracy and freedom work - it just is harder because many do not have exposure outside their daily form of life, and the only news they get is the Al-Jazeerah and hard-line Islamist bull crap on the radio, so that is what they believe. I have long truly believed that, if the US led the coalition rather than NATO all those earlier years, things would be so very much better and safer in Afghanistan - look how fast (in military/non-civilian day-counting version) progress was made in Iraq once the troops were finally allowed to do the surge with the extra personnel and equipment they had been asking for, but that had been argued against by the people who could approve of it (including a former Illinois Senator now-turned-Commander-In-Chief who finally changed his mind when he really looked at the facts). Do I and many others believe Pakistan should be turned into a napalm pit? At this point, yes. India has been dealing with them training people to fight their troops in Kashmir since that was separated from India, we know they have been supplying, hiding and providing the foul killers from their safety of their borders, because Pakistan has no control over its vast northern part that breeds these maggots and never will, because it is too fractured and corrupt to even try. What I have always questioned is this: Is anything being done at all, in any way shape or fashion, to stem the flow of weapons from the money grubbing Chinese and Russians, and sometimes the French (the last two of which built Saddam's 26 palaces after the first Gulf War and provided his stockpiled weaponry with the money the UN was giving to feed his people) into Pakistan, which then gets to Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, Morocco, Indonesia, etc.? ANYTHING??? Stop the flow of weapons, and they have nothing to use to intimidate the population, which amazingly has had instances of revolting and killing the Taliban creeps when enough of their innocents get killed. Unfortunately, not often enough, because of that news flow issue. Enough from me. Thank you for going to work over there in support of our troops, and my thoughts and prayers are with all of you doing their part to try to make a dent in ignorance and destructive actions both there and here - it seems like we only make little dents as individuals, but hopefully some day that wall will fall and people will open their eyes and see this is really a tiny world and we really should start working together to avoid self-destruction. Or something like that. Take care, and be safe.

Rest In Peace, Officer Jaime Padrone. Our sympathy and prayers to his family and fellow Officers and co-workers, and extreme praise and support to Wal-Mart workers Lincoln LeMere and Archie Jordy, who worked together to subdue the creep and tried to get help for the fallen Officer - they went above and beyond, and tried their best to get help as fast as possible, according to the affidavit. Senseless killing in the extreme.

Jim and Gina Arena: Your daughter and the others serving will always be in our thoughts and prayers, hoping they stay safe and grateful to them for using their talents in the service of our country and to help others. She will be missed at Somers FD, but I am sure they will be looking for her when her tour is over. Good luck to all of you - when your child serves, you are also there in spirit, and it must be hard for you, so know you are also in our thoughts. God Bless all those who have served, are serving and will serve - you are fine examples of freedom and humanity.

They had a similar launch and mission between 2-3 years ago that was also visible to the public. Just checked the website link and confirmed what I remembered - it was Feb. 2009 over Alaska and North pole area.

Unfortunately, I do not "do" Facebook, but thanks for the heads up on the major software upgrade possibility. EMTBravo.net has done a great job of keeping its site very user friendly and informative, and an upgrade shortly after I joined made it even better, so we should anticipate great things for the workings of the site and the staff that work so hard to make it so enjoyable and informative. And maybe even more fun/interactive/creatively challenging for all of its contributors who make my visits here a treasure trove of knowledge, sometimes gasps of "Be Nice", and sometimes outright laughs. Cool pictures, articles - who knows what else they can come up with with a software upgrade. Good luck, and thanks.