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No my friend I didn't try to make the cut...what I am saying is the truth! Ever see them at JFK in a lot way out near long term parking.SLEEPING? As for the comment someone made about the 23 who gave their lives..of course I am saddened for their loss just as much as I am saddened by the thousands of others who did also. They were in the wrong place every at the wrong time@ THE truth is that they are GROSSLY OVERPAID! Haven'the ever seen a PARAMEDICMAKE anywhere near that amount DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEIR JOB IS 100 TIMES MORE STRESSFUL than a Port Authority parking cop.

The Port Authority PD is a joke...yes a complete joke! Its an ATM for these guys who are glorified security guards who break balls at the airports. 400 K !! You have to be kidding. How many of them go disabled after one of these monster years? Bet more than 50%!! What happened to a CAP on these guys and girls? Pushing idling cars out of pick up lanes is worth 400K? Come on I'll do it 12 hours a day for 6 days a week for 125K and no benefits.....

While I get that self dispatching should be frowned upon with the information provided with the assigned Scarsdale engine unavailable Eastchester did the right thing self dispatching to save a life. Had the fire been in another section of Scarsdale then no. I am sure the Capt. in Eastchester knew that and should be commended for his action.

I only suggested the "call fee" because after all Atria is a money making business not a government funded or insurance funded nursing facility. So perhaps they may consider adding a nursing staff or even EMT's to staff the "pick me up desk". Do you not consider 3 to 5 calls per day to be ABUSING the system? We are a two rig gang with a fly car dedicated to the other "two abusers' and the towns in which they are located. We used to be an all volunteer agency but over the years the one or two calls per shift became 8 or 9 with these facilities creating the bulk of the calls. Volunteers burned out and now we are predominantly a paid service supplemented by some volunteers. It is bottom line a profit for them and a loss for us......

I agree with the poster about the epidemic and it is almost always THE ATRIA in every town! Used to be the nursing homes that were abusers. Friday and Saturday they call and send all their "problems" to the hospital for the weekend..now everytime its meal time at the Atria we might as well station a rig at each one for two hours. These people are making TONS OF MONEY without providing and medical emergency care on property. They do not contribute to the organizations at all. So, we are burning up resources for lift assists and the like. Hey the fuel and wear and tear on the vehicles AND the staff costs something. Solution, A $200 service fee EACH TIME there is NO TRANSPORT! Draw it up so it is binding and they will stop calling. It really is a scam by Atria who do nothing for their "guests" except feed them...amen

Which one did they buy with S&H Green Stamps?

Where would we need one of these?

The abuse of "assisted living" complexes in calling for 911 response for falls and other minor occurances has taken its toll on the system. In the case of Croton and Briarcliff the contract for ALS requires response by the Tri Village fly car on every call. Many of those calls are then deferred to OVAC ambulance 2 BLS unit because not all shifts are covered by per diems in those villages. It is an overload. In years gone by it was not uncommon for an entire 12 hour tour to go call free...now in a 12 hour tour there can be 12 or more calls. Abuse of the system? It's going to catch up with us and there will be a real problem one day.

For years any emergencies on the river have been hit or miss. I recall a fisherman lost off of Croton Point Park (he jumped in to retrieve a stuck lure) who was swept off the rocks and went missing. There were so many agencies involved searching for him but no one could talk to each other. The Coast Guard sent a chopper but no one on shore could talk to them. There were numerous "fire department" boats racing around but no one could figure out what frequency they could talk on. We need a plan...a frequency...and most importantly a helicopter with the capability of responding in bad weather and radios that are compatable with 60 and 44 control.

They are trained for exactly these kinds of days. I just wish that the agencies that are dispatched by police had the same training. Ambulance page in Ossining 1 min apart to same unit two different calls with the 2nd rig already running a call...geez this isn't citywide guys get a handle on who is what and where.

Completely out of control! It is an epedemic of people making money (Atria) and abusing the 911 system along with it. No less than 4 times a day to them in one town and 4 times a day in the next town coupled with another in the next and the flycar is basically assigned to them. Regardless, of whether they can be billed it is ridiculous! Especially in the evenings and weekends when there is less staff. All of these "assisted living" complexes should be required to have at least one and maybe two persons ON DUTY 24/7 for LIFT ASSISTS. Is it really an insurance issue or rather a lazy issue? People can be trained rather easily in how to lift a patient off the floor. It is time for the VOLUNTEERS to be respected rather than abused! Perhaps doubling the fee to the nursing home should be investigated for lift assist calls. That would stop the abuse in its tracks. Something should be done before there are no 911 ambulances availabe for true emergencies.

sorry abominasion...or in english...they spend more time driving to eat than they do working....has to be the greatest job in the world...show up...do nothing...get paid...amen!..they need six trucks in formation to watch one guy mow grass.....or three trucks to clear road kill...yet the flimsy barrier on rt. 9a in Briarcliff Manor has been down and dotted with cones for at least 4 weeks...solution wait for a saturday around mid day on overtime to look at it then take another two days of overtime to fix it....

NYSDOT in Westchester is an abolishion! Just today I was on the Taconic at around 12:30 pm southbound near Underhill Ave. A small dump with a quad cab with no snowfighting equiptment was crawling at 30 mph creating a TRAFFIC HAZARD! Seems like I see alot of "quad cab" NYSDOT trucks crawling everywhere around the county...nobody ever gets out..except for one hour breakfast breaks in the morning...one and a half hour lunch breaks at noon...and one hour drives back to the yard for a 45 minute washup at the end of the day? Is anybody monitoring these crews? You do know that when they are called in for overtime they are paid from the minute the call takes place...then given at least a one hour window to show up and then guaranteed 8 hours pay even if the storm fizzles out! WASTE OF MY TAX DOLLARS

The practice of stripping other departments needs to end RIGHT NOW! It is going to happen one of these days that a major fire in a "stripped" department isn't covered. What are these mayors and other politicians going to say then? Ooops doesn't cut it! If Mt. Vernon is so understaffed that they go mutual aid on just about any structure fire something is very wrong! Maybe if these corrupt mayors (seems like Mt. Vernon mayors have always been corrupt) can't be stopped then THE STATE or THE COUNTY needs to come in and take over until the problem is rectified! Pelham and Pelham Manor PAY THEIR FIREFIGHTERS to fight fires in their respective villages. They should be forbidden to fill Mt. Vernon until Mt. Vernon fully staffs their department. If they need to call in off-duty so be it....that should happen first and only after that should anyone consider responding Mutual Aid! I am thankful that I live in an ALL VOLUNTEER DISTRICT and am not worried at all about MY FIREDEPARTMENT responding to any alarm or providing some manpower to surrounding towns or villages. I am confident that should WE NEED help from them that they will respond as well.

A very touchy subject but one that needs to be addressed. A facility such as Cedar Knolls most times is UNDERSTAFFED and what staff that are there JUST DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED with the same old crap so they ship the problems out. Much like many nursing homes do on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays because they too don't want the hassle of dealing with "frequent flyers all weekend or night long..IT IS FACT. The recent explosion of 'assisted living" facilities such as Atria and their cousins have inundated EMS agencies with "Slip and falls..and no one from the facility is trained or willing to pick the people up or render help. They call EMS to come and pick the people off the floor...that is NOT what EMS is for! Atria accounts for no less than 20 % of calls in Ossining and Briarcliff during the day....THAT MY FRIENDS IS ABUSING THE SYSTEM TO THE HILT.

Truth is most of these Pelham/Pelham Manor...Ossining Town/Village...Rye/Rye Brook....Harrison/West Harrison...White Plains/North White Plains combos are all about "the good old boys club" Heaven forbid we don't have a town supervisor and town board then a Mayor and a village manager...our property values would go soooooo low if we were known as West Harrison or Town of Ossining instead of Briarcliff Manor or Tarrytown vs Sleepy Hollow! It is time to wake up people all this duplication of services costs MONEY and it comes from TAXES...combine them all and share services before there is no one left in Westchester that can afford to live here!

Probably and insurance thing as well. That alarm is a little far from Bronx/Yonkers border for a mutual aid assignment. Had the fire been either on Riverdale Ave or Broadway area just North of the City Line FDNY quick response to save lives might have been utilized. Great job all the way around!

The Village of Ossining Police Department is well equipped to handle anything the Town of Ossining needs. The officers of the Village PD are recognized by almost everyone in the Ossining School District area and have conducted nearly all of the Police work in the school system...ie....Dare etc. They are very well respected by all! As far as being able to cover the Town with the addition of a few officers it would be much quicker for additional officers and equipment to respond from the Village than waiting for extra officers to come from all parts of the county. Have no fear the officers who were Town who went with the County can find plenty of work with the County at the airport at least to save some overtime for the County. This plan is a HOME RUN!

Just chiming in here...you are correct on the timing of a drill.....do it at 10 am...or 3 am and see what you get. No notice no clues...do it in a part of Westchester that is notoriously UNDERSTAFFED during those hours and see what you get...i say chaos which in the case of an MCI with so many buffs and not enuffs..... I don't have a solution but it scares me everyday to think what would happen. Perhaps a central county EMS with 2 or three busses and a supervisor ready to respond and take charge of a scene no matter the juristiction! Lets face it from WMC to any part of the county you really are no more than 10 to 15 minutes away from anywhere. God forbid a commercial aircraft MCI near HPN....from WMC its a 8 to 10 minute response....from Yonkers its 15....Empress could handle first MCI response to south county....I guess WEMS could handle north county but a central county should come out of WMC.

As much as I like friendly's for some things...THEIR SERVICE KILLED THEM! THE SLOWEST SERVERS IN THE INDUSTRY...JUST LIKE HOWARD JOHNSONS USED TO BE......

I had the privilege of riding with Charlie and his good friend Chuck Rockefeller 25 years ago. Both men were the greatest example of the term "volunteer". They both had retired from very good careers and chose to give back to the community every Monday from 6am to 6pm. It was an amazing experience to watch these two men, the compassion and caring they had for whomever we were called to aid. Charlie "O" of course was also a mainstay with Croton EMS as well. On other days of the week he would be on almost every EMS call in Croton especially during the day. He had a great sense of humor and was always quick with a smile. Everybody loved Charlie. Now he has gone to help our friend Joe Prefontaine up in heaven. I'm sure they are taking care of all the bumps and bruises up there. RIP Charlie and Joe.....

About 20 years ago ( I may be wrong on the years) I stopped on the Sprain Brook Pkwy at 100B at the scene of a head on colision in the southbound lanes. A vehicle from the north bound lane went down the embankment and crashed head on into a mustang convertible coming southbound. I was a member of the Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps with only first aid training as I was a driver. I was the first "medical" person on the scene. There were two ejections and one pinned in the Mustang. The ejected were mortally injured. It took awhile for response from the NYSP due to traffic. About 10 minutes after the collision the first ambulance arrived and it was another 5 for the first Emergency Service truck to arrive. At some point StatFlight was called. This was less than two miles from the medical center. The extrication took at least 10 minutes so a total of 1/2 hour had elapsed before the driver (who was an off duty NYPD) was freed. Unfortunately, as soon as he was extricated his injuries were so severe that he died almost immediately. The bird was there by the time they loaded and got airborne he could have been in the ER before they left the ground. I agree at the outset STAT flight was overused in westchester county.

From a non medical standpoint that location is 15 to 20 minutes from the Medical Center at most..maybe a little less if a police escort helps out at the lights in Ossining and Briarcliff which is not as difficult as it sounds. Because there was "no extrication" required from the time patient contact was made to delivery at the Med Center it should have required no more than 30 minutes total. No question ground could have gotten the patient there much quicker than waiting for a bird. The medics could have "worked" the patient enroute to save time. The roadway is level and smooth for the most part with only one curve to negotiate. I've driven that route many times in the past with TRAUMA patients being worked and never had a problem getting them there without incident and safely.

dollars people...no extra dollars for paint