trauma74

The vast majority of EMS in Westchester is BLS with ALS flycars. Tech rescue, extrication, etc are provided for by fire depts. Over the last 10 years BLS equipment and protocols has changed little. Why do we need such large vehicles? I know you mentioned Westchester here, but buses are getting bigger all over. Up here in Orange County pretty much everyone is getting bigger buses. We have two new Horton buses on the way. They are mounted on International chassis. Our reason for the bigger chassis is because we have found that FORD chassis along with the braking and suspension systems take too much of a beaten with the size of our box and the amount of weight we carry from the equpiment. FORD quality is also going down hill. There is always one issue or another and FORD is reluctant to want to fix the problems. FORD now limits what you can modify on the van chassis and it is becoming more of a pain in the a** when you try to spec out a new bus. With our new Internationals we will go thru brakes less often and have less issues with the suspension system. White Plains and Yonkers are both covered by type II chassis BLS buses and seem to do quite well. Much more common and my personal preferance are type I. They offer the versatillity to transport two fully immobilized patients and can comfortable store more than enough equipment for BLS or ALS. If you are going to transport two fully immobilized you should have the abilty to transport some walking wounded who either do not need or refuse spinal immobilization. You need room to move around in the back of the bus. A type 2 van is just way to small for that. Plus if you need a medic to get on board you need room for them to work. So this post didn't come completely out of my a$$ I checeked out a couple local vacs and these things are half empty. A full compartment just for the AED. A sealed compartment to ensure 800 compliance. Seating for 5 plus the patient. I've never met anyone who could perform effective CPR sitting down especially with the new protocols. Our new buses are going to have more cabinet/compartment space then our current buses. Our box is going to be six inches longer and six inches taller then what we have now. We do have a part 800 cabinet to always ensure that we have the proper equipment in the event of a surprise NYS DOH inspection. Our cabinets will be full. We have always overstocked our buses because if we get back go back jobs and we are unable to get back to the bay to restock we do not want to be our of service and unable to respond to a call in our town. We also carry fire rehab equipment on our buses such as cool mist fans, extra bottled water, extra backboards, extra 02 masks, folding chairs, coolers, extra spare 02 bottles. This is done because sometimes when we are short on manpower we can function for a while until we can get more buses to the scene. There are times when we have 4 members riding the same shift. We need to have enough room for all 4 members on the bus, plus a medic if needed and do not forget about taking a patients family in the bus with you. If your vehicles are being driven into the ground before being replaced maybe you can afford to speed up the replacement schedule by going with a smaller vehicle. Instead of rolling around on those mini wheeles and over burdended chasis you can get a vehicle that rides better and might last longer. We do not drive our vehicles into the ground, but we do keep them for about 10 years. With the Internationals we can get a few more years out of them if needed. Our Town Board purchases our buses for us. They do not mind spending the extra money for what we need. How about spend that money on the membership. Upgrade facilities, free uniforms, a stocked fridge, send the members to the EMS expo. Volunteers give up alot of their time and rewards are always appreciated. If you can't get volleys then spend the money to hire some coverage at rate they deserve instead of the prevaling wage. We spend a lot of money on our membership. We have a new building, we give all members free uniforms (pants, shirts, jackets, boots, turnout gear, workshirts, t-shirts etc), We send our members to at least two EMS Expos a year, our kitchen cabinets and our fridge is always fully stocked. We are always giving away little perks to the membership. So we have our big buses and we take care of everyone!

Click the link below to see our new Horton Type 1 ambulances mounted on International Truck chassis. They will be delivered within the next 2 weeks. http://chesterambulance.com/rigs.html

Box is bigger then what we have now. Main thing is that the chassis is not a FORD. We are getting away from FORD for various reasons.

Up here in Orange County the H.E.A.R. radio system is alive and well. 155.340 & 155.400 are used depending on which hospital you are going to. You MUST make notification to the hospital for any type of medical/trauma/psych patient otherwise you will get chewed out by the ER staff.

Here are some pre-delivery spy shots of one of two ambulances (twins) that will be delivered to my VAC in the next few weeks. There will be some minor changes made to these ambulances prior to delivery. One change will be the color of some of the emergency lighting.

sorry! Having a problem uploading pics!

I got to see the new FDNY Rescue 1 at the Buff Show on Long Island over the weekend. All I can say is "IT WAS AWESOME"

Every once in a while you hear a story about someone getting busted by the cops for having a scanner in their vehicle. I have never heard about someone getting pulled over just for having a scanner in their car. I have heard about FD and/or EMS members being stopped for other violations of the VTL and when the cop approached the vehicle a scanner was sitting there in plain view. I can only speak for Orange County when I say that most cops around here are not going to arrest you or write you a summons for having a scanner in your car. Prior to my POV being certified as an "Authorized Emergency Vehicle" I never had any problems with having a scanner in my vehicle. Our local Town & Village PDs are cool with us having scanners and VHF radios in our POVs. We actually have permission to have their frequencies in our radios in case we have to contact them directly when responding to a call or when we are on the scene with them.

I have one in my truck, Uniden BCT15. It is my console along woth my Motorola CDM and Kenwood Lowband mobile radios.

Here are the facts about New Windsor VAC: A few years ago, the Town of New Windsor Supervisor locked NWVAC out of their building which was actually owned by the Town. NWVAC still existed as an agency, but they were out of service because they had no HQ to operate out of, no way to get dispatched and no way to respond. A private for-profit EMS agency was brought in by Town Supervisor George Meyers to handle all of the EMS calls in New Windsor. During this time, NWVAC held meetings of their Board & Membership at the Cornwall Volunteer Ambulance HQ. Their vehicles and equipment were stored at the Quality Auto Body Shop on the Town of Montgomery at no charge. NWVAC figured out a plan to reorganize and get back into service. When election time came, a former Town Supervisor, George Green ran against George Meyers and won by over 200 votes. Green had promised NWVAC and the public that he would get NWVAC back in service. In 2/06 NWVAC returned to their HQ and went back in service. They have been in service since then and they have responded to over 1200 calls. They have a paid Chief & paid Assistant Chief who run all of the operations. The contract that NWVAC has for these paid guys gives them a nice salary that includes overtime, medical benefits, unlimited sick days and a vehicles assigned to them. They both have Chevy Tahoe fly cars with unlimited mileage. During the hours of 6am-6pm Monday-Friday, there is a primary crew on duty staffed by two EMTs from Regional EMS. There is also a backup crew on duty made up of two volunteers or the paid Chief or Asst. Chief. There is one Regional EMT on for the daytime during the weekend. All other shifts are covered by volunteers or the paid Chief/Asst. Chief. There is a volunteer Field Supervisor who helps oversee day to day operations. They have a Board of Directors made up of volunteer members. The Board oversees the Chief & Asst. Chief and negotiates their contracts. Regional EMS is now the ALS provider for the Town of New Windsor. They respond to all ALS jobs in the Town. NWVAC bills for all of the calls (ALS & BLS) that they respond to in the Town. They give Regional a flat rate for all ALS calls. This way of billing ensures that medicare patients do not get a bill from the non-transporting agency. NWVAC & Regional are dispatched by the Town of New Windsor PD. NWVAC now operates 4 ambulances & a Special Operations vehicle used for Fire Rehab and any other large scale incident in the Town. Prior to getting shut down by the former Town Supervisor, NWVAC was an EMT-I certified agency with the NYS DOH. When they came back into service last year, they came back as EMT-Basic only. They are currently working on getting their Paramedic Certification. Their goal is to be full ALS sometime in 2008. Regional EMS is assisting NWVAC in any way they can to help them become an ALS agency. The paid Chief is already a Paramedic, the paid Assistant Chief currently holds EMT-I certification and is currently in Paramedic school. When they go ALS, they will hire some more Paramedics to provide 24/7 ALS services. NWVAC is run in very professional manner. They frequently get 3-4 buses on the road for jobs. Since they came back into service they have only had to call for mutual aid 5 times. This was because all of their buses were out on other jobs.

I have heard about intoxication by water........I always thought that one would have to drink several gallons of water in order for this to happen?

Mid Way Ambulance (City of Middletown, NY)

What EMS agencies have turnout gear for their members? What EMS agencies have some on the buses for crews to use? What are the SOPs for its use?

585, I do not know the breakdown in my head right now, but a head to toe set of our USAR gear is around $1300. Doug

I have been a member of my VAC for about 12 years now. During this time there has been numerous times that we were called on to attend a wake, funeral or memorial service for fellow EMS workers from other agencies, for firefighters and police officers. When we attended these services all of the police and fire agencies were in class A uniforms and my agency along with the other various volunteer and paid EMS agencies attended in their duty uniforms. Some of the duty uniforms looked like they had been worn for a long time and were in bad shape (faded, stained, old, wrinkled etc etc). I felt that many of these duty uniforms (including some from my own agency) looked very unprofessional and a suit should have been worn instead of the uniform. Three years ago when I became Captain of my VAC I wanted to change how my members looked when they attended any type of services that required a uniform. I looked around and asked questions. I found out what most of us already know. There are PD class A uniforms and there are FD class A uniforms, but there is nothing specific to EMS. The only VACs that I saw with class A's were the VACs that were run by FDs. Around this time I attended wake & funeral services for the Chief of an EMS agency in a neighboring County. All of the members of this EMS agency were wearing class A uniforms for the wake & funeral services. The uniform they were wearing closely resembled the PD style class A uniform. I was very impressed at the way this uniform looked. It was very professional. Shortly after the funeral services I read an article in an EMS magazine about a class A uniform that was designed by the head of some EMS organization in the mid-west. I then began to think hard for a design for my agency. I ended up with a uniform that combines the a PD style coat with an FD style hat and white FD style uniform shirt. I order one of these uniforms for our local uniform shop and I presented it to my other officers. It went over very well and I ordered these for the other 5 officers of my VAC. The first event where these uniforms were worn was for the NYS EMS Memorial Ceremony held every year in Albany. We heard many positive comments about these uniforms. Since then we have worn these uniforms at other services as well as our annual awards dinner. I am big on looking professional while out in public and while among our fellow emergency services personnel. I am just curious to know why more EMS agencies have not yet adopted a more professional uniform for their members. We know that EMS is often regarded as the "bastard child" of the public safety world. I think that we should take every possible step to look our best whenever possible. I am looking for input on this topic. I want to know what everyone has to say. Thanks.

On 1/15/07 at approx 2130 hours, PO Brian McLean & his K9 Rommel were tracking a suspect who was involved in a strong armed robbery of a purse from a female in front of the Shop Rite on Windsor Highway (aka Rt 32). The track lead PO McLean and Rommel into a vacant apartment. A concrete floor gave out under the feet of PO McLean and his K9. They both fell about 4 feet to the sub-floor below. This was the second time during the shift that PO McLean & K9 Rommel had to conduct a track looking for this suspect. This suspect had committed the same crime in the apartment complex a few hours earlier. PO McLean suffered a shoulder injury and was transported by New Windsor EMS to Cornwall Hospital. He was released around midnight and he has to get an MRI in the next few days. K9 Officer Rommel was not injured in the fall. He stayed by PO McLean's side all they way up until PO McLean was put into the awaiting ambulance. Two Detectives & the Duty Sgt came to the immediate aid of PO McLean when he put out his officer needs assistance call after falling thru the floor. The Town Fire Inspectors Office and the NWPD CSI Detective responded to the location for documentation of the condition of the vacant apartment. The apartment was subsequently condemmed by the FI's Office. PO McLean will be out of work until further notice. At the time of this post, the robbery suspect has not been taken into custody, but the New Windsor Detetcive Division lead by Detective Sgt Michael Suttlehan is working non-stop to find this suspect. In an incident unrelated to the robbery, PO McLean saved the life of a female who was trapped in her vehicle after a head on MVA with another vehicle. PO McLean was on scene of the MVA just as I transmitted the call over the radio. PO McLean found a female trapped in a vehicle and they vehicle was on fire. The fire, which started in the engine compartment has breached the cars firewall and almost burned the feet of the driver. PO McLean used two fire extinguishers from his vehicle and three more for other officers that arrived on scene within minutes. The fire was kept at a minimum until the FD got on scene and used a handline to put the fire out. The FD was able to extricate the driver from the vehicle, she was taken to Saint Lukes ER in Newburgh. Medivac was not flying due to weather.

FYI to all of the volunteer non-FD based EMS agencies. If you want to get turnout gear for your agency, you are eligible to put in for a FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grants. Also, try asking a State Senator, that is how we got ours. The New Windsor Volunteer Ambulance Corps (Orange County, NY) recently received notification from FEMA that they are getting a grant that includes turnout gear for all their members. If I am not mistake, I think this grant they are getting also includes a vehicle or trailer for Rehab Operations. I think that New Windsor VAC is getting the same gear we have. The Morning Pride USAR gear.

The Minitor 5 is the best pager to come out from MOTO since the Minitor 2 series. The new 5 is bigger and heavier then a 3 or 4, but they receive great and the battery lasts for about 5 days without a recharge. The battery is similar to a cell phone battery. The 3 was garbage, the 4 was garbage in a fancier bag. The 5's have the stored voice feature. You can also get the 5 in a dual channel configuration. These pagers can silent scan two channels at the same time. For example.....Along with being Captain of my VAC, I am also a member of my local FD. I have the EMS and FD paging frequencies programmed in my pager. When I am on silent scan my pager will sound for either agency. This feature was not available on the 3's & 4's. The only way to scan on those was to scan with an open carrier which was annoying because you do not always want to hear all of the pages going out for all the other agencies in the County. There is also a amplified charger for the 5's. You really do not need these unless you live in a fringe area where the pagers for your agencies do not always go off.

Thanks for that post. I knew I read about an EMS Class A in one of the many magazines that I get.

We get our software directly from MOTO. There are many other ways to get software, but they are not legit and cannot be discussed in these forums.

We have the same color uniform as our local PD & FD, but our style is unique and will not be confused with them. I put in a lot of time creating this uniform to make sure we stand out among everyone else. I hope that class A uniforms really do catch on for more EMS agencies. I am just tired of seeing sloppy duty uniforms being worn at the many different services we have to attend. It is really a disgrace to see what some agencies wear. These are some of the same people who are curious why they do not get treated with the same level of respect and professionalism that the FDs & PDs get.

Thanks for posting the pics. I forgot I had them. I should have posted them myself. This gear is great and my guys actually enjoy having the extra protection.

Motorola discontinued the parts for the Minitor 2's about a year or so ago. Some placed stop piled the parts, but they now get top dollar because your choices of places to get them fixed are very slim. Any radio shop should be able to reprogram pagers. I have the licensed Motorola software to take care of our Minitor 3's, 4's & 5's plus the HT & CDM series radios.

For many years my VAC had a few turnout coats and blue Metro style helmets on each bus. These coats were very heavy structural firefighting coats from some no-name brand. They were royal blue with white reflective lettering. Each coat also had a pair of FD gloves in it because extrications gloves were not available on the market. The Captain and the two Lieutenants were always issued their own coats and white Metro style helmets. There was no SOP on the use of turnout coats and helmets. Members and Officers used them basically when they felt like it when operating at an MVA or any other call on the highway. When I became Captain, another one of my progressive ideas was to eventually get turnout gear for the majority of my members. Every time we went to an MVA, the FD was in full turnout our gear, even the probies who were milling around the manpower pool, the drivers had coats on and the Chiefs were in full gear. None of these guy in turnout gear were operating inside the vehicle doing patient care. My VAC would arrive with members wearing uniform boots, EMS pants and uniform shirts. Members who were not on duty for EMS, but responded to the call to assist were in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. Pictures of one particular MVA showed up on our FDs website. I showed 2 members of my VAC providing patient care in a vehicle that had its roof removed by the FD. There was broken glass all over, sharp metal edges on the posts that were cut to remove the roof and there was fluids all around. I though to myself "What will happen if one of my members gets injured on a call like this?" "Will OSHA come down to our HQ and crawl up our a**es with a microscope?" "Will I be liable as the Chief of Operations for not enforcing the use of PPE?" "Will we get sued?" I know that we are not required to follow the NFPA standards because we are not part of the FD. NFPA standards were one of the reasons why all of the FD guys were in full PPE. I began looking into the cost of getting full turnout gear for my members and I knew that we could not afford it. We knew that the Town Board would not provide these funds for us. We are not a tax district so we are at the mercy of the Town every year come budget time. They give us only 1/2 of what we need every year and we have to bill for our services in order to make up the other half of our budget. Our local State Senator for our area (William Larkin) helped us with money in the past so I figured I would give a shot at asking him for the money. I wrote him a letter explaining what we needed and why we needed it. I requested $50K. He ended us giving is $30K which was enough for me to get 22 sets for my members. I started shopping around for gear that was suitable for our needs. I got a demo set of Glode EMS turnout gear. It was not what I was really looking for. I wanted something more along the lines of a light weight gear made from the same outer shell as FD PPE. We did not need all of the same liners that the FD gear had. While at the Baltimore at the Firehouse Expo 2 years ago I went to the Morning Pride booth and I saw the new Morning Pride USAR gear. They had a tan set of gear there. The gear was rated for USAR Ops, EMS Ops and it was rated against certain fluids. The outer shell was far more superior then the Globe EMS gear. One of the employees of the Total Fire Group is the wife of the nationally known Fire Chief Billy Goldfeder who happens to be a friend of mine. She put me in touch with Jeff from First Due Fire Equipment in Rockland County, NY. Jeff got in touch with me once I was back in Town. Jeff came up a week or so later and we sat down and spec'd out the gear. Below are the specs for our gear that we ordered and are currently using: - Blue Metro Style helmets with helmet front pieces that have our VACs name and the member's operator number on them. The Line Officers have these same helmets, but in white. We have the goggles on our helmets instead of the flip down full face shield. - We have navy blue Morning Pride USAR turnout coats. We decided to go with blue instead of tan so people could tell our members apart from the FD which uses tan gear. We have the yellow reflective stripes with the gray middle on the gear, a gray reflective Star of Life on the back and the writting is in yellow reflective. On the tail part of the coat we have the members names on a velcro strip in case we have to re-issue the gear. The coats also have huge side pockets and a radio pocket on the left front chest. - We have navy blue matching Morning Pride bunker pants. They have the built in knee pads, side pockets and we have the suspenders for the pants. These pants have the same kind of reflective striping as the coats. - For boots, we have the Pro Warrington USAR boots. They have some leather and some heavy duty nylon/nomex material. They also have those funny looking ribbed toe areas. - All members also get a pair of safety glasses, Ergodyne Extrication gloves and a nice heavy duty nylon turnout gear bag. We also now have a written policy that states that full turnout gear MUST be worn on all MVA calls no matter how minor and any other calls that require our members to operate on a roadway. Members who do not comply with this policy are subject to disciplinary action. This gear can be worn on any other type of call, especially during inclement weather. Anyone who is considering getting turnout gear and would like to see our gear, please feel free to send me a PM and we can set up a time/date or I can send pics to you. I highly recommend First Due Fire Equipment of you need gear. A few other VACs up here in OC bought EMS turnout gear and I know a few others who are going to buy it sometime this year. I hope that this will catch on with more VACs. It is an important safety issue. You cannot put a price on the safety of your members. Our local FD and some of the mutual aid FDs who have seen our gear were impressed and there has even been some discussion among them about getting some of this gear for the guys who regulary operate on the Rescue truck.

I am pleased to hear of of the comments, questions and concerns so far on this topic. Recognition,equality and professionalism are very important to me when it comes to my VAC. We have a decent relationship with our local FD & PD, but they still do not give us the recognition we deserve. Even when it comes to our duty uniforms I am anal about the way that members wear them. If I see someone with a duty uniform that is a mess I will instruct them fix it or get a replacement uniform. We have a decent uniform budget. I make sure to spend it all by the end of every year. I have heard many negative comments from other VACs in reference to our class A and our duty uniforms. Up until 3 years ago, our duty uniform consisted of a white uniform shirt, navy blue EMS pants, black boots and a Blauer jacket. We did not even have a uniform policy. There was a few blurbs in our very outdated By-Laws about the uniform and that was it. There was mention of wearing the white shirt with plain black Dockers style pants if we needed to get "dressed up". When I became Captain, I created a Uniform Policy. Our duty uniform now consists of a navy blue uniform shirt with an embroidered name strip sewn along the top of the right chest pocket. We did away with the white shirt because we all know that white gets dirty too quickly. Our uniform pants are still navy blue, but we now wear the same pants as the NYPD ESU, our shirts have silver "EMS" collar brass for all members except the Line Officers who get gold lieutenants or gold captains bars. The current line and civil officers have badges (smith & warren style S206) (gold or silver) issued to them. We are in the process of getting badges for the rest of our members. When we designed a badge for my VAC we wanted to have a badge that could not be mistaken with any badge worn by any local PDs or the surrounding Counties and NYC. It has a Star of Life in the center instead of a NYS Seal. I figured by having this style badge, it would reduce the chance for abuse or misuse of it. This badge was designed way before that EMT was arrested in NYC for carrying a NYPD Detective style badge as his EMT badge. We also now issue duty style boots (magnum, thorogood or 5.11), belts and navy blue embroidered GAME 3 Season jackets to all members. Members can wear uniform sweaters, polo shirts or workshirts when on duty with the approval from a line officer. A member of a VAC in one of the next towns over was overheard making comments about our new navy blue uniforms saying that we look like cops and that we are "wannabe" cops. I made the reasons clear on why we got away from the white shirts. Yes, we have navy uniforms, but most patients and their families would not mistake us for cops. Our uniforms look very professional now. When our class A uniform was designed a few years ago, it was initially issued to the line and civil officers. We are now in the slow process of getting these uniforms for some of the other members. The officers now wear the class A uniform at our Annual Awards Dinner. Last year we recieved many compliments on how our uniforms looked. Two years ago I attended the NYS EMS Memorial Services in Albany. With the exception of us and the FDNY EMS guys, no other VAC in attendance had on a Class A uniform. I saw some VACs wearing black jeans and royal blue polo shirts that were sloppy and all faded. Talk about unprofessional! They would have been better off wearing suits or pants with a blazer jacket. Again, I heard comments about our class A's. We were told that we look to much like the FD guys. We use the PD style coat with the FD style hat. As I mentioned in my first post, there is not a specific EMS class A uniform, so it can be designed from FD, PD and Military dress uniforms. nycemt728: I understand your frustrations with your Chief. If you come up with a design and you get other members who like it, maybe you guys can take a vote on this topic and see what the outcome is. I know that money was mentioned in one of the replies. Yes, these uniforms are not cheap. I think the head to toe uniform is about $450. That is why I started off by getting these uniforms for the officers first. If a few are purchased every year, eventually all members will have them.