firemoose827

Hello I finally have some extra money and wanted to purchase some garrity lites and maybe some pens ( if you have them) but I saw that you were sold out of the Lites. Do you or will you ever have any more to sell? Please let me know and I will buy 2 lites and a bunch of pens if you have them, I work 36 hours a week PT for an EMS agency and will leave them all over to promote the web site!! Send me a PM or E-mail to let me know where I can get some more garrity life lites. Thank you. Moose

I agree 100% with no unnecessary risks on abandoned buildings. You can not be 100% sure that no one is inside an abandoned building though; squatters, hormone filled teens, drugies, runaway kids....the list goes on. With this situation I would do the following: 1) Do a rapid search by searching the immediate area around doors and windows while trying to find anything out from neighbors or by-standers. Search for signs of occupants like bicycles near entrances, cars parked nearby, forcible entry, etc. 2) Blitz fire from the safety of a big DECK GUN through large natural openings. If there are none, make 'em. 3) Im not trusting the roof of ANY abandoned building, vent the roof from a bucket or ladder. Or just do horizontal venting. 4) OBEY the COLLAPSE zones regardless of how many stories there are, park in a safe position and make sure FF's are constantly monitoring the stability of the building. SIZE-UP. No one gets put in harms way, Id rather sit and watch a 2 1/2" drowned the building for hours and hours than have to explain to someones family WHY they died in a vacant building. Good Post. Moose

Thats my only concern...the loss of water. Thats fine for large city dept.'s with hydrants adequately spaced, but for dept's like mine where we only have hydrants in the village and a large area of town to cover we need at least 1000 gallons. I do like the lower bed, its safer for FAT guys like me to get up and down!! Seriously, it is safer, especially at 2 AM when there is a fine coating of ice on everything, just walk up to the bed, grab and go.

The past chief who owns it did it before my time, said he did it a little at a time, probably about a year or two. Our current chief and his son, (our capt.), owns another antique of ours that they are restoring now. Here it is, enjoy and thanks. Not sure on the year. Anybody for make and model? C'mon all you truck buffs!

As I stated earlier, there was NO PT CONTACT MADE. NO CHART< NO TRIAGE, I fully understand the cobra laws also. I am only going by what I read in the article and expressing my opinions. We dont have ALL the info for this topic. The article clearly states she was in the waiting room WAITING to be seen by a nurse and being ignored. Why are my opinions always taken for law and immediately jumped on when I am merely trying to continue the discussion and ask questions?

First, I am ONLY pointing something out here, a certain fact that everyone is overlooking. I've been in EMS for 16 years, and know full well about interfacility transfers and cobra violations. BUT, thats only if the victim is an ESTABLISHED PT at said hospital. This person was forced to wait in the LOBBY. No pt contact has been made so COBRA has no part in it. They let her sit in the waiting room in the condition she was in, and if I knew how to use the quote thing on this site than I would quote it for you all, it says she was in the "Waiting Area", not a treatment room under a doctors care already. SOMEBODY should have been sent to check this out, PD, EMS Supervisor, ANYONE. I believe there might have been a language barrier and mis-understanding somewhere. No one should be made to wait in agony like that, ESPECIALLY at a hospital. An earlier post hit it on the head, TRIAGE at this hospital is HORRIBLE, how did a triage nurse not take one look at her and bring her back for treatment? Did ANY nurse look at her at all? Did the person at the ER reception desk screw up? There is more to the story that we arent hearing and therefore we cant be judging anyone yet. And for CommandChief, and your remark about people posting on here and getting "real life experience", MOST of the people on this site have tons of experience and choose to get involved with the discussions to "Share their knowledge".

Some of the classics by Dennis Smith like "Report From Engine Co. 82" or "Firefighters". Or the textbooks that were brought up in previous posts like Normans "Officers Guide to Tactics". Great idea brothers, hope it takes off! Moose

No one realy addressed the problem of coming across an emergency while transporting a pt. Once you establish pt contact you cannot break that contact unless someone of equal or higher training takes over pt care. If you dont its called abandonment. I know you would want to help the other person as well, but the pt in front of you is your current priority. Make sure its called in, if you have extra EMT's or medics drop them off with some gear and continue on the the ER with your pt. Thats happened to me once or twice where I was transporting a pt to the ED and we stumbled across another emergency. One was a drunk who fell went boom, we happened to have a police officer near by who responded and waited for the second rig to arrive. The next was an MVA. We had an extra EMT on board whom we left at the scene to assess and render treatment untill the second rig arrived. Just remember your laws, everyone learns them in basic (as dull and boring as it is). Abandonment is a serious issue, so if you have old miss Smith with the sniffles and you come across an MVA with entrapment, blood guts the whole nine yards, remember not to abandon miss Smith. Its hard but its our job. I have never experienced the Inter-State transports, nor have I ever been a National Registry EMT, so I cant help you there. Hope this helps brother, stay safe.

Good topic. Its funny you mentioned the pocket reference. I have always carried pocket guides since the start, and I have always been made fun of. People would always laugh when I pulled one out at a drill and say, "Hey, what are you gonna do with that, whip it out when the s&%$! hits the fan and say 'Time out' while you read it?" You cant remember everything there is about firefighting, haz-mat, rescue, hydraulics, and everything else that comes our way. So I keep a firefighters handbook and an EMS field guide on me. Its quick and easy to look up flow charts and friction loss tables, and haz-mat, and EMS related info enroute to a call, and for the long duration calls like haz-mat and search and rescue (wildland), you can reference them when needed. I recommend them to younger, newer members. I have had the same copies for 18 years now and like these books, the info is still current. Always read, always listen, always watch, always learn. The learning should never stop. Good post X635 Moose.

WINNER!! Verplank it is. You guys want it back?

Here is one from Schoharie County, should be familiar to you guys down state, it was purchased from a down state dept as a package along with an engine, I believe a 1970'3 ward lafrance with a LDH reel on the hose bed, same color. Any guesses where from?

No need to apologise josh, this is a good topic. In Schoharie county we dont have many villages with hydrants; Ours in Cobleskill, Middleburgh, Schoharie, Sharon Springs, Central Bridge. The rest of the county I believe is all rural. We usually start rolling tankers from three of or neighbors. Our eng. 3 is the attack eng., and eng. 1 will roll to the nearest dry-hydrant or pond to either relay water with its 2500 feet of 5" hose, or fill tankers. If we need more engines we have eng. 2 which is our village attack truck or our old eng. 3 which is now our back-up eng. Rural ops require a lot of manpower mostly, for stretching LDH and setting up portable ponds and deck guns. If we dont have a timely response "Surround and Drownd" becomes the only tactic and a good tanker shuttle with at least 4-5 tankers, depending on how far away your fill site is.

I have a question for any dispatchers out there. Do you have any set criteria for dispatching calls, such as LENGTH of transmission? Ill try to explain the question a little more. Our dispatchers sometimes read a book when they are dispatching us to any call, be it fire or ems. Instead of simply stating "Respond to 123 anywhere lane for chest pain" they may say "...for a male, pain in his chest, no history, no diff breathing, no other priority symptoms, still concious at time of call, third party call....." yada yada yada. Sometimes its a bit rediculous. I wonder why they couldnt just give the pertinent info for dispatch and than give the first acknowledging unit more detailed info if they request it, via phone line. They sometimes even include directions in the dispatch, "respond to the Fonzarelli residence, third house past the big red barn with the green chevy pickup..." yada yada yada. Is it just me or is this a waste of time? Just dispatch us to the call and let us get there. State chief complaint, Chest Pain, the numeric address, and any pertinent info such as PD on scene. Than ask if the unit needs directions when they acknowledge. I was just curious about this because it has been happening for some time now in different degrees of lenght and subject. Thanks for the input. Moose

Hell yes, when you forget to tell your partner to supersize the order! OH, sorry, for EMERGENCY situations. Yes, I have used it to clear milling pedestrians from MVA's, and relaying info to someone on scene from radio traffic received, and used for searches as well. We use it at the Fairgrounds too for various different uses, and other special events like marathons/walks/races where we need to get someones attention. If you need to clear FF's out of a building start hollering into one along with the airhorn. (For some reason we react differently and move faster to someone yelling 'naked woman with a case of beer and a pizza next to the engine' than we do 'mayday')

Yah, we use a similar priority dispatch and I think its useless... Alpha-stop at dunkin donuts for a coffe on the way. Bravo-BLS emergency, broken leg, cuts, etc. Charlie-ALS call, may not be life threatening, chest pain, abd pain, etc. Delta- ALS code 3 response, diff breathing, unresponsive, unconcious, etc. Echo- Everyone in a five mile radius please drop your donuts and get here now. I still respond like I used to untill I get my assesment and find out what we are dealing with. I dont know about the rest of the state, but we used to be dispatched to structures and chimney fires, but since the response to chimney fires were very poor they finally realised something...chimneys are part of the structure! So now they just dispatch for structures and let the first responding chief know its "In the chimney" and even sometimes say "Possible extension to wall." I know, I know....we should respond to ALL calls as if it were serious, and believe me I know chimneys are serious, but there are the glory seekers out there who will actually not respond to them. How does your county handle dispatching chimney fires? EMSJunkie712.......shhhhhh.....I think that recording was ACTUALLY from schoharie county.... Just kidding, but it sound pretty close!

Pretty much what everyone has said...to help others....so others may live....I grew up in the firehouse. You Know, Moose

Hey. I got in trouble the other day. We had a structure fire in our neighboring district who happens to have us on auto-MA during the day. When we arrived on scene with our engine and rescue, both fully staffed, (about 15 firefighters) they only had an engine with a driver. The fire was in the front of the house and there was a report of someone "possibly" inside. We stretched the line to the back door with a crew of four, the line, irons, and TIC. The driver of their eng. is an assistant chief, we had our assist chief and LT with us. We started to advance the line, the Lt was on nozzle with a backup, and myself and the asst chief were searching. Everything was going well, we were knocking the fire down and we had determined the girl was not inside but at a neighbors house. So we all started to pull ceilings and push towards the front of the house. I was using the TIC to locate fire for the nozzle, and it wasnt picking up any real hot spots where we were. There was some fire in the front and we were making our way to the front when all of a sudden the fire just started to push right at us and the TIC read 500-600 deg. We had to abandon the line and climb out through the dining room window out to the porch. The second due MA company saw the fire and decided we werent doing our job and opened the line from the front and pushed the fire right at us. The chief on the eng didnt see it right away because he was setting up a portable pond. Our chief went nuts and ran around to the front. The eng. chief started hollering at them and told our chief to take IC untill someone else got there. The point I would like to make is to always set up IC at EVERY call so it becomes second nature. We use it at everything from auto-alarms to structures. Second, I am trying to spark discussion on a few topics here; IC system, proper use of handline deployment and size. Another thing, does anyone here think freelancing is bad, or is it just me? What happened to the staging area and waiting for assignments? Its starting to get bad around here where ff's just go to work, without orders, no accountability. Its scary. Maybe Im in the wrong county. And for all of you out there screaming " He's bashing other dept's, stop him" im not. I am merely starting a discussion thread to HOPEFULLY get some input from the experienced senior guys out there about the topics mentioned. Im the type that loves to go to the firehouse and just listen to the senior guys share experiences of fires. Its how we learn. And how did I get in trouble? Later in the fire, since the house was 3/4 involved after the incident with the handlines, I was resting after my third bottle and watching another officer from the second due dept pace back and forth, cursing about something. He got close enough to me and said "Were losing the damn thing because we arnent attacking it the right way" Like the show "Mind of Mencia" my finger came up and I started to offer my opinions to this officer about his guys chasing us out of the house earlier, and maybe if we didnt have opposing handlines we could get inside and put it out. I was respectfull, bit my tongue, but I didnt see my asst chief behind me with a big smile on his face. He pulled me asside and said"If I wasnt as pissed as you I would be mad at you, but I will let it slide." Discussion? Please? Input? Stay safe. Moose

We have them in our hydrant bags and use them now instead of the steamer. As far as putting them on as a permanent fixture, are they welded or just attached? Id be concerned someone would take it and leave us in s^&$# creek without a paddle.

Great movie. Maybe they should include it for verified member status.

The other 11 guys were putting up ladders, ventilating, or assisting the MPO's. Three of them were standing by outside with packs ready to relieve us. We had the FAST on site as well. I need to get Dunns book too, I have read tons of his articles and went to a seminar he taught on Search and Rescue principles. He is truly a great firefighter. As I stated in the last post of mine I started this thread to help keep the younger ff's aware of the need to constantly be learning. As far as who gave the order to stretch to the rear I do not know, I was on the rescue and arrived after our engine had already stretched. When I got there my asst chief told me to take the TIC in with the attack team and he'd help me with a search. A question for you Sqd47, does the training in CT differ much from NY? Do the curriculums of FFI and II match or differ from ours? I am just curious to see how different states teach their ff's. Maybe ALSFF can elaborate also, I know he is an instructor. Thanks guys.

Thank you for the reply, I respect your experience on the matter. I guess what we are all saying is, the fire service is evolving, and as it does so do the tactics we employ to control fire. Its rough going through training and having it beet into you about certain tactics, than going out and learning 200 more from officers, magazine and proffessional articles and books. I started this thread to allow the younger ff's to see that they need to keep an open mind and learn everything they can from wherever they can. thanks all, stay safe Moose

Well, I guess I am from the old school of training. I was always trained to push the fire from the unburned to the burned, so your pushing it out and not through the rest of the house. The first line idealy, should yes go to the stairs to protect it. But thats in a perfect world of staffed engines and ladder co.'s where like partyrock said, each man has a riding assignment and knows what theyre doing before they even get out the door. Than the second line goes to attack the fire. Also, with someone trapped, do you realy want to push the fire "AT" them? I was always taught to put the first line between the fire and victims if possible. I didnt realise my training was that out-dated, wow. I read John Normans "Fire Officers Handbook of Tactics" when I took "Tactics" in college. Than there are the numerous articles on fog vs. straight stream in Fire Engineering. Its an interesting topic because I have heard valid arguments from both sides. So the question arises; attack from the unburned and push it out, or go straight for the throat and do a direct attack? But, when I took firefighter II the instruction was to always attack and push the fire "out" of the building. The building was 2 1/2 story wood frame platform, clapboard siding, tin roof, approx. 40x60. The fire orig. in the upstairs bathroom in the front of the house and extended down the front stairs to the living room and throught the second floor. That was exactly my point on the opposing lines, they jeopardised us by opening up without checking our location first. IC is something we are trying to stress more in this county, and your hearing more of it everyday. You used to hear officers call on scene and say nothing. You were left in suspense, is it burning or not, do they need mutual aid? Now they call on scene, status, unit number establishing command. Its still tough to keep our IC's in one spot though, they want to get dirty and see whats happening instead of relying on their Jr. officers. Thanks for the responses.

Thanks Mike, that helped a lot. Hopefully you guys will now see some Cobleskill action, and our new brush truck and pumper. Thanks.

Hey, hows it going? I have a digital camera, but I am not very computer savy. If I have some pictures to share, do I just paste them to a post? Or should I send an attachment, whats the best way for you to get the pictures? Thanks. Brian "Moose"

Hey everyone. Just a quick question for you all. We have a County Fairgrounds called the "Sunshine Fair" here in Cobleskill. As part of their procedures and NYS law they are required to have EMS coverage during the fair, etc. etc., you guys know these fine details. For the past 5-8 years now, (maybe longer) they have had a paid ambulance provide coverage for them but they were charging the fair association 1/3 of their profits!! So they came to us here in Cobleskill Rescue last minute two years ago to ask for our help. We quickly organized a county wide assistance plan where each squad in our county was asked to send up to 4 EMT's to help out with scheduling. We had to keep at least one EMT and one driver with an ambulance on site the entire time the fair was open, 8a-12midnight, Tues-Sunday. We have managed to do this for the past 2 years with a large amount of help from the county. Our 2 neighboring squads have even brought their rigs to the fair during demo derbys and rodeo's, which are required to have their own SEPARATE ambulance , and covered these events with their crews. The county EMS Coordinators even helped out by covering shifts at the first aid booth. Does anyone else do anything like this? At fairs, our other large annual events in their districts? Just curious to see if you do, and what you have done to answer the call for help to see if there is anything we can do differently. Amazingly we have kept at least 8 EMTs at the fair all day everyday without a hitch, and averaged 2-3 transports to the ER a day. On the last day of the fair we usually have a BBQ for all who have helped out, the fair allows the EMS people to park for free, and when youre done with your shift you can walk around with your family. Its great, and its fun. Stay Safe out there.