firemoose827

Good post cas2383, I live in an area where we dont have to think about it. Usually the scenes I am on are cluttered with people bringing coffee and refreshments to us or the homeowners and we never in our wildest dreams have to worry if they will climb in a truck and take it?! But we do have the village police respond with us to every scene and either released by our officers or they stick around and do traffic controll or watch us do our jobs, you know? But man, that has got to be a tough thing to deal with. Our pump ops do stay with the rig at all times also. Its in our protocols. Good Luck everyone. If it gets too bad you could always move up here to Cobleskill. and fight the fires next to the cows!!! Peace. Jonesy

Hey, this is great news. I am so happy we can now check the BS level on patients and save that much more valuable time for the medics to treat the patient. I am Pro patient assesment and using all of you senses to acurately asses the patient, and treating the patient, not the equipment. I have seen it too many times where we go into a house with someone gasping for air and clutching their chests, and the only thing the crew chief does is grab that Pulse Oximeter! What about O2, vitals, lung sounds, Hx, and THAN use of the diagnostic tools to support whatever thesis all of you competent EMTS have hopefully been able to have come up with already with just good patient assesment. Man, the art of patient assesment has been forgotten, Huh ALSfirefighter and all you others out there who support it? Oh well, I guess I have been out of EMS for too long and am glad to have recently rejoined the ranks by Recerting my Basic EMT again. I was an EMT for three years and a EMT-CC for three, but let it drop. I just got it back again and run with Cobleskill Rescue Squad and fire department. Everyone have a great day, and stay safe. Jonesy.

here (Hopefully) is the cobleskill patch. Can anyone tell me how to show this to you guys!!!! Jonesy

I am sort of a gamer, and realy enjoyed the Draeger Firefighter game. Is there any others that anyone else knows of? I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance. Jonesy

Hey everyone. I am from cobleskill, Schoharie County, by Albany, for all of you who havent read my intro. I have had some friends see me on this site and thought it was a realy good site. Is it all right if I let certain people know of the address and let them join? Would anyone have a problem if it was expanding into other territories? I love this site and I learn a lot from it every day. I dont want to dis-respect any of you because I know you are mostly from westchester county and surrounding areas. I would appreciate any open discussion on how you all feel about it, and if you want I will cary the secret with me to my grave Let me know. Stay Safe everyone. Jonesy

I tested out in January Also, But I am in Cobleskill, upstate by Albany. Maybe it is different for you guys, but GOOD LUCK!

Hey everyone...Just wanted to share with everyone that I just received notice that I passed my EMT recert class after 8 years of inactivity! I thought I would have to take the class all over again, but I managed to pull off a 91 on the written. Any NEW advice for an OLD EMT? Take care everyone. Jonesy

Just a question, who are you talking to? The EMS personnel in this post or people in general?

Hello everyone...It has been our experience in cobleskill that the patients are learning quickly that if you call the ambulance you will get directly into the er. But we have derived a system of triage with our ER friends (privelage of being in small town ems) that if they are stable enough to wait in lobby, we state in our report they are AOx3 and ambulatory. That means that a nurse will meet us at the door and direct the patient to the waiting room after a quick triage. This has cut down on the amount of "Sick" calls we get. Stay safe.

Listen to scooter92, there are laws to protect us provided you dont try to do open heart surgery or something. Put together a small first aid kit like scooter told you about and include a small notepad and pencil to write down the important info for when the rig gets there. I like it when a CFR gets all of the history and the first set of vitals, than I can just load and go, and continue enroute. But Stay Safe!!!

hey 66alpha, Just a question. I thought that there was already a rule in existance that says you can only respond with your blue light if your in your district? And I believe there is already a rule that says a volunteer can mark their vehicle with ONLY one 65 watt emergency light, no strobes. I think that falls to most of your chiefs who either just dont have the time to enforce that law or just dont care. Heck, I have seen some CHIEFS with hundreds of strobes on their vehicle and a bar light bigger than the vehicle itself! I used to be Captain, so I was just curious if the rules have changed or if I had heard wrong back than. Have a good day.

I would help you with the work needed to be done to the truck too. Let me know what comes of this PCFDENG58. see ya this weekend!

Hey all you brothers and sisters out there. I have a good question for you and hopefully some good discussion will come out of it. I have been in EMS and Firefighting for about 17 years now, and I have experience in some leadership positions in EMS. Namely Training Officer for 2 years, CO-Captain for 3, and Captain for 3. I have recently moved to a NEW department and have had experiences with a loudmouthed, hotheaded officer who just loves to belittle members in front of other people, and we are talking ER staff, firefighters, and other EMS people. It was a very embarrassing situation for those who were reamed, and on one occaision I even intervened by trying to TALK calmly to this irate officer by asking why they felt the need to handle these situations in front of others instead of taking them into the office and "discussing" the problems. This makes me frustrated, because I believe that a good officer will take the person aside and talk about the problems and even help them to correct the problem in the future. And that by "yelling" at them in front of many people will only let the person remember the embarassment instead of the lesson to be learned. How could I possibly approach this situation without looking like the "outsider" trying to change everything and be like my old department? Some of these people who were reamed have recently quit and more are talking about doing the same. Any officers out there have any advice for me? Am I doing something wrong by confronting this officer? Any info, advice, or discussion would be greatly appreciated by me and the squad. Thanks everyone.

my deepest sympathy and love to the family and friends of firefighter William Malone. I did not know him at all, but reading these posts it feels like I have known him. My best to everyone affected by this tragedy. Rest in peace, Brother.

Well, there could be two instances in which a debrief should be considered, at least as far as my knowledge goes. First would be any sensitive situation where the police or other agency might also be involved. Like a possible crime scene, suicide attempt, domestic disturbance with injuries, suspected child abuse, or any other sensitive situation that other agencies might need important info that only we as first responders could give them. Second, and more obvious, would be the fatality calls. Either finding the body in a bad fire or the realy messed up EMS call. A lot of people say that that doesnt bother them, but, I think that if you are human and have feelings, it SHOULD bother you and debriefing is the best way to deal with it in a healthy manner. Department debriefings are also good to ensure that your firefighters or EMS people are doing a good job, or following dept protocols or even NYS EMS protocols. If you debrief your people you will find out who knows what they are doing and who may need a little help at next months drill. It also allows for feedback from the members as to how your leadership is doing (or NOT doing). Used constructively and creatively debriefings could help in more ways than one. Thats why I am so happy in the dept I am in now, we debrief and discuss everything, and it helps. Hope I didnt bore you too much!! Just trying to help. Let me know if you want info about the County STress Debriefing team, be happy to help.

What are we coming to guys!? That whole DEPARTMENT should be investigated and maybe even shut down. That makes me physically ill to see a ff turn off anothers air supply and take off gear resulting in burns!!! This is getting a little carried away. I personaly dont SEE volunteer or paid in front of "Firefighter", I see it as were all doing the same job and this petty fighting at scenes is un-professional. We should all get along, somehow. This is my second family, and I would do anything for ANY of you. Keep us posted if you hear anything else about this, OK? Have a Great day everyone.

Wow. Kind of makes you glad you have a dept safety officer to check for these things. Also, if they are not fenced in always atleast take a quick look around to see if there are ladders, or a shed with pool skimmers and equipment on the side, anything to key you off to there being a pool back there. Good post Truck 4. Everybody Stay Safe!

Hey GAW6, I saw in your post that you had back surgery? I just recently herniated 2 of my disks and It KILLS. They are talking about surgery for me also and I am a little concerned about it. How was the surgery for you? How long were you out of work? Any lasting problems or restrictions? If you dont mind me asking that is, sorry for being nosey but I am a little worried! Stay Safe!

Cobleskill Fire Dept, Upstate New York, 45 minutes away from Albany. www.cobleskillfiredept.com hope you all like it!

I have seen and played with them at the last Vital Signs conference in Rochester. I looked at two models; a pneumatic one and an hydraulic one. They both take a lot of work away from it and save your back some but the negative is you still have to manually load stretcher into abulance which still exerts your back, and the pneumatic one requires a scott bottle be attached to the underside of the head of the stretcher which takes up a lot of room. Also, the added weight of the equipment realy doesnt make it worth while. Just my opinion though, and I only played with them for about 20 minutes so I guess you guys should just call the company and see if they can demo it for you. Good Luck!

For our Ambulance: We usually talk about each call with the Crew Chief in the ambulance on the way back from each call. If any member is taking it hard, the crew chief informs an officer and we set up a formal Stress Debriefing with our county team. Fire Dept: The officers have Meetings on the last monday night of every month to discuss dept business and have critiques of incidents. If there are any major points or problems we spend the following drill discussing them in a formal setting thats open to the dept also. Any Major incident is taken care of through the local County Stress Debriefing team. I have been to Two of those debriefings and find them very helpfull. If your county doesnt have it I strongly advise you to look into it. Feel free to contact me for info. Hope this helped! Jonesy

I dont have QUITE as much as some of you guys but what I have has always worked well: I keep a folding universal spanner, that has seatbelt cutter, gas wrench, pry bar and window punch. Shove knife. Door chocks. mini-halligan (hangs from mic-clip) 35' escape rope with large "D" ring Biner. Spanner Belt. and a couple of small pieces of utility rope. I have a divers flashlight in my radio pocket and a garrity in my pants pocket for extra light.

There is always room for medics in the fire service. My wife is a Fire/Medic, and I am a FF/EMT. There are tons of jobs to do at every scene; Driver/Pump Ops, support, rope rescue, wildland search and rescue, accountability officer, fire police, safety officer, public information officer, logistics, you can be part of the fd administration like President, treasurer, secretary. You would be a welcomed asset to their fd. Good Luck!

My thoughts and prayers go to the Hernandez family , and also to the Officer involved in the shooting. Were with you.

MORALE, thats not an easy thing to keep up these days. My opinion is that part of it is because of the decrease in respect for elders, officers, and even other ff's. When I first joined the junior fd in Northport LI, I was fourteen and just full of arrogance. I thought that because my dad was a ff and I was around the fire station since I was in diapers that I knew my s#$@! Well, let me tell you, the guys at the firehouse quickly changed my thoughts on that subject. I'll never forget what one of them told me, "I would rather go into a burning building with someone who's constantly training rather than someone who thinks he knows it all." Those words to me, are what the fire service is all about; Family. If we can make the whole dept feel like part of a family than morale will shoot through the roof, and training attendance will pick up, and suddenly we have trained, competent, HAPPY firefighters who show up to things again. Just my opinion. I do have 1 example of something new to try though. Our rescue squad just recently embarked on this journey to increase morale, and they decided to take the squad and immediate family on a day trip to Great Escape. The squad payed for the buses to take us there, lunch and dinner at the park, and all day ride passes. It was an awesome day and it realy picked up the morale. Than we do little things like movie nights where they buy pizza and wings and watch a movie with everyone, or bowling night which we just started this week. I will let you know how that goes. Good luck!!!