John Meeker Jr

What ever happened to helping your neighbor! Thats what Fire Department personell do. Now you tell me that I have to take FF1, FF2, Fire Attack, pump ops, AVET, EMT, Hose ops, Ladder Opps, Hazmat, and incident safety officer and more to be qualified to join and help my neighbors? Trainings great and I have taken most of it but chose not to become nationally ceritified. But I really joined to help my neighbors and know whats going on around me by being at the critical incidents. Yes there should be standards that departments should strive for but I do not think you can only have the label of firefighter. You will need to have fireground persons, interior firefighters, extrication EMS types, drivers and officers and office staff. So no I do not support a single standard that fire departments should adopt.

County trunk for hospitals is great. Key the mic, wait for tone and identify yourself to the hospital. does not get much easier.

there are many volunteer fire departments that own their own equipment and bill their services annually to the town. These departments will keep their equipment and buildings and will either have to bid for the work or sell of their posessions, but there will be a cost to replace both the equipment and buildings if they are to be replaced. Example: Somers Fire District owns and operates all the grounds and buildings for the people of Somers. Should the town disband the district the town retains the buildings and equipment. This could then be used to estalish paid fire houses owned by the town. Carmel Fire Department on the other hand personally owns its building and most of the equipment and contracts with the Carmel Fire District to provide a service. If the town could do away with the Fire District, the Carmel Fire Department still owns the property and the equipment but now must solicit the town for funding if it wants to keep doing the job.

We have three of these stretchers and have learned to use the stair chair more often or a reeves to get people out of houses and not take the stretcher in. I feel a lot better knowing that I do not have to carry a stretcher over stairs that we have other acceptable methods to bring the patient to the stretcher. I like the electric stretcher and the only down fall I have seen is it will not work with the stat track system. We have issues loading the stretcher if the bus is not level.

Things have not changed much in 30 years. Kids still drink at 15 if they want to. drugs were out there then to and people did get hurt back then from stupidity mixed with drinking and drugs. don't fool your self into the safety trap that it was safe back when. I think if you remove the age for drinking it will be less of a big deal and less affect to the new driver or the new college student just off on their own. The choice to do the hard drugs is a personal choice and it has to do with how a person was raised and their risk taking level and that has not changed. How they are raised probably has changed. Just my opinion

Our dispatch does not specify what responds. The call goes out and it is open to all our department vehicles. IC has the power to request additional equipment (more tones) or release incoming if not needed. It is possible to get 4 engines, a rescue, a mini attack, two utiliies and an ambulance. This is not very likely unless it is 1900 hours (drill time) on a Wednesday. We don't tone out a full department response but it is a general response and if you are available you roll.

I appreciate the reply. it tells me alot more about what and why.

I never said I learned everything. I learned in a department that had all TFTs so that is what I learned on. My training has also shown me that if water is flowing away from the scene on the ground then it is not being fully utilized (wasted). A properly broken stream wastes less water but also delivers less when you really need it. antiquefirelt you would obviously never pick up a fog nozzle intenionally and that is up to you, I prefer to keep an open mind. I expect to have to manage my water, not just apply it like it will never end so I would want to use the best tool for the situation.

I thinkn you need to qualify the statement about not using fog on the interior. There are lots of situations where a fog is preferable and a straight stream does not work. Try to hold a fire at a doorway with a strait stream or see how much water you waste on a car fire with a strait stream. Try to ventilate or cool with a strait stream. Learn how and when to use both or you will be a danger to all when you go to protect your brothers and don't have a clue what to do with the TFT or Akron. If you use it then they become second nature, using once does not cut it. I learned on TFTs and thats all I ever used for 8 years. My current department loves strait bore but understands the idea of fog patterns and has now gone to the akron to try and get all the operating pressures to with in twenty psi. This is for the pump operator as well as the nozzle operator. Train with it and you will understand the benifits.

Many great replies. I am not sure about the Emergency Medical Service Standard. This is a standard that the Emergency Meidical profession came up with. It might be the right standard for all people but it is not publicly known for what it is. Again education is important and this need to happen before any refferendum. In a rural community you take what you can get and you are very happy when your neighbor shows up. that does not mean that Somers is a rural community and thats all we need. But it used to be rural and a lot of city folk have transplanted out to our county area. This is where education and ideas need to be shared to help people see what thier volunteer service gets them and what they need to do if they want to get the big city service. Then vote to spend the money. To give the people what they want and need I will gladly swallow my pride to provide the needed services, but I need to know they want it not just that they deserve it because some one else says so. Its my taxes too. There seems to be other issues blocking this matter in our little town and it has to do with our commissioners and paying people to do volunteer jobs. There seems to be conflicting laws (I don't know the ins and outs) that say we must provide but we can't do it this way. (very vage) So our option would be to drop BLS service and tell the town to pick it up but then the laws say we can't do that either because we have been providing for x years and are obilgated to provide it now. I'm confused at this point and feel that the public is the only entity that can demand and get a higher level of service mandated and forced past the town and the fire district. It sounds as if the service has to get worse before it will be allowed to change. Or do you know a source of about 50 ems personnel willing to join the volunteer department? Sorry for the ramblings, it is a point of concern but it is not cut and dry on how to solve.

A volunteer service is just that. It is neighbors helping neighbors and you can't always be available when your neighbor calls you. I feel that the public needs to know the difference between a paid ambulance service and a volunteer. To get a town funded paid ambulance service will cost everybody hundreds of dollars more each year on property taxes. and Ambulance companies that charge per ride cannot afford to locate enough resources to cover the relative low call volume of upper westchester county. So wheres the answer? Education is needed to control call volume to only emergency responses and find alterative transportation for the non emergency trip. Get some one to drive you if it is not life threatening? I don't know the answer but as a Volunteer I give over 20 hours a week to my community and yes it will take 10 minutes for me to get to the ambulance and then another 5 to get to the scene if I don't have to wait for the second crew member. This is the norm for a person responding to the first set of tones. This is for informational purposes only do not tell me how unacceptable or unprofessional this is. For transportation purposes in my town this is the starting point and the public has to be shown that this is normal for a non manned setup and that if they need more services then they, the public, needs to pony up and find the services that meets thier needs. This may well be a different organization, but I personnally not willing to step up as the public and ask for more taxes.

The article sounds good and I hope they find everything OK. I think that it is good training to have exposure to the heat and intensity in a controled environment, as close to reality as possible with out the stress of response to an unknown fire. It has to be done safely with good backup and plenty of water. There are guidelines for the safeties needed and we should probably post a link to those guides. anyone have a link.

Your ambulance is not a disposable peice of equipment at this scene and should be pulled past the scene into to a safe spot just past the reckage. Have police or the next arriving unit act as buffer to protect the accident scene. You will need to work the scene accordingly and not allow rescuers into on coming traffic until protection is in place. I would rather have a car crash into the accident scene rather then take out the only responding unit and possible its manpower.

I was taught that every transport to every hopsital gets a note about 5 min out. What the ED does with that information is up to them. I was told that it is my choice as to radio or cell and prefer cell. I don't do radio often enough to be familar with the toning out to open the line and am more comfortable with the cell.

raised in Somers, Joined Carmel FD in 1993 then moved to Somers NY in 2001 Captain at the moment