SRS131EMTFF

RIP. Still doesn't make me want to carry a vest and gun though.

RIP. Still doesn't make me want to carry a vest and gun though.

As the primary recruiter here in Stamford I can only say this: I will seek out anyone, anywhere....I don't care where you live, what your race is, what religion you practice or don't or what's between your legs...if you're willing and able to do the work we need you to do, than I'm happy to have you. If a department needs members (and who doesn't) and they don't tap ALL the resources they have available to them, than they're committing suicide...it may be slowly or it may be quickly but the end result will be the same, their organization will end up in the dustbin of history.
OK, that said, let me also add that making our VFDs more diverse does not have to mean we are turning our backs on our history and traditions. Sure, diversity can mean the end of "our culture" as we know it, especially if prejudices and ignorance hold sway, or diversity can enhance, strengthen and reinforce our culture to not only stave off our own extinction, but make it better...the choice is up to us. The responsibility for what our VFDs are now and what they can become rests squarely on our shoulders, no one else. We CAN embrace diversity and still remain who we are, but it takes willingness and work. It is the job of those of us who ARE our organization now to pass along our history, our traditions and our culture, those things that define us, to those who are coming along after us and who WILL BE our organizations in the future, even if they don't look like us or practice our religion or use the same restroom...for if we don't, we won't have a future

60 Control is incompetent. They could never handle Fairview or Hartsdale....
#givemeaf***ingbreak

I would rather have the "extra" guy on the floor. All day, everyday. Having a trained firefighter stuck in a room answering a phone and yapping on a radio instead of pulling hose is a waste of resources. Especially considering 60 control is there AND available to do the job FOR you.
Can you really look me in the face and say "I'd rather have firefighter Joe in the radio room and not helping us make the stretch down a smoke filled hallway because he really is more helpful to me on the radio than on the line." If so, you are whacked.

WOW.
So what difference would it make if Jim made $200,000 or the other candidate who gets elected makes $200,000? How would that change the outcome?
Did the opposing side do anything illegal? Please do not bring up the immoral or inappropriate ways this played out. Maybe looking at how that fire district conducts its business and the damage it causes on daily basis if you want to see immorality and inappropriate behavior.
A lot of people chimed in and put in their two cents. You know who the only true losers will be? The members that serve the district and public. The drama and "payback" that I am sure is already in the works and the toll it will take on members with dissenting opinions will be far reaching and those who have targets on their backs, who already have lost friendships, who have already suffered and who still struggle to find a reason to serve and do the right thing will lose again.
The fact is the Somers Fire District is in terrible shape. It is a sinking ship with its crew members busy fighting each other and looking out for their own interests and egos as boat goes down. If it wasnt for the fact that REAL people will die and property will be lost this would be a great TV show. Its a bad movie where real people suffer.
Jim Arena is a great person. A friend. A man I know I could count on anytime, anyplace, anywhere. He is well respected and liked among the people, even among the ones that did vote against him last night.
By the way. Do you have proof that the other candidate started any of those rumors, made any of those emails, or did any of those appalling things you say they did?
Or are you just as guilty of spreading vicious, outrageous and false claims as the person you so vehmently despise?

Where exactly in the county is there both no cell or pager service?

Where exactly in the county is there both no cell or pager service?

I can see maintaining the siren to use in a civil defense fashion or as a backup for times like you mention where power is out for an extended time period, but using it on a daily basis for all calls just isn't necessary. Additionally, if your means of notification goes down, you staff your station to ensure a response.
The fact that some companies don't use sirens and some companies only blow the siren during certain hours shows that the siren simply isn't essential for member notification or for the public for that matter.
If they were, every station would have them and use them every time there was a call.

So many wrong points here it is almost farsical.
Total non-story. Russians were operating in international waters and were intercepted by South Korean Air Force prior to an USS Reagan F/A-18C/Ds. Whipped into controversy by Fox News but totally par for the course.
Considering China is a mostly brown navy on the best of days again, there is no challenge to American power in the South China Sea unless you count unmarked obsticles which have sunk more navy ships in recent memory then any boomer, AShM or diesel-electric submarine since the Falklands.
You mean the deal to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and replace the nuclear weapons material with power generating material? Sounds like a lot of peace to me. That $100 billion will do wonders modernizing their infrustructrue and spreading American goodwill in the region.
Japan or Guam maybe but only Russia can reach US mainland from their mainland. Good thing both Japan and S. Korea have AEGIS based missle defence supplied by the US military.
See US invasion and destabilization of Iraq and subsequent unrest, destabilization in Syria courtesy of G.W. Bush.
"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
-Emma Lazarus
See Iraq comments from above.
Invited by the Syrian Government and while bombing FSA positions, has more to lose from extremism and terrorism given its proximity to Syria and large muslim regions and population.
Hezbollah hasen't attaked Israel since the begining of the January and considering I drove the entire Lebanon/Israel border in May, there is not much to worry about there.
Not sure how you are calling them in disarray as they are actively competing with the US in the global oil market making American petro products uneconomical to export. They are also winning in Yemen against the Houthi.
Died on a rescue mission rescuing hostages earning America more good will.
De oppresso liber.
We are not the only NATO forces present in country and the 9,000 is way less than the 100,000+ we had at the height of surge.

So many wrong points here it is almost farsical.
Total non-story. Russians were operating in international waters and were intercepted by South Korean Air Force prior to an USS Reagan F/A-18C/Ds. Whipped into controversy by Fox News but totally par for the course.
Considering China is a mostly brown navy on the best of days again, there is no challenge to American power in the South China Sea unless you count unmarked obsticles which have sunk more navy ships in recent memory then any boomer, AShM or diesel-electric submarine since the Falklands.
You mean the deal to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and replace the nuclear weapons material with power generating material? Sounds like a lot of peace to me. That $100 billion will do wonders modernizing their infrustructrue and spreading American goodwill in the region.
Japan or Guam maybe but only Russia can reach US mainland from their mainland. Good thing both Japan and S. Korea have AEGIS based missle defence supplied by the US military.
See US invasion and destabilization of Iraq and subsequent unrest, destabilization in Syria courtesy of G.W. Bush.
"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
-Emma Lazarus
See Iraq comments from above.
Invited by the Syrian Government and while bombing FSA positions, has more to lose from extremism and terrorism given its proximity to Syria and large muslim regions and population.
Hezbollah hasen't attaked Israel since the begining of the January and considering I drove the entire Lebanon/Israel border in May, there is not much to worry about there.
Not sure how you are calling them in disarray as they are actively competing with the US in the global oil market making American petro products uneconomical to export. They are also winning in Yemen against the Houthi.
Died on a rescue mission rescuing hostages earning America more good will.
De oppresso liber.
We are not the only NATO forces present in country and the 9,000 is way less than the 100,000+ we had at the height of surge.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
-Herbert Hoover
Sounds like you are signing up your son, and the sons of others, to die for an ideology they do not support.
At least ISIL brainwashes and indocrinates all of their youth before sending them to martyrdom.

So many wrong points here it is almost farsical.
Total non-story. Russians were operating in international waters and were intercepted by South Korean Air Force prior to an USS Reagan F/A-18C/Ds. Whipped into controversy by Fox News but totally par for the course.
Considering China is a mostly brown navy on the best of days again, there is no challenge to American power in the South China Sea unless you count unmarked obsticles which have sunk more navy ships in recent memory then any boomer, AShM or diesel-electric submarine since the Falklands.
You mean the deal to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and replace the nuclear weapons material with power generating material? Sounds like a lot of peace to me. That $100 billion will do wonders modernizing their infrustructrue and spreading American goodwill in the region.
Japan or Guam maybe but only Russia can reach US mainland from their mainland. Good thing both Japan and S. Korea have AEGIS based missle defence supplied by the US military.
See US invasion and destabilization of Iraq and subsequent unrest, destabilization in Syria courtesy of G.W. Bush.
"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
-Emma Lazarus
See Iraq comments from above.
Invited by the Syrian Government and while bombing FSA positions, has more to lose from extremism and terrorism given its proximity to Syria and large muslim regions and population.
Hezbollah hasen't attaked Israel since the begining of the January and considering I drove the entire Lebanon/Israel border in May, there is not much to worry about there.
Not sure how you are calling them in disarray as they are actively competing with the US in the global oil market making American petro products uneconomical to export. They are also winning in Yemen against the Houthi.
Died on a rescue mission rescuing hostages earning America more good will.
De oppresso liber.
We are not the only NATO forces present in country and the 9,000 is way less than the 100,000+ we had at the height of surge.

You do understand ISIS and the current refuge crisis in Syria wouldn't exist had we not invaded Iraq and later interfered in the Syrian civil war right?

NYS will pay for your EMT course if you are affiliated with a NYS volunteer EMS agency. It always make sense to have someone else pay for your certification. However before you take the class, ensure this work is for you. I have seen WAY TOO MANY people take the EMT course only to realize that they do not want to do EMS.
To choose an agency:
1. Go local, you will last longer if you volunteer in your home town than if you volunteer 3 towns over. I.E. Community Involvement/Ownship
2. Inquire about the culture. Being the volunteer on a truck of paid medics gets old quick, doubly so if your stuck at the station for 12+ hours while everyone else runs from home. Is their a paid vs. volunteer divide? What about new kids vs. old timers? In-town folks vs. out of town folks? Any overly strong personalities that you wont like/wont like you? All important to consider. You will be place in very difficult and stressful potential life and death situations with these people. You want to be around people you can trust, can trust you and you get along with. These people will turn into your family or worst enemies. I.E. Organization Culture
3. Call volume and response area. Depending on whether you are home or at the station and your personal preferences will be the judge of this aspect but no one really wants to volunteer to run calls for 12 hours straight if they run from home and no one wants to volunteer to sit at the station for 12 hours just to sit on your hands for the entire time. I.E. How Busy
4. Room for advancement. It gets boring doing the same thing over and over again. You want to drive I see, how long will it be until you take the EMT course will be important. Will you still be driving 2 years later or will they let you take an EMT class by then? Will they let you alternate positions once you are cross-trained? Drive one call and tech the other? I.E. Cross-training

NYS will pay for your EMT course if you are affiliated with a NYS volunteer EMS agency. It always make sense to have someone else pay for your certification. However before you take the class, ensure this work is for you. I have seen WAY TOO MANY people take the EMT course only to realize that they do not want to do EMS.
To choose an agency:
1. Go local, you will last longer if you volunteer in your home town than if you volunteer 3 towns over. I.E. Community Involvement/Ownship
2. Inquire about the culture. Being the volunteer on a truck of paid medics gets old quick, doubly so if your stuck at the station for 12+ hours while everyone else runs from home. Is their a paid vs. volunteer divide? What about new kids vs. old timers? In-town folks vs. out of town folks? Any overly strong personalities that you wont like/wont like you? All important to consider. You will be place in very difficult and stressful potential life and death situations with these people. You want to be around people you can trust, can trust you and you get along with. These people will turn into your family or worst enemies. I.E. Organization Culture
3. Call volume and response area. Depending on whether you are home or at the station and your personal preferences will be the judge of this aspect but no one really wants to volunteer to run calls for 12 hours straight if they run from home and no one wants to volunteer to sit at the station for 12 hours just to sit on your hands for the entire time. I.E. How Busy
4. Room for advancement. It gets boring doing the same thing over and over again. You want to drive I see, how long will it be until you take the EMT course will be important. Will you still be driving 2 years later or will they let you take an EMT class by then? Will they let you alternate positions once you are cross-trained? Drive one call and tech the other? I.E. Cross-training

NYS will pay for your EMT course if you are affiliated with a NYS volunteer EMS agency. It always make sense to have someone else pay for your certification. However before you take the class, ensure this work is for you. I have seen WAY TOO MANY people take the EMT course only to realize that they do not want to do EMS.
To choose an agency:
1. Go local, you will last longer if you volunteer in your home town than if you volunteer 3 towns over. I.E. Community Involvement/Ownship
2. Inquire about the culture. Being the volunteer on a truck of paid medics gets old quick, doubly so if your stuck at the station for 12+ hours while everyone else runs from home. Is their a paid vs. volunteer divide? What about new kids vs. old timers? In-town folks vs. out of town folks? Any overly strong personalities that you wont like/wont like you? All important to consider. You will be place in very difficult and stressful potential life and death situations with these people. You want to be around people you can trust, can trust you and you get along with. These people will turn into your family or worst enemies. I.E. Organization Culture
3. Call volume and response area. Depending on whether you are home or at the station and your personal preferences will be the judge of this aspect but no one really wants to volunteer to run calls for 12 hours straight if they run from home and no one wants to volunteer to sit at the station for 12 hours just to sit on your hands for the entire time. I.E. How Busy
4. Room for advancement. It gets boring doing the same thing over and over again. You want to drive I see, how long will it be until you take the EMT course will be important. Will you still be driving 2 years later or will they let you take an EMT class by then? Will they let you alternate positions once you are cross-trained? Drive one call and tech the other? I.E. Cross-training

You are implying that this is a sound business in the first place, which it is not at all. Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement is a joke a best. An ambulance could do 30 billable runs a day but if they are all Medicare/Medicaid, no one will know when they will get reimbursement or how much. Could be 30% 2 weeks later, could be 10% 3 months later, literally no one knows, it is all based on Medicare/Medicaid how much reimbursement they are willing to pay for whatever you have done. I know we currently are at 22% of our fee is reimbursed by Medicare/Medicaid. If you are lucky, you have a patient with private insurance, maybe then, after arguing with the insurance company about how much reimbursement they will pay will you actually see reimbursement rate anywhere north of 50%.
As recently as last week, I was told to wait until 2pm on Friday to deposit the paycheck. I had to wait 2 weeks for them to order new defib pads so that they could ensure that they were going to make payroll.
However when dealing with companies that would rather pay $1000 for a tow job 50 miles than take the rig out of service for a day to replace a $150, you can see how in the end, it is all really just F'ed.

You are implying that this is a sound business in the first place, which it is not at all. Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement is a joke a best. An ambulance could do 30 billable runs a day but if they are all Medicare/Medicaid, no one will know when they will get reimbursement or how much. Could be 30% 2 weeks later, could be 10% 3 months later, literally no one knows, it is all based on Medicare/Medicaid how much reimbursement they are willing to pay for whatever you have done. I know we currently are at 22% of our fee is reimbursed by Medicare/Medicaid. If you are lucky, you have a patient with private insurance, maybe then, after arguing with the insurance company about how much reimbursement they will pay will you actually see reimbursement rate anywhere north of 50%.
As recently as last week, I was told to wait until 2pm on Friday to deposit the paycheck. I had to wait 2 weeks for them to order new defib pads so that they could ensure that they were going to make payroll.
However when dealing with companies that would rather pay $1000 for a tow job 50 miles than take the rig out of service for a day to replace a $150, you can see how in the end, it is all really just F'ed.

I'm no fan of this liberal gov't or the agenda that it's pushing. I also don't think the confederate flag has anything to do with that tragic mass-murder a couple of weeks ago. However, lets not get crazy....no one is saying you can't fly or display a confederate flag. Each person is free to do so under the constitution. What is at issue is whether a gov't institution should be flying that flag. My personal opinion is no.
I'll soap box a little further....the confederate flag is a flag of treason. Today, we'd probably have branded them terrorists. Lastly, The flag that is currently flying over the Carolina State House was only raised in the 1960's as a symbol of defiance in the face voting rights and school integration. So, it's not some historic battle flag that'd been flying there for a century, it's simply a symbol of division.

Same exact rumor since 2008...

When I posted about air raid sirens I got really no responses or a little debate of should we bring them back but only for weather emergency. Discussion never got off the ground. Why bother? Honestly after that I am done trying here. Ivan get way better info else where. And Seth not for nothing in the past we have heard about plans for future only to have you ask for money or hear personal issues set you back. I'm sorry to hear some of the things you have gone through. Many people go through a lot. But also sounds like you are holding onto the site for you.

I have 2,700 posts here and I have been here for over 9 years. That is 300 posts per year, a little under 1 a day, average. In the past two years I have posted here less than 100 times, or a little over once a week. To say this site has died is an understatement, of the top ten posters that are not Seth, only 3 post anymore. 1 is me, 1 is a moderator and 1 is Bnechis. We have lost more quality posters than we have gained by leaps and bounds. The reason why we do not have the posting that used to occur is simply we do not have the same caliber of people posting over and over again. Yes there are a few quality people posting out there but those who post talk past each other, not actually to each other.
Quite simply it is impossible to engage in conversation if no one is listening. It is even harder/more frustrating when any conversation here occurs past eachother and not too each other; very quickly you loose anything to talk about.
I am not sure there really needs to be another generation of EMTBravo. What would it accomplish? We have tried using EMTBravo as a training site with no success, we have tried using EMTBravo as a incident alert site with no success, we have tried using EMTBravo as an emergency service community platform with no success. After some point you have to say that the site had a good life but has been eclipsed by other more modern platforms (Think of EMTBravo as MySpace) and you need to let it die. Maybe it is time that efforts get channeled somewhere where they would be more effective like emergency services activism or public education as opposed to a forum with only 1.5 new topics daily?

Why post an incident when it will become a volly vs oaid arguement. Almost every thread on this site beats a deas horse.

This has already been discussed here. Basically a handful of the several hundred registered users actually check this site. FB and Twitter have made the incident alert obsolete on this forum. Social media with quick updates posted under initial post make this forum extinct. And again people left unhappy with the administration running this site so many people said screw it and left and many people followed who agreed. They since started the sites I mention above on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you and don't forget to tip your waitress.