Bnechis

New Stations? Our stations were built in 1902, 1904, 1922, 1962, & 1962. Ad our scott packs were replaced in 2005 with a grant. Our new trucks replace 20 y/o ones that we sell for scrap metal. The VAC's spent 20-40 years proudly claiming that they only needed donations, many even refused till recently to bill 3rd party insurance. If you watch the commercial industry on a national level you will find many go out of biz, because the amount they can bill is below the cost of providing the service.

This is the reason we have 20-30 agencies with part time people, almost none are big enought or busy enough to propertly function this way and will always be short of funds to run properly or provide any benefits. If your failing, consider merging with the other EMS agencies in your area. Then when you hire, you have a large enough base to do it right. Well said.

Great Question. Maybe the reason that EMS in general and EMT's in particular are treated as "Ambulance Drivers" is due to lack of training, supervision and leadership. Lets look at these 3 issues: Training: HS Diplomia and approx 160 hrs of EMT training or 4 weeks and most commercial and vol. services will send you out on calls with minimal additional training, including driver training. To cut my hair you need over 1,000 hrs training to get licensed. When DES & DOH offers additional training only a very small % show up. In the 1980's & 1990's many of the vol. agencies fought hard against ALS because "we do not need paramedics telling our EMT's what to do". Also new EMT's are often paired with other newbies doing NH runs, so they do not get good training reinforcement. Career FF's recieve 12 - 16 weeks of training plus in many depts EMT. Then they are assigned to other members or officers with more experience to learn the job. Police go to the accademy for 6+ months then are assigned to a training officer. Supervision: What does it take to be a supervisor? In EMS this varies from election, to company preference, to nobody wanted it, and on occassion to the perfect candidate. In my PD you need to have a associates degree to even take the sargents test, BA/BS for Lt. and a masters for Capt., The FD does competitive testing for promotion and mandated state officer training. How often does an EMS supervisor show up to evaluate or supervise personel? How about PD (often) & FD (most calls). How often is the head of EMS selected by the Mayor, Supervisor, Board, etc. What about FD? PD? And do they have a seat at the government table? Lots of issues here. 1) Lots of other jobs require you to be in your vehicle all day: PD, DPW, truckers, taxi's, Bus drivers, USPS, UPS, FedEx, Construction, etc. etc. Being in the vehicle alone is not unhealthy. "Not fair".......my father always told me life is unfair.....bitching here does not change that. 2) Stop Eating in the Bus. Read, work on your education, get out and walk. Gaining that much is unhealthy. We see people sleeping and eating all day in EMS stations....and gaining just as much weight. 3) FD does not take it for granted, we constantly have to fight to even maintain what we have. The majority of FD Career stations in Westchester are at least 50 yrs old, many built for horse drawn fire apparatus. I know of at least 12 that are in danger of collapse and we have to fight to keep them open. Most local governments want nothing to due with EMS. Most governments do not wat to pay for it and i may of the commercial contracts they prove it with $0 cotracts. Others provide minimal levels. In the communities with VAC's or VFD's the local gov's have gotten away with providing minimal if any support, with the EMS agency going for decades proudly not even asking for help. Boston is a City not a county. If you look at the communities around Boston its similar to Westchester with lots of different agencies. The problem with starting a county system is convincing each existing agency to give up its kingdom. You also have a problem with paying for it. i.e. Yonkers is Fee for service, which means no property tax is spent on service, if you start a county system you will have at a minimum start up costs, which the county will most likely use property tax to cover. Why would any taxpayer that currently does not pay for EMS want to pay for it?

The munter is ok for 1 person only. Do not try a pick off with it. In testing we have seen it fail to stop loads over 400 Ibs.

And since by definition most calls we go on are HM calls....i.e. odors, MVA's, fires, EMS all meet the definition of HM. This is the definition that sets FF's apart from other responders: 29 CFR 1910.120(q)(6)(ii) states, "First responders at the operations level are individuals who respond to releases or potential releases of hazardous substances as part of an initial response to the site for the purpose of protecting nearby persons, property, or the environment from the effects of the release." In the late 1980's OFPC's HM Bureau reported that Nassau county trained every ff in the county to HM Awareness and NYS DOL (PESH) sited them for not meeting the standard. Note prior to this NYS had HM 1 & 2 (1 was better than aware, but not up to ops. HM2 was better than ops but below tech. ) good point

Yes Hazmat 1st Responder Operatons ICS, Competency Testing (which is not included in OFPC course) and Review of your dept's SOP's and Response Policies (not covered by OFPC). Actually OSHA does not put a time limit...they require the FD to insure competence in a series of areas (listed in 29CFR1910.120 Not dumb...The majority of the fire service is unaware of the requirements. It does not help that OFPC does not tell anyone that any of there OSHA based classes (Hazmat, Confined Space, Trench) only partially meet the law. It also does not help that when they merged Basic FF & HM OPS into FF1 they only scheduled 9 hours to cover 16 hours worth of material.

Less of a blind eye than some would think. The state training records CD clearly shows who has the training and who does not. They have said they will not allow untrained ff's from responding during a state fire mobilization. Also others have been looking at it to determine who should be requested for MA. I was shocked to find a number of depts in Westchester that had almost no one "certified". One dept. publicly has claimed they have 45 active members, but the states list only showed 3 members could legally respond to calls. In another dept. the chief, AC and 3 Capts did not meet the standards. The AC actually had no documented training. Now it is possible that they have the training and its just not on the states rolls, but I doubt it. You are right they will be able to get away with it for a long time, but Its going to catch up with them.

Then if he responded at all, he is in violation of the law. Since "ALL" ff's in NYS are required to meet the standard BEFORE they are ever allowed to respond on a call. Unified Command with PD as lead. NRFD & NRPD CIU have cross trained. NRPD is incharge of the entry. NRFD will perform pre-entry med monitoring and suit out of CIU and Decon/Post Med monitoring. NRFD Can suit up to assist in detection or evidence collection (which will be done by PD) after NRPD has determined that no bad guys are present. Neither does the clean-up. PD is incharge, except for suit entry issues (if PO does not meet Med standard FD does not allow suit up). This has been discused and drilled at length but, is still hypothetical, since our city rule of no drug lab rule has been enough to keep them out. BTW the drills were lots of fun....loved playing with the MP5's at Camp Smith. The Office of Emergency Managment (OEM) under the direction of the City Manager is in Charge. However in past events it is activly run by the FD. The major parts of OEM is run by FD. The City EOC and our new Dispatch Center (DPW, EMS, FD & PD) is in Fire HQ.

There are lots of ways to reduce the up front costs, but you may be increasing the operating cost and redusing the overall life of the rig. Also, there many safety features that cost a lot of money, but 1 injury will cost much more, particularly if it is career ending. It is best to balance the initial costs with the overall life costs.

Have you seen the price of stainless steel today? Buy it before it passes gold.........

The why replace it is because its 17 years old. Just because it does not run on all calls does not mean we do not need to have a reliable unit to perform technical rescue.

If you are offering the $$ for staffing we accept. And it is still cross manned. Only O.O.S. if out for repairs.

While this does not rule out PD being incharge, Here is one that we have used in planning: Under OSHA 29CFR1910.120 THe incident commander shall have training (at a minimum)of at least 24 hours; to the ops level plus ICS. Since it has been interpreted by NYS DOL Admin Law Judge (in a case against Nassau County) that ALL ff must recieve HM OPS prior to responding and in the same case (sorry I don't have the exact case info, was told this by one of the key witnesses in the case back in 1990 or so) PO's are not required to have this level. So if its leaking, or hazardous chemicals, if the FD Chief is legally quallified and the guys with the guns are not....by default. Otherwise, I know of no statued (other than the determine the cause of origin and that the property is ours during the time of a fire). Now, lets consider local policy. In NR we have a document that was approved by the city council that says who is incharge of different types of incidents and the only one thats a little fuzzy is when the snipers home is on fire......lol. PD...the bullets and us the fire. I'll stand behind the peacemaker and wait till its clear who's incharge.

The JN missed the #'s The Bond was $1,095,000. To cover a new E-25 and R-4

Unless the Pepridge Farm "cuppers" case was overturned, they were fined under it. I dont knowof any FD that has had an issue with the GDC. In NYS, Pesh barly fines anybody.

OSHA - CFR 1910.146 Respiratory Protection (the same one that gave us 2in/2out). Requires that eployeers provide and employees utilize SCBA when exposed to an IDLH (Imediatly Dangerous to Life and Health). CFR 1910.120 requires any response to an unknown release of toxic chemicals must be monitored to determine if they are hazardous. And the general duty clause of OSHA requires that employeers must protect their employees from any know hazard, even if no specific standard exists and OSHA can fine based on this alone.

Excellent point. NYS DOL says that a LSR would meet the standards, if its in place (and not left in a compartment on the rig). We've had them on all trucks for at least a doz years. Its SOP to bring it to the roof. Big problem for many depts. is they dont consider the roof a major priority, often because they have limited manpower.

I'm not excusing the job, my point was what is the best way to provided it. They NY Times did an article on the FDNY system, where they said many of the members (particularly those over 40y/o) felt it limited their movements and made it more likely to being trapped. My dept. evaluated this over a year before the law came out and did issue equipment. A lot of members here seem to belive that they are intitiled to the FDNY system because its what they believe is the best (I'm not saying it is not). The law makes sense, evaluate your risk and determine what is needed. Does a dept. upstate, where the tallest structure is a "double wide" with an additional cinder block under it need ropes? I was called by a village manager asking how to respond to the FD's request for $500 per member for all members, including exterior only members and "life" members who live in nursing homes. We evaluated a harness system and felt it was great, easy to deal with, jump out the window and your in good shape..etc. Then one member got hooked exiting the rig on a call (he didn't know he was hooked) and after going 50' stopped short because he came to the end of the rope and now he was done. My bigger point was that just by issuing equipment wont help if FF's will not use it. I know depts that have issued harness/ropes and it sits in a locker or car. I've also heard a few cases both with the old & the new FDNY systems, where members in trouble did not use them because they "forgot" they had them. Final issue; Is it my perception or is it that FDNY & everyone in the NY metro area sees this as such a major issue, but none of the other major cities & metro areas do? If we all need the FDNY system, what about Chicago, Boston, Dallas, LA...etc. What do they do ? How about other nations: what does London, Paris, etc. do?

The crew on the roof did a fantastic job. In the raw footage you could see the shards of glass flying out past the rope....they were very lucky, because under that much tension it would take almost nothing to cut the rope. Also, pulling the crew in at that steep of an angle multiplied the forces on the rope by at least 3x. We have used that as a force multiplier and it is very effective (200 Ibs pull can lift almost 600 Ibs about 2 feet). That additional force is what almost pulled the crew off the roof. The moment they made the grab, they should rapidly lower as far as they can (less time dangling, reduced force multipliers, and closer to ground if something fails). In this case they had enough rope to reach the ground. I'm not trying to take away anything from what they did. Because it was an outstanding example of what a great roof team can do. Just lots of members do not understand some of the concepts that come into play and for future incidents we should consider that.

QUOTE(FirNaTine @ Feb 7 2008, 12:08 PM) Thought the same thing bro. and your right. Then again it's the UK. What do they know! Their Cops still don't carry guns. Don't believe that...9 years ago I saw many were carrying, they just kept them lower key, except for the ones with the sub machine guns. They do better manning than that. 6 is minimum manning on a pump (ground ladders are only on pumps). Thats on all pumps (vol & paid) in GB (England, Scotland, & Wales). Manning is established by the Queens Office (of state, If memory is correct).

"Safely?" ....This makes it sound like your considering a recreational rappeling drill. I've taught bailout classes for over 20 years (yep, long before NYS...I was taught by Lt. Jim Curran from FDNY R1 in 1986) and have always taught that if you are about to perform a bailout it means that a) your in deep trouble, you found a window, and c) you are planning on jumping (because you have no choise). At this point any system will do because you are going out that window (with or without a rope). In the late 1990's a retiered USAF Col (who survived a crash but had massive burns) spoke at the NYC Burn Center Class (FDNY Randels Is.) and said when your burning you will jump, even if you know you will die. He even said you would jump from the top of the world trade center. I didn't believe him...then, and I don't think anyone else did either.

From Drag Rescue Devise Concern: "Thanks to the brother who shared this info and it is something that I've had a simliar incident with while running a student through mask confidence but they didn't get hung up on it badly it just deployed and stayed out. I will be putting this into my FF survival presentation and all other pertinent presentations to get it out there." As I previously posted, one concern for a bail out system is it could cause a ff to become trapped. On this post they showed a ff getting trapped with his DRD, which is much smaller and partialy covered by SCBA most of the time, look at how bulky the bailout harnesses and rope packs are.

It appears to me that everyone missed the concept of of Risk Assessment (as required in ALL OSHA and PESH regs). Whats the risk to ff's? How many FF's have died in the last 20 years because they jumped, fell (due to no bailout system) or died at a window because of no way down? (My count is less than 15) How many ff's have died from cardiac issues? (my count is over 750) How many in responding (and no seat belt use)? (over 500) Cancer...(unknown) If we provide mask that dont get used when needed, seat belts that don't get used... does a harness and bulky rope system that may never be used increase the risks? The extra weight contributing to cardiac stress? THe harness more likely to get a member entangled during a search? A lot of people are upset that depts are not running out to get them harnesses, but is this the best way to protect our members. How many know that the gemtor or any harness made of nylon melt at 364 degrees, and could be damaged long before you ever need it? What about exposre to chemicals that are found at common incidents? We looked at all of these issues a year before this law and experimented with a number of different "systems" and felt the best way to protect or members was a smaller, light and simple system. We have been lucky to have not needed it yet, but I can count dozens of members who I know have had cardiac events on our job. I'm sure a number of posters will not like what I've written, but again Whats the real risk to ff's?

News12 said it was Elite.

800.17(g) (g) Training (1) The employer shall ensure that the firefighter is instructed and trained in the proper use of the safety ropes and system components. (2) Training shall be comprehensive, understandable and recur annually. (3) Training shall include: 3(i) Why the equipment is necessary and how improper fit, usage, and maintenance can compromise the protective effects of the provided ropes and system components. (ii) The limitations and capabilities of the provided ropes and system components. (iii) How to use the rope and system components in emergency situations and in situations where the ropes and system components fail. (iv) How to inspect, put on and remove the ropes and system components. (v) The maintenance and storage requirements for the ropes and system components. (4) The employer shall certify that firefighters have been trained in accordance with this section and that they have demonstrated competence in the use of the ropes and system components. Looks like the law requires training. Also the survival class does not meet the standard if the dept decides to go with any system (like a harness based system) that is not taught.