Bnechis

1) By standards, how many engines does a city of 4 sq miles and 66,000 population require? That need to be determined before one can say if they are stripped or not. 2) they signed the mutual aid plan. You want assistance you have to agree to give it.

When I worked in the city in the late 80's/early 90's. The shifts were 8 hours and many units would only sit for 10 minutes on post before getting a call. Do the call, go back on post and do the next one. you never had enough time to go back to a station, even if there was one.

It does not appear that they have fire districts. The town website lists 5 fire companies (all with both line officers and executive officers), thus it is most likely that they are fire protection districts contracted to the town.

Proper staffing for every response in every community

The car's name is Robert, but its friends all call him Bob.

Its not out of 59 Volunteer & Combo Departments are not held to 1710 (except for insurance grading). They are held to 1720 which is a lower standard.

A 20y/o Ellenville EMT drove the ambulance to a call with a 4y/o having a seizure. Agency rules do not allow 20 y/o's to drive, but after 4 other agencies could not get out and the local commercial service gave a 45 min ETA. This EMT (who is also an EMT for a commercial service, is a p/t cop and allowed to drive his VFD's apparatus) Drove the ambulance. Agency leaders claim this is a local policy and not an insurance issue. He was suspended by the Board of Directors, so he resigned. The patient was transported to local ER then transferred to Albany Medical Center. I would give the link, but have not been able to cut and paste on EMTB for weeks (since I got a new PC)...time for them to upgrade the browser. best article was on www.recordonline.com

1. Agreed 2. Yes the same can be said for them, My point was for those who keep saying the rules must be followed....... The private sector guy is right and wrong. Generally EMS only needs awareness, however the law is clear that firefighters need ops (minimum) and all must have the training before responding on any call, not just hazmat calls. When the law came out in the 80's, Nassau County trained all the firefighters to awareness and the NYS Courts told them to upgrade everyone to ops. 3. NYS & many other state courts have said that consensus standards are the standard that are used by the courts, unless you can prove they directly do not applies to you. FED OSHA has fined commercial EMS in Westchester for failing to provide proper PPE for EMS at MVA's and they use the NFPA standards for it. Also more than 50% of NFPA standards have nothing to do with fire departments. 4. DOL General Duty Clause requires the employer to: SEC. 5. Duties (a) Each employer -- (1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees; (2) shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act. 29 USC 654 ( Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act which are applicable to his own actions and conduct. Hazmat is very specific: 1910.120(q)(6) Training. Training shall be based on the duties and function to be performed by each responder of an emergency response organization. The skill and knowledge levels required for all new responders, those hired after the effective date of this standard, shall be conveyed to them through training before they are permitted to take part in actual emergency operations on an incident. Employees who participate, or are expected to participate, in emergency response, shall be given training in accordance with the following paragraphs: 1910.120(q)(6)(I) First responder awareness level. First responders at the awareness level are individuals who are likely to witness or discover a hazardous substance release and who have been trained to initiate an emergency response sequence by notifying the proper authorities of the release. They would take no further action beyond notifying the authorities of the release. First responders at the awareness level shall have sufficient training or have had sufficient experience to objectively demonstrate competency in the following areas: 1910.120(q)(8) Refresher training. Those employees who are trained in accordance with paragraph (q)(6) of this section shall receive annual refresher training of sufficient content and duration to maintain their competencies, or shall demonstrate competency in those areas at least yearly. For Confined Space: 1910.146(g) Training. 1910.146(g)(1)The employer shall provide training so that all employees whose work is regulated by this section acquire the understanding, knowledge, and skills necessary for the safe performance of the duties assigned under this section. 1910.146(g)(2)(i)Training shall be provided to each affected employee: Before the employee is first assigned duties under this section; 1910.146(g)(2)(ii) Before there is a change in assigned duties; DOL has interpreted this to mean if an employee can be assigned to a location that has a confined space, then at a minimum they must know what they are and what the hazards of them are. The trench standard lists that employees may not enter an unprotected trench. Citations under the General Duty Clause have been issued because employees did not understand what an unprotected trench is. The same standard applies to water hazards The level of training for "Operating" at these locations is higher. Here I'm just referring to the requirements for being at a location that has these hazards.

1st time in 2 months

I like all the comments of: "the rules are the rules" ....What I find interesting is how many of those agencies are 100% compliant with OSHA Laws ("rules")? Does your EMS agency train every member in hazmat before they can respond on ANY calls? What about proper PPE for MVA's? This means every responder has helmet, gloves, coat, pants, & boats that meet NFPA standards and they are wearing them? How many have been trained in confined space awareness, trench/excavation awareness and water safety as required by law?

In theory only one meets 1710 (I say theory because without response time data, we do not know if they actually meet it or not). I do not know if any meet 1720 which is a volunteer standard, but its so watered down that NYS Insurance Commissioner signed of on 1710 for evaluating ISO ratings even of volunteer depts.

Not just from other sites. Quote & Multi quote do not work & I cant even copy/paste from word. Going on for over a month. Last time I had a similar issue was a few years ago when our IT dept upgraded my browser, took EMT-B a few months to catch up.

4WD ambulances ride in the back is much worst than 2WD. How many days a year do you really need the 4WD? 4, 6, 10? out of 365 days that you give patients a poor ride. Before anyone says what's the difference, get yourself secured to a backboard and ride around in the back. I had a sever back muscle spasm 30 yrs. ago and took that ride. I will crawl to the ER before getting in the back for that ride again. Onspots, nice concept, until you skid in them. they are nice to give you that little extra from not getting stuck, but I have seen them disengage the moment the unit slides sideways and then you have nothing. Most drivers are overconfident with them. Diesel engines do run cooler and last longer, but they require a longer warm up than EMS ever provides them with. They are designed to run and run, not start & stop. Unless your ambulance is posted to a location and running all tour, the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages.

Yes, if their rigs are not there, & they go to the scene you could call it "self dispatched", but when we go to cover the house and even to the scene with our companies their is a reason for it and its part of our dispatch protocol,

The long established national standard for turnout time (from time of dispatch till vehicle clears the building) is 60 seconds.

SRS131EMTFF - Those rules also include covering your calls. When you get your CON (Certificate of Need) from the Health Dept. you agreed to the state law, which states you will operate 24 hours a day. Failure to cover your calls can result in revocation of your CON. NYS DOH looks the other way, because they would have to close the majority of services if they started to enforce it.

I hope the community understands the real issue, they and 4 neighboring communities can not get an ambulance out to save a 4 y/o. It really is time to regionalize and insure coverage.

A well known/respected member of YFD posted here what they dispatch and what policy is and additional posters AFTER that post, write "I think" this is how YFD operates. right or wrong, its not needed. Can we try to read the post 1st, before posting. Thank you.

Its not self dispatch. Most depts. have policies about sending a chief or safety officer anytime a rig is sent M/A. YFD and other depts. are well aware of this. 60 Control does not tone them out, because who goes varies by time of day/day of week. Actually, 60 Control does not dispatch specific units from any department. i.e 60 Control to all New Rochelle Stations, respond 1 engine & 1 ladder to Yonkers Station #1, 5 New School Street. Guess what....nobody goes, the DC calls 60 and tells them who may go and 60 re-dispatches the units.

I was under the impression that the FDNY commissioner was always replaced (retired) prior to 24 months because after that their civil service status changed. Can anyone confirm or dispute this?

Interesting to hear the positive comments about the Q/M concept. I taught some classes for Capt. Willy (<sp>) from RFD Training to the Rescue in the late 1980's and the comments from the experienced members then were it was the worst thing that had ever happened to RFD. Makes me wonder if the system got better or those working now came on with it and got use to it and do not remember it otherwise.

Maybe that reason they look the same is that Pierce and Seagrave are only 38 miles apart.

Wow language changes over 80 years are interesting. Springdale: "and to establish and maintain club rooms, for social intercourse and the promotion of the interests of the company and the purpose thereof".

It covers the water. If you fail to pay they can #1 sue you for failing to pay your utility bill or #2 United Water can unbolt the hydrant from the lateral and remove it. We pay close to $1.4m for the hydrant rental fee.

Not sure how to answer the pension question. We pay a huge amount of money towards retired disabled members (as the city is required to) but I do not think you can compare it to the on-duty pension costs. They are spread out over 20+ years and invested by the state to cover the pension. The amount spent is similar to the disability costs, but is covering 2 or 3 times the number of people. A bigger cost factor are the members who are disabled and waiting for the state to complete the paperwork to retire them. We have had members wait 3 years or more to get retired. This is on members who their doctor, the city doctor and the state pension doctor all agree that the member can not return to work. We continue to pay them as a regular member and pay OT to cover 100% of their shifts. Meanwhile Gov. Cuomo is beating us up for failing to reduce property tax, but he is very proud that he cut the number of state workers (including those that process disability retirements). So that one clerk that no longer works in Albany (and saves the state $60,000) costs our taxpayers $250,000 per employee. we have 5 or 6 in this boat so the states $60,000 saving is costing our tax payers $1.2 - $1.5m and I bet they could process more than 1 retirement every other month, If they could do 2 a month they could save local property taxes of around $6,000,000 (that's $100 saved for every $1 spent). This affects both career FD and PD.