Bnechis

They are sealed underneath (which is where most of the grime is coming from and with a good cover they stay clean. In fact there is less road spray there than in the side compartments. One thing to keep in mind, the longer bumper decreases your angle of attack (causing you to bottom out on bumps or hills and you may be limited to 60' hose on your reels because of that. also depending on the power source and where it is located you could use up 30+ feet of "hose" in the truck body.

And rumor has it that because of the tilt it was out of service more than in. Tough to justify an additional $30,000 for that feature.

Not exactly. The county would need County Fire Instructors (CFI) who are certified by OFPC and the county would pay them. CFI do not need to be full timers (and generally are not). And in theory if the county will not budget for it, the dept could arraing to pay the county for it.

And your costs dont take into account the State (OFPC) and county funds towards the total cost of fire service. If you also consider the cost of fire "protection" you also need to include the cost of construction (build your house of straw vs. brick, sprinklers vs. none) and insurance premiums. since both contribute to fire protection. The statutory minimum was fought for by the NYSPFFA and was opposed by FASNY. the state seatled it by only including the career depts. Side bar: Chris I use to be able to split the quotes and add comments after specific lines, as you did in your post. I can no longer do that...how can I?

Correct. the only requirement is IF you provide EMS, you must meet the minimum standards. But you do not have to provide EMS.

There are never enough courses given in any of the outreach programs to meet the demand. And if you are a career dept. you have to pay for the acadamy. 38ff's point was he would be willing to pick up the cost of extra classes to get his guys trained

Because OFPC has to protect their own. I use to teach a 16 hours hazmat ops course for a local dept. (I have been cert by OFPC to teach it as a cfi or mpo). The dept wanted to send some members to OFPC Hazmat tech. OFPC said send the teching material. We did, they reviewed it and determined that even though it was an hour loger than the state course and actually meet the legal requirements for the AHJ (OFPC's class does not) it was 5 minutes short in one area and 3 minutes in another so their members could not take OFPC's Hazmat Tech, unless they retook Hazmat Ops 1st.

I had to go back to this.........Solve the problem by adding volunteers. Later I mentioned they have volunteers,but I may not have been clear as to how many: NYC Volunteer EMS Agencies ALS Services, Inc. 1340 East 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11230 Bay Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps. P.O. Box 610540, Bayside, NY, 11361 www.bcvac.org Bayside Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 214-23 42 Ave., Bayside, NY, 11361 http://bvacems.tripod.com/ Bedford Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 561 Lexington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11221 www.bsvac.org Bensonhurst Volunteer Ambulance Service Inc. P O Box 140147, Brooklyn, NY, 11214 http://bensonhurstvas.org BRAVO Volunteer Ambulance Service, Inc. 8507 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11228 www.bravoambulance.org Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department 15 Noel Road Broad Channel, NY, 11693 www.broadchannelvfd.org Brooklyn College Emergency Medical Squad 2900 Bedford Ave Suite 021 N.E., Brooklyn, NY, 11210 http://students.brooklyn.cuny.edu/ems/ Central Park Medical Unit, Inc. PO Box 440 Gracie Station, New York, NY, 10028 www.cpmu.com Chevra Hatzalah Volunteer Ambulance Service 1340 East 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11230 www.hatzalah.org College Point Community Ambulance Corps, Inc. PO Box 84, College Point, NY, 11356 http://departments.firehouse.com/dept/CollegePointNY Columbia University EMS 101 Low Library, 535 W. 116th St., New York, NY, 10027 www.columbia.edu/cu/cava/ Corona Community Ambulance Corps, Inc. 104-38 47th Ave., Corona, NY, 11368 www.ccvac.org East Midwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps. PO Box 100788, Brooklyn, NY, 11210 www.eastmidwoodvolunteerambulance.com Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 4623 Avenue N, Brooklyn, NY, 11234 http://www.fvac.org/ Flushing Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc. 43-14 162nd Street, Flushing, NY, 11358 http://www.freewebs.com/fcvac/ Fordham University Emergency Medical Service 441 E. Fordham Rd., Bronx, NY, 10458 www.fordham.edu Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Inc. P.O. Box 750617, Forest Hills, NY, 11375 www.fhvac.org Gerrittsen Beach Fire Department 52 Seba Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11229 www.gbfd.net Glen Oaks Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 257-02 Union Turnpike, Floral Park, NY, 11004 http://www.geocities.com/hotsprings/falls/2854/ Glendale Volunteer Ambulance Corps. PO BOX 863991, Ridgewood, NY, 11386 www.glendalevac.org Jamaica Estates Holliswood South Bayside Volunteer Ambulance Corps. PO Box 640181, Oakland Gardens, NY, 11364 http://www.jevac.org/ Lindenwood Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps. PO Box 170191, Ozone Park, NY, 11417 www.lindenwoodvac.org Little Neck-Douglaston Community Ambulance Corps. 42-18 Marathon Parkway, Little Neck, NY, 11362 www.lndambulance.org Middle Village Volunteer Ambulance Corps Inc. P.O. Box 5, Middle Village, NY, 11379 http://home1.gte.net/mvvac/ North Shore Rescue Squad No. 1, Inc. PO Box 140702, Staten Island, NY, 10314 www.northshorerescuesquad.org Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps Inc. 478 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11217 www.psvac.org Queens Village-Hollis-Bellerose Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 235-01 Braddock Avenue, Queens Village, NY, 11428 Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc. PO Box 863992, Ridgewood, NY, 11386 www.ridgewoodvac.org Rockaway Point Volunteer Fire Department 204-26 Rockaway Point Blvd., Rockaway Point, NY, 11697 Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Medical Services Inc. 42 State Road Roxbury, Rockaway Point, NY, 11697 Throggs Neck Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc. P.O. Box 302 - Throggs Neck Station, Bronx, NY, 10465 Volunteer Heart Ambulance P.O. Box 060252, Staten Island, NY, 10306 http://www.vollyheart.com/ West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department P.O. Box 177, Howard Beach, NY, 11414 www.whbvfd.org Whitestone Community Volunteer Ambulance Service P.O.BOX 570064, Whitestone, NY, 11357 http://www.wvac11357.com Woodhaven Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps. 78-15 Jamaica Avenue, Woodhaven, NY, 11421 Now if these 35 different agencies can not solve the shortage, how is adding 1 more going to help?

Sorry you think so. I have been an EMS instructor for 30 years and I the amount of training that EMT's get has never been enough to put them out in the street as a newbe. When the course was 120 hours I convinced my course sponsers to let me do 180. I included Patient documentation, MCI OPS. auto extrication (scene safety & EMS rolls as well as understanding what to ask for, like a dash roll or a 3rd door) where my students got to see a car being cut up. How about doing patient packaging in a car thats mangled or in a bathroom. Do you know how to get a choking patient out of a corner bath tub? If you have never been tought, you wont manage it. How about getting the pt with the broken hip out of the recliner that the family placed them in (and do it without lifting or agrivating the break). There are many other threads that you can go to on firefighter training. Here we have 1 basic standard and many agencies including FDNY understand it and realize its just too basic, so they add more too it.

It just came to me, the system of volunteers suplimenting NYC*EMS was in use Citywide for 30 years. Many new EMT's got there feet wet that way. Where did it go? The EMT's figured out they could work for a transport company, get "paid" and gain experience. Thats why most of the Volunteers are no more.

1) They are not overtrained, the rest of the EMT's in NYS are undertrained. Most EMT classes spend less then 3 hours teaching triage,MCI ops and most never teach EMS's role at accidents and special rescue incidents. 2) Not downplaying their "emergencies" but 1st they need to be emergencies. I have responded to a number of "Chest Pains", "Diff Breathers" & "Man Down" within 500 feet of an ER. Sounds real. We get there and during the assessment we find a patient ID from the ER. When questioned they tell us how long they were waiting for a minor complaint (like I forgot to fill the Rx from last nights trip to the ER) and figured it would be faster if they called 911 so we could take them right in. Or my favorite, General Pain. Can not find anything wrong. transport to ER. Soon as the doors open, Pt bolts and yells, thanks for the ride, my GF lives across the street and I did not have bus fare. This guy pulled it with 2 other crews before the word got out and we started transporting to a different ER. He stopped calling.

1) There are plenty of VAC's right here in Westchester that are dying for volunteers. 2) While you say "add", if this were to work, Quin and other politicians will cut the jobs, becuase you are saving them $$$ by volunteering. Since they already determined that they believe in the cuts they have already made. This will net you no additional units and when the volunteers get tired of playing 2nd string, you will actually have a loss.

I hit my number (2306) I should play that number today

Never said they were not. But when you look at the state training records for each dept. and average them over the size of the dept. the numbers suck. And since you can not figure which members are active or will respond you are left with averages that are very very low. As this thread is about 1 standard. When you look at the career depts, the averages are similar accross the board.

C) As Spin the Wheel noted: Nassau VOLUNTEER FD's are part of the plan. Thats a fact and you are correct, I knew it. When the plans were being developed, OFPC pulled up the training records for about 25 Southern Westchester Depts and determined that the overall training levels were so bad that FDNY did not want any depts from Westchester except career, because they could provide the training records. Sorry you did not get invited, maybe if there was a single training standard you would have. A) Not using FDNY radio's. And yes the new 911 system sucks, what does that have anything to do with it?

a) FDNY, OFPC & WC have taken care of that, drilled on it and the frequencies work. Most depts in Westchester did not meet the minimum stanards required by FDNY to respond into NYC and that is why they did not participate in any of the anuall drills. c) FDNY has no intention of having Westchester units go to Manhattan. The have asked us to cover the Bronx

1) Due to what harness? their are 100's of harness designs on the market, In the NY metro region the most popular is the gemtor and the main reason is because "we want what FDNY has". 2) Can you tell me where in the new ciriculum cliff rescue is? I cant find it anywhere 3) This matches the decline in volunteers nationally in both Fire & EMS. There are many reasons for the decline, but if adding a total of 13 hours of training over a 2 years time then we have even bigger problems. What does the alternative (optional) CME program have to do with the decline? 4) Maybe the problem is not too few instructors, but too many students who are not prepared to take classes (i.e. no fit test, no medicals, old gear, etc.) thus filling up classes and tieing up instructors

All reasonable complaints and it shows how screwwed up NYS is. State and federal law require the "employeer" to provide the training. NYS DOL & the courts have long ruled that VFD's are employeers and volunteers are employees. If we hire a new firefighter my city has to pay for his training. If you recruit a new firefighter we also have to pay for his training If the state/county can not provide enough classes, then the local dept should be allowed to do it or allowed to fund it.

Agreed, but not likely from 3 different departments

Congrats Marty. Good luck in your next phase

Two ways to look at it: 1) A FIRE dept should be able handle a "simple" working fire. 2) the above being said, I give a lot of credit to any dept. that acknowledges (to itself) that it needs help and if this is what it takes, then at least they are making sure that the public and responders have enough responders. Long term, if this is the way they need to operate, then they should become 1 department. Mutual aid like this is not a long term solution.

1)That use to be true, but no longer. On the FD side they are not coming out of the woodworks for big fires and need multiple mutual aid units to cover. 2) And the agencies do not seam to be concerned about the multiple pages. The REMSCO has a number of legaly mandated items that it must do and it has no legal authority to do anything about this situation. The REMSCO has made attempts, but only the DOH has the legal authority to do anything and they have made it very clear that they will not. DOH says if they did anything about it most of the VAC's/VFD's in the state would be closed, as the situation in Westchester is not bad compared to "upstate". 3) Warned by whom? And why was Dobbs suspended? I believe it was not for delay/no response.

1) They can, but only if the VAC's agree to it 2) They will still have to do side work, because they are already doing 40 hours. If they work more than that they get overtime and that may bust the bank. Yes they will have to hire more. 3) Thats the single biggest reason we have not had consolidation in any emergency services.

1) You must 1st admit to oneself that you have a problem. Not a lot of agencies doing that. 2) I do not see a lot of depts that can roll all rigs. I see a lot that like EMS are sitting waiting for any available driver. 3) Bingo 4) The county does not have the legal authority to do it. And many of the VAC;s, FD's (and most of the politicians and administrators) either do not see that there is a problem or are just hoping it will go away on its own.

We have too many agencies, with too many UNDER Paid staff (mostly perdiems) and this just hurts everyone. Most agencies do not have thecall volume to justify paying people to sleep. Just treats the symptoms.