Bnechis

They are shrinking rapidly....we are still growing (highest population ever).

Thats true, our taxes are much higher

They have already told us they are for our use, thats why they are posting them to us without the public seeing them

So when an apparatus manufacturer has a secure website and is posting pic's of the dept.'s new rig (and gave us the log in). Is the pic ours and can we use it or not?

What is sad, is there are many active municipal stations in about the same condition

You are correct in his chances, but not for the reasons you stated. There are 2 commercial, 1 vac and 1 ambulance district in the communities listed (L/M, MV, NR & P). All are dispatched by the municipalities (either directly or via 60 control). The data is public information and does not belong to the commercial services. The info needed is not how many calls are done, be it 1 or 1,000,000 what difference does it make, since the data you need is how many calls are not being covered or not being covered in a timely manor (as you are trying to prove need). Since 99% of the calls are being covered by ALS services within the national response time standards, you will not be able to prove need for another service (particularly one that is at a lower training level). While much of what you have said about REMSCO's are true in many regions, the Westchester REMSCO has a specific number of seats dedicated to each type of organization (Commercial, VAC, Vol Fire, Career Fire, PD, Hospitals, Health Dept., etc.) and only 2 of the 30 voting members are allowed to represent commercial services. The Transportation Committee (who investigate CON requests) is chaired by a Sr. Law Enforcement Official (who does not work for any EMS agency). By NYS regulations, the committee has to investigate if their is need and if an additional service will hurt the existing services. Removing $2 million+ in billables and additional competition for volunteers in the region will hurt existing services. The Westchester REMSCO does not allow any members to vote if they have a financial incentive and we have seen member abstain in a number of CON issues based on this. So unless your experience is with the Westchester REMSCO, you do not know what you are talking about.

NYS Health Law Article 30 requires all ambulance services to recieve a CON (certificate of need) from the Department of Heath. To get that you have to prove that there is a need for an ambulance service in an area and that an additional ambulance service would not (financially or membership drain) hurt the existing services. To prove need, you would have to show that calls are either not being covered or are being delayed. Since the area is fully covered by ALS services with average 4 minute response times you will not be able to prove need. An additional service will financially hurt the 2 existing services in (MV, NR, & Pelham). You could also hurt the membership rolls of Eastchester, Scarsdale and Larchmont/Mamaroneck VAC since many of there members come from NR. Since each of the communities already have established services and are dispatched by the local police (most via a service contract) you will no be able to recieve calls. Finally, Most VAC's are having major problems with staffing, instead of watering down the pool, why don't you join one of the existing VAC that could use the help.

Justice was swift and all appeals have been denied. Hopefully the troopers/officers are ok

So can you back this up with actual data? I know of a number of studies that show busy departments (more than 250,000 population) have higher injury rates as you drop below 5 men per company. Infact it shoes it is cheaper to have 5 man then 4 and 4 is cheaper than 3 when you factor the injury costs (which include medical cost, pension costs an OT for coverage). So when you cut staffing, you save $ in the 1st few months, then it winds up costing more to provide less service. The NIST study showed that your opinion is wrong. that 5 man companies were so much more effecient than 4 (and 4 than 3) that even if response times are longer it was still more effective. The bigger question that you fail to ask is can NYC afford to maintain the current service level? Since the Mayor said 4 times in a row, we need to cut cause we can not afford it and they found the money, one has to question his ability to manage the budget, not if they can afford it. You only see 2 choices: 1) cut the number of companies or 2) cut the staffing per company. I think that there is money behind door #3 and that is the 3rd choice, its about priorities and FDNY is not high on the Mayors list.

They were defunded last year.

And nothing I said contradicts what you wrote or vis versa. Thats great that EFD showed up quickly and with an appropriate response. When I arrived on scene, I estimated about 30 firefighters on-scene and the majority (that were not from WSOTF) were Jr.'s or Sr's.

My point was exactly that. There are many different types and since the examples were based on incidents in Mamaroneck that requested Dive Rescue, my point was the DES team is not Dive Rescue, it is swift water (which in my mind is much more important, since it is used to save live victims, while dive rescue unless it is there fast (like NYS Air/Sea Rescue) is mostly for recovery).

Ok, I either missed or forgot that one.

Great idea. I would love to see this happen, But to make it work you need minimum standards for staffing and training.

I find most communities that can not get an engine out have even more trouble getting and ambulance out. Often these same communities only get a trooper or a sheriff and they cover huge area so it may take lots of time and they may only get 1 officer. This should be a big question for everyone...What level of service is being provided in your community or more importantly in the community where your parents live? Sometimes you get what you pay for and sometimes you do not.

It is clear from this and all the other posts that we 1st need to define "Water Rescue Team" - There are 5 different types: Dive Rescue, Swift Water, Ice Rescue, Ocean/Deep Water Rescue and Still Water. They are drimatically different and there are differnet units out there. Every FD that has water must have a basic or still water and many do. The Town of Mamaroneck does, NRFD L13 & R4 both are set up for it. Eastchester does, etc. We just don't call them "teams" because its just part of what companies do. Same for Ice Rescue. Swift water and dive are major specialties that require lots of equipment and training. Our swiftwater/flood equipment cost $30,000 not including boats. The initial training is 40 hours and you need annual recertification. Dive Rescue cost even more and takes much more training. And while its called Dive "RESCUE" in most cases it is body recovery. In the 6 Mamaroneck cases, "dive teams" were not called until the victims were missing for hours. So they were body recoveries. There were at least 3 Dive rescue teams on the sound shore, 2 disbanded because of lack of interest and the other due to funding. A swift water team, not a dive team as FDNY41 was looking for. Agreed, but just because they are not called "teams" does not mean they do not exist. Nice concept, but what equipment should be sent? until you give a report it may vary. And 60 did auto send WSOTF to your collapse without an auto aid agreement. If the call sounds like it is needed, the IC can ask before anyone gets there. Also the number of false calls, may cause drop in volunteer response. The intial call is for a missing person, so FD may not even get called. Then do you send a dive time from Yorktown or a surface unit from Town of Mamaroneck. We have responded to Hawthorn, Purchase, Rye, Mamaroneck for collapse, trench rescues and hazmat. And to Orange County for floods and the Northern section of the state for Ice Storms. In most of those responses Yonkers, Greenville, White Plains and other career depts have also responded. So this is not an issue from the career depts in WSOTF. You NEVER want to overwhelm a technical rescue incident with muiltiple resouces (that do not train together). It causes many issues as we saw in Tarrytown (were ego's got in the way for 1 agency).

There is a county owned foam trailer in White Plains. The station is manned 24/7 and by the time it gets anywhere its almost to late. Purchase is only a few miles away, is unmanned, do you think it will get out any faster? Mamaroneck had a dive team, it fell apart years ago. It is very hard to keep a specialty team alive when it does no calls. After 9/11 the County recieved 6 WMD Squad Trailers and 3 Decon Trailers, plus the county Purchased 2 more Decon Trailers and Briarcliff purchased one (AFG grant funded). We set up 6 Volunteer Decon Units, Each was made up of at least 5 volunteer depts. (and local EMS was asked to participate with them). The policy was the VFD's would train and respond together. They needed to respond with the trailer and an engine plus 12 ff's/2 officers (we figured with the number of depts that that would not strip anyone). The units were to go to Greenburgh (the villages, as Fairview, Greenville & Hartsdale are set up as a squad), The sound Shore, North Castle, Town of Bedford & Town of Cortland, plus Briarcliff was going to add theirs with Ossining/Croton. Greenburgh turned it down, The others all trained and agreed to train and do at least 1 drill per year. I believe that 2 of the trailers were returned to DES and I do not know if any of the others have done any training or drills in 5 years. I suspect if we open the trailers we will find lots of cob webs. See Below for Trench. When California Closets in Hawthorne Colapsed a few years ago (Tornado strike). Greenville, New Rochelle, Yonkers had over 60 Collapse Tech's (NFPA 1670) responders with 3 collapse units on scene within 22 minutes after the collapse. The local FD's (5 or 6) were able to muster less than half that number of firefighters (untrained in tech rescue) and a good number of them were Sr.'s, Jr.'s or exterior members. How do you expect them to handle the training and equipment for tech rescue? Since most depts. (vol., combo & career) are suffering from lack of manpower, maybe we really need to concentrate on getting the basics covered 1st. We have a huge difference in training levels and if you think that volunteer depts should add 100's of hours per year in training, then maybe it should be in firefighting, which is what they are chartered to do, before we add other responsibilities which they are not responsable for. There are 5 Trench Rescue units in the county, 3 respond together (Greenville, New Rochelle, Yonkers). The 3 average 1 or 2 calls/year in half the county. The County team I do not beleive has had a call yet. Maybe if you think the companies would get more calls, they should go out and start collapsing trenches. Same holds true for the other specialties.

We have 2.5 staffed ambulances and 8 staffed fire apparatus. It is often less of a problem for FD to be there and in most cases the call lasts less than 10 minutes. As Antiquefire points out, you cant bill for these (or risk losing your medicare payments). So thats not an issue. Since all our firefighters are EMT's. We expect them to medically clear the person 1st, then pick them up. It is very rare that we need transport equipment and we have it or if really needed we can call for an ambulance. normally we only need it if they are injured and need to be transported to the hospital. A very good point and we do take advantage of that. Another advantage is many of our lifts require forcible entry, which EMS would need us for. Even better is in many multiple dwellings we have Knox Boxes....So the FD has the keys to get in. This is particularly true in all our highrise Sr. Citizen buildings. Finally, we have a patient assist system that our crews can document the situation and is forwarded to the Office for the aging (and others). This has reduced repeat calls, gotten meals on wheels and home health care services, in some cases special medical equipment and sometimes placement in long term facilities. I had one call for a person who was on the floor, he had a helth care aid, but was to big for them to lift him. We found no injuries, lifted him back into bed and noticed many cigarette burns in the bedding. I reported it, thru the system and they were able to get the health care service to keep the cigarettes away from the bedroom. The fall was incidental, but the other was going to create a big issue.

A number of EMS and Fire Based EMS agencies that normally would be called to the airport and in the past have participated, were not available because of the parade.

I'm glad I was not in their probie school. And Mr. Burrell, I did not realize you have been out of emergency services so long that you no longer understand the terminology.

Yes Because its fresh in everyones mind. Usually the room is full.

Because Ferrera was the lowest responsable bidder.

It was hard to miss him, he was wandering everywhere. The county PD had to coral him a number of times. Most of the time he was carrying the voice data recorder. If nothing else, he makes all the evaluaters laugh

The FAA requirement is every 3 years. About 12 years ago the performance was so bad that it was determined that it needed to be done every other year. I would say we need to do a lot more training.

Could you quantify that?