helicopper

Cheaper, safer, and smarter. Not qualities you'll always find in a drunk or stoned 20-something year old who happens to be a star this week. It is freakin' pathetic!

Escorts are dangerous! Leap-frogging emergency vehicles is extremely dangerous! What is the net benefit of this practice? Two minutes off the transport time? Four minutes? I seriously question the medical benefit to this practice and would urge you to consider all the potential problems that can arise. If you're talking about a 30 minute transport without the escort and 25 minutes with it, I don't think its worth it. Imagine this, your average moron motorist is at an intersection and miraculously hears a siren approaching. He/she sees a police car pass the intersection and figuring the coast is clear, pulls out - still looking at the police car speeding away of course - as your ambulance is entering the intersection. CRASH! Or this, the jacka$$ motorist DOESN'T hear the siren and pulls out in front of your escort vehicle causing him to brake suddenly and severely. Now you've got to slam on your brakes to avoid rear-ending the escort - if you can! The ride for your patient and crew leaves a lot to be desired. Do escorts happen all the time? Sure they do but that doesn't mean they really help! A much better practice, and one on that I've seen in both Rockland County and NYC, is the covering of intersections along the route to the hospital. Each major intersection (or every intersection if resources permit) is covered by a police unit to stop cross traffic and give you unimpeded access to the hospital. This is usually reserved only for the most severe cases but it does allow the ambulance to maintain a safe speed for the conditions and treatment occuring within without the sudden braking and accelerating that traffic normally requires. And why the heck did the medevac leave if it was already there and only 20 minutes away from receiving the patient? Just another perspective!

It is 2007, right? It feels like we've been in a time warp lately. EMS is on a really slippery slope right now. I hope we get our footing and keep moving up the hill!! Put the FF's through a CFR class and let them learn what to do for a variety of calls - not just CPR (or heart attack/diff breath). Sheesh!

Good! The NYPD has been doing it that way for years!

Considering that these promotions are posthumous, I don't think you'd have much to say about it. This token gesture provides some additional financial support to the family but no amount of money can erase their grief. The article mentioned nothing about his partner being promoted - he will hopefully get taken care of in some other way. As for our PD's taking care of our families in the same situation, I can only hope so!!!

Shot Phoenix officer dead; suspect at large Jennifer Price The Arizona Republic Jul. 27, 2007 12:10 AM A young Phoenix police officer, just two years on the force, was fatally wounded Friday night while trying to take down a forgery suspect at a west-side check-cashing business. The suspect remains at large. Officer George Cortez was pronounced dead late Friday at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, and the weary duo of Police Chief Jack Harris and Mayor Phil Gordon appeared at a press conference after 11:30 p.m. to mourn the death. Cortez was 23. "My colleagues and i are here tonight to mourn over the loss of a hero," Gordon said. "Officers go out every day to protect us; we offer our condolences to the father and the mother and the family. "We ask our city to pull together. This has been a very tragic day for our city, but we will move forward." Just hours earlier, the mayor and the police chief had appeared before reporters after two Valley television news helicopters collided as they followed a Phoenix police pursuit of a vehicle thief. Four people, two working for Channel 3 (KTVK) and two for Channel 15 (KPHX), were killed. Cortez was responding to a forgery in progress about 8:30 p.m. at a store in the 2300 block of West 83rd Avenue, near Encanto Boulevard. He went into the business and was attempting to apprehend the suspect when he was shot, Harris said. Cortez was married with two young children. "He was a very young officer, and had two years in our department," Harris said. The shooting occurred in the vicinity of Cricket Wireless Pavilion, where a Rush concert was taking place. Police searched fans cars leaving the concert in the search for the shooter, whose description was unavailable Friday.

Somebody need to fill a new swimming pool??

Date: 07-27-07 Time: Location: Originated in NJ, through the Bronx and Westchester, across the Tappan Zee into Rockland where it terminated in Rockland State Park Frequency: multiple Units Operating: NJ PD and Sheriff's Agencies, NYPD, Yonkers PD, Westchester County PD, Greenburgh PD, State Police, Rockland County PD's and Westchester County PD's Westchester County PD Aviation, NYPD Aviation, NY State Police Aviation Description Of Incident: Pursuit of homicide suspect across GWB, up Henry Hudson and Saw Mill Parkways, through Greenburgh and Elmsford and then back across 287 and TZB to Rockland County. Pursuit finally terminated in Rockland State Park when suspect crashed vehicle and fled of foot. Apprehended after short foot pursuit. At least three separate police cars were hit by suspect or involved in accidents during pursuit - all MOS are OK. Writer: Chris192 (OS)

You crack me up!!!

Advanced Life Support is a standard of care. It is much more than just a tool. BLS is the standard of care for BLS emergencies and ALS is the standard of care for ALS emergencies. If you're having a heart attack or other cardiac event, ALS may save your life. Outcomes in many other medical emergencies are also influenced greatly by early ALS intervention. The statitics you cite are probably accurate 65/35 BLS to ALS but for those 35 percent of the patients, ALS is the standard that they should receive. When you consider the taxes that residents in the Hudson Valley pay, there should be no question that they receive the highest level of care available - and that's ALS. Orpi, I was just joking about the Hummers. I'm glad to hear you enjoy the ride - I'm surprised there aren't dubs on them! It is time for Putnam, like so many other communities, to recognize that "doing it cheap" and expecting the commercial provider to eat the losses is unrealistic. To call ALS a "luxury" is patently absurd and that's someone who obviously has NO clue about EMS or medical care. Maybe the system would benefit from using the alphabet soup dispatch levels to triage calls - that's what EMD's are for. STOP sending ALS on the twisted ankle on the ball field so ALS isn't criss-crossing the county from one BLS call to another. STOP using the ALS units to cover for the inability to get a BLS squad out the door - if they can't do it, put a commercial BLS ambulance in their town. Don't deprive a person in need of a paramedic, the service because the medic is transporting a BLS job AGAIN! EMS isn't a luxury and it isn't a game. It can and should be taken seriously and now is a golden opportunity for Putnam to step up and do the right thing! From the American Heart Association:

Remember hit the nail on the head! You have problems with a neighboring agency, sit down with them and discuss it. Work on a joint recruitment and training effort and you'll both benefit. If they're unresponsive to your efforts or the problem persists, sit down with the elected officials of the town/village/city and inform them of the problem and seek their assistance in getting the problem children to the table. You can also send the phantom agency a bill for services provided to their area. If that fails too, draw a line in the sand and inform the agency and their town that you'll no longer respond mutual aid to them. A certain municipal FD did that because of perceived abuses to the mutual aid system. Don't condemn me for not doing mutual aid, either, they're not your agency's calls though. Personally, if I saw a crew sneaking out of their own building on Thanksgiving day, I would have driven up right to them rolled the window down and said "I guess since you're here you'll be covering YOUR call now, right". Let them look you in the eye and say no.

One of the presidents (I forget which one) landed at Westchester in a Boeing 757 once. That was one big airplane. The problem is not just runway length but the weight capacity of the taxiways and ramps to park them one. 150,000 pounds is a lot of weight!

All of the above plus not all calls are ALS whereas almost all calls require transportation. Well said, Party!

Based upon the itinerary that I've seen, the fireworks are at 9:20 pm (ish).

Leave now if you want to get there on time!!! The traffic will be nothing short of a nightmare starting at 4 PM and through midnight. News 12 is broadcasting the opening ceremony live and there will be fireworks at 9:20 (or so). This is what the Traffic Management Center posted about the event:

Why a fly-car and not an ambulance? The zone coverage with a full crew is a great idea - at least you know you can put one ambulance on the road immediately. I just don't understand why we're pushing the fly-car idea when the problem is not being able to get a crew for an ambulance. And on the subject, is the Westchester County Regional EMS Council involved in this issue? They have more authority than the County as they're tasked with medical control and other operational issues in accordance with Article 30.

Define what you mean by public money?

Hey ALS, that was my comment and my point was that we can't pick and choose our clientele or deny people services - for any reason (incarcerated being one of them). I certainly don't have a soft spot for these poor, misunderstood, disadvantaged inmates (ALS, I know you're laughing - for those of you who don't know me that is sarcasm) - as far as I'm concerned all jails should be like the tent prison in Maricopa County, AZ and the death penalty should be promptly and frequently exercised. I think you make a great point that its robbing Peter to pay Paul with the musical towns coverage for EMS units. But with each town/village/city making its own arrangements for calls within their borders and considering only the minimum coverage they perpetuate the problem. Unless and until we start looking at these problems from a regional perspective and collaborating to develop solutions that are truly going to solve the shortage. The pathetic thing is that these are the same problems that existed when I started in EMS 20 years ago. Don't we ever learn?

RIP, brothers and sisters! What a horrible accident.

All due respect Chief, I think the issue you should be most concerned with is whether or not you can get an ambulance out the door. It is completely and utterly irrelevant if a post on this forum is by an Alamo employee or not and for you to expend your valuable time and energy on bashing them and/or Alamo is beneath you. Your comments about the statistics is confusing also. Perhaps you should take a few minutes, calm down and make your point when you're not upset about the comments in the newspaper or this forum. I'm actually interested in the issue and I'm neither an inmate or an employee of Alamo. If inmates at Greenhaven aren't residents of the town is your issue about providing services to non-town residents? I suspect that many people involved in car accidents on the roads that traverse your town aren't residents either - do you have an issue providing them services? Aren't inmates entitled to the same medical care as anyone else in your town or are we punishing them further for their crimes? As long as Alamo provides Beekman and Greenhaven with the services as outlined by the respective contracts, my guess is that you have no control over which Alamo ambulance is used for which calls. If they backfill your community with another resource, they're meeting their contractual obligation. Maybe you could spend some time recruiting for your agency rather than hunting members of the commercial service you take such exception with. Sorry to say all this but your post is rather venomous and Beekman is a long way from Jacobi and I doubt CKROLL (EMTBravo resident snake expert) makes housecalls.

Being stupid and violating the law by leaving the car running does not change the fact that it was stolen so insurance will, most likely, cover it. If insurance companies didn't have to pay claims for incidents brought about by stupidity, they'd never have to pay for anything!!!

I think a bigger issue in this article is that the national standard for ambulance response times is 12 minutes. What good does that do?

There was a coordinated safety patrol of the Hudson River a couple of weekends ago. The US Coast Guard and local law enforcement marine units did a joint safety/enforcement operation and interestingly enough - nobody went overboard THAT weekend. This weekend of course, we had a couple of incidents on the river. Maybe they had the right idea!!! Same thing as the State Police blitzing the Sprain or 684 for a day or two to crack down on speeders or a DWI checkpoint - this one was just on the water.

If the disaster is local to us, FEMA will most likely not use the NY team and if Mass is involved, their team most likely would not be requested either. It's important to remember that for the most part, all FEMA/DHS/NDMS/etc. assets are comprised of local resources. They don't want to tax local resources by drawing down their specialized talent to staff a federal response when they can be staffing local rescue teams, etc. This has been the mindset of NDMS when deploying DMAT's for hurricanes for years. Hurricane to hit FL = NY, MA, TX teams are deployed to FL. Not the FL teams. As for federalizing other teams in NYS, who cares? The State team out of the Albany area has been a great resource and continues to be available. Now with this legislation, maybe we'll see a few more pop up in NY. The nice thing about state teams is they're going to be faster than any federal response, too!

If the disaster is local to us, FEMA will most likely not use the NY team and if Mass is involved, their team most likely would not be requested either. It's important to remember that for the most part, all FEMA/DHS/NDMS/etc. assets are comprised of local resources. They don't want to tax local resources by drawing down their specialized talent to staff a federal response when they can be staffing local rescue teams, etc. This has been the mindset of NDMS when deploying DMAT's for hurricanes for years. Hurricane to hit FL = NY, MA, TX teams are deployed to FL. Not the FL teams. As for federalizing other teams in NYS, who cares? The State team out of the Albany area has been a great resource and continues to be available. Now with this legislation, maybe we'll see a few more pop up in NY. The nice thing about state teams is they're going to be faster than any federal response, too!