helicopper

The answers? Seriously? Are you interested in training or in a certificate for your wall? If it is the latter, there are many other online courses you can complete. As for the 300 and 400 courses, they are not not offered online, they are both classroom only format and one was just held in Westchester County two weeks ago. You can check the SOEM website for additional dates but I'm not aware of anymore in the Hudson Valley in the immediate future. There are a couple upstate and on Long Island before the end of the year but that's about it. http://www.semo.stat...ng/calendar.cfm

I wonder what would happen if a group called "100 whites in law enforcement who care" was formed?

Who said they were sober?

Nice job! Congratulations.

For some reason the tracker locked up at 2:30 and a bunch of donations have been received since then. They are working on resolving the tracker lock-up. It may just be that your generosity overloaded it! Seriously, as soon as we know we'll update everyone.

Nice IA. Just to keep everyone up to date, thanks to the generosity of the membership it is very likely that the funds required to keep the site solvent and online for the rest of this year will be received. A long term plan to prevent this from happening again needs to be identified and the staff is currently reviewing options. On behalf of the entire staff, thank you for your support. We hope this site is around for quite a long time and thanks to your involvement it will be! We will keep you posted. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to post them here or send a PM to me or any staff member. Again, thank you all!

KKK is the abbreviation for KKK-A-1822 E. 49 CFR 393. Attached for your review. KKK-A-1822 E.pdf

Standards and regulations do not trump State Law. Unfortunately, the fire service lobbied for the change and didn't include EMS in the language they provided our esteemed legislators. This is how it can be effectively used to lobby for a change to the law but it doesn't mean it's legal now. The DOH must abide by the law and their regulations. As a state agency it is unlikely that the DOH will "overlook" a violation of state law and "certify" a vehicle that is improperly or illegally equipped. This is not "breaking balls" but reducing liability and exposure to their agency and yours. The headline would likely be "DOH fails to certify ambulance with illegal equipment". The legal implications and potential fall-out for the DOH rep doing the inspection far out-weigh the benefit of letting it slide.

Courts have the luxury of spending weeks, months, in some cases even years analyzing and picking apart the seconds that result in a police involved shooting. I'm not sure what shootings you're referring too but given the number of police on the street and the numbers of interactions they have with people on a daily basis the number of police involved shootings are remarkably low. This is one of the reasons they are so sensationalized by the media. All cops have standard firearms and use of force training and are retrained in it regularly. I don't know what your point is but let's stick to what we actually know instead of speculating.

Date: 10-15-10 Time: approximately 1100 hours Location: 1800 block of Horseshoe Ridge Road Departments: numerous Description: Police helicopter from Missouri Highway Patrol crashed while returning from a traffic enforcement assignment. The pilot and sole occupant, Sgt. Joseph Joe Schuengel (47), a 17 year veteran of the MHP was killed in the crash. Noone on the ground was injured. The investigation is ongoing at this time. Links: http://www.latimes.c...0,7894010.story http://www.kspr.com/...0,7220678.story http://www.baltimore...,0,188739.story http://wireupdate.co...stern-missouri/ Writer: helicopper RIP.

It is also time for everyone (career or volunteer) to realize that criticizing dysfunctional systems (not agencies) is not "_______ bashing" especially when it is done constructively and without malice.

The Croton question was asked and answered. This thread is now closed. If you want to continue the discussion about EMS responses and staffing and all the other things please start a new thread in the appropriate forum. REMINDER: Argue the issues, do not attack the individuals raising them.

I think this thread has morphed into something other then what was intended. A question was asked about one specific timeframe in Croton and the discussion is now about general EMS staffing and response issues. If there's no other input about Croton on the date/time in question, please move the general discussion to another thread. Thank you.

Just to clarify, I'm asking questions to get more information and a sense of what the job was like. Not to criticize. It is entirely reasonable to have 5 ambulances standing by at a fire of this magnitude even with no patients produced yet. I remember a fire in another nearby community that had even more staging so whether 5 or 15, that was the IC's call and I'm not saying it was wrong. To those who may have interpreted my questions as criticism, I hope this clarifies things. If it doesn't, feel free to PM me and we can discuss it further. Thanks again to those who have added insight to the thread.

I think the type of agency is relevant. Commercial ambulance services are just that - commercial and they don't want to see their limited resources tied up at a stand-by. (I'm not saying I agree, I'm just considering the commercial perspective.) As for the EMS needs of this incident... How many ambulances were on scene already standing by? How many injured were they attending to? How many people were being evacuated from the building? Is it correct that the stand-by that was refused was to cover the district not respond to the scene of the fire? I ask these questions only to get a better sense of what the morning was like. Thanks to anyone who can shed more light on the situation.

Thanks for the info.

Just curious - what's the rationale for using a tower ladder at the same elevation as a ground ladder (see pictures, it looks to be nearly fully extended but at zero angle).

I'm glad to see most of the points I would have raised have already been made so I don't have to. I'll just say this - in Westchester County there are a great many first response units (police, fire, ALS, BLS) that carry oxygen and a complement of equipment that can be used by a qualified first responder when necessary. So, you have to wonder if this is out of necessity or out of buffiness. If it's out of necessity, fine. If it's out of buffiness, go to the ambulance. We've already had threads where we've discussed the value of having 3 or sometimes even 4 different BLSFR and ALSFR units on a scene but no ambulance. Now we're adding POV's to the mix.

And learn that their current department SOP is the same as it was when a copy was put into the time capsule 45 years ago.

This is the section of EMS code dealing with storage of tanks... If you're an EMT carrying oxygen, you may want to review your agency's policies and carry all the required equipment for an "emergency ambulance service vehicle" (listed below).

I don't believe that there is any part of Westchester that is not in a city, village, or fire protection district. I believe that there is a section of Dutchess County near Beacon that is not within any fire district - there was a thread here about a fire up on that mountain a while back. Maybe someone remembers that and can speak to that issue.

I think the point we're all missing from our perspective here in the tax capital of the western world is that these people DO NOT pay taxes for fire service. They have no expectation for a response unless they opt into one of the alternative means to secure that service because the County doesn't provide fire service. I'm not saying I support this; it is simply their reality and as INIT points out, they knew it. Point taken. You're absolutely right about that and I will continue to lobby for a remedy to this inequity. However this inequity is caused by a criminal act (illegally entering the US or failing to pay one's taxes) whereas these legal residents simply don't have a municipal fire service. Well, this is an entirely different scenario so let's add this twist. Before you board the boat that ultimately finds itself in distress there is a sign saying "NO RESCUE SERVICE IN THIS AREA", call this number to register for a rescue subscription from neighboring county (have credit card ready). Would they still have the same expectation for assistance? How about skiiers who ski out of bounds and get charged for their rescues? Should they get rescued on our dime even though they crossed the boundary into "unprotected territory"? And with the marine example there are maritime laws that may require vessels to respond and render assistance so the jurisdiction issue is moot. (Marine guys please correct me if I'm wrong). Great point. If you look at the history, the lowest per capita income residents of Westchester County have for years enjoyed substantially higher levels of care and emergency services than their wealthy neighbors - even some of the wealthiest in the country. Nobody squawked about that for DECADES! Literally! Interesting perspective. How about the perspective that there is no requirement in NYS law for a munipality to provide Emergency Medical Services? All do (to some degree) but there is no requirement and depending on where you live (or have your accident/illness) could mean the difference between a comprehensive tiered response in 3-4 minutes or a BLS only response in 40. Don't misunderstand me. I agree that this shouldn't be a problem in 2010 but it would appear that this very rural county has consciously chosen to ignore fire protection. It would be interesting to find out what fire protection plans all those businesses/plants have. I bet they paid their subscription - or have their own fire brigade. Exactly, the argument here is with the County that just last year chose to repeal the local law that would have enabled them to establish an FD. Another interesting issue is that they have only 186 firefighters in their entire county. Of course there are only 245 calls per year outside of the cities. Still, half of one percent of the population. That's not a lot of support for the fire service.

In other parts of the country subscription based coverage in unincorporated areas is not so uncommon. You don't pay municipal taxes for the service so you pay a subscription fee. Does the FDNY have a duty to act if the fire is in Bayonne or in Mount Vernon? Nope. It is a tragic reality but you don't get something for nothing even in an emergency.

Well, as they always say.... You get what you pay for.

A couple of questions about this ISO stuff... Do all insurance companies apply this to all policies (homeowner and commerical)? Is it always by strictly the rating or do they group it like some other things - ratings of 1-2-3 get X and 4-9 get Y? Are the ratings of local FD's available on-line to non-subscribers? How often are the ratings reassessed? What is the response time criteria for the responding FF? If it is 6 on-duty and 18 on-call, how long do they have to assemble the 18. I'm not looking to start the whole 6 vs. 18 in what time frame thread again, I'm just wondering what the ISO considers in this calculation.