AFS1970

One of the biggest challenges that face any volunteer emergency service that I have found, is that as your area changes, few people even realize you are volunteers. Lets face it, most people will never have to call us, those that do, just want someone to come and fix the problem, be it medical or fire, they really don't care how much if any we are being paid, at least at the time of the call. So making sure that people know you are volunteer is the first step, in my mind. The second is letting people know what kind of committment is required, and don't over exagerate but also don't under estimate this. I once ran the average of working hours for our membership and found that it was actually less than I would have estimated. I use this in recruiting, when I talk to potential members, but I try to put it in perspective. If say over the course of a year each member give 38 hours, tell people it is less than one work week per year. Too much is said noawdays about how hard it is to be a volunteer and I think we actually scare away potential recruits. Remember to explain that in the beginning there is a larger committment for basic training, but that things even out after that.

Here's an odd little monkey wrench to throw in to the mix. I don't have my statute book with me, so I am doing this from memory, but I remember reading about a law in Connecticut that requires an employer to allow Volunteer Firefighters to leave for calls but does nto require employers to pay them for that time. Now if a fire department hires a guy to do paperwork, cleaning or whatever (other than firefighting) and they are a member of the department, wouldn't they have to let them "leave" to respond to the call? I think this might only be mandatory on employers with 10 or more employees, whcih most of these departments do not fall under, but it might be that one has to let the bookkeeper and the janitor go on calls if they want.

I know two people that have been in this position, one I think still is, one I know quit. The first was in Long Island, and while he was an active member and allowed to clock out and respond to calls, this wasn't the case with all the station cleaners that were there. Two out of three were active memebrs and one was the wife of an active member. The married couple that both had these jobs were retired from someother job. I think it was more of a case of trying to steer a job to those who need it, a retired couple and a youg guy who was out of work when he joined the department. The other Department I know of is in Connecticut (the other end of the state from me), and I don't know alot of details other than they have a few members arround during the day and they get some type of small stipend if they stay in quarters and do not just respond from home. Since these members would be avalible anyway, I think this may be more about reducing response times than anything else, but I don't really know. As for this being legal, I really don't see why not. A town with career Firefighters not to far from me has no civil servants, only municipal employees. This really only effects one's job classification, from what I have been told. It just goes to show, that different departments come up with different ways to accomplish the same thing. I also think that what you call a position probably has alot to do with what the primary duties are. The Department in Long Island had a large recreationa rea, and the station cleaner had to keep that clean as well as the offices, and the apparatus bays. From what I was told, this station did a bunch of EMS runs and not so much Fire duty, the cleaner was not an EMT. So maybe he was really just a janitor. There are still alot of folks in Long ISland who let employees go when there is a call, even the fire district.

Best of luck in your quest for on the job equality, it will be a long hard fight, but it is worth it. Every time this type of issue comes up, there is always talk of "leveling the playing field" in the work place. I have an idea how we could make the playing field very level but it would be opposed by those who really don't want equality. What if we got rid of all the special bonus points that are given for the wrong reasons and just let people compete on an open civil service basis, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, ect.? Wouln't that ensure that whatever department gave such a test would get to pick from their best possible choices of candidates? Oh wait, that would never work, how foolish of me.

Rest in peace, Sister.

It is interestign that everyone here is discussing the best way to stage, but pretty much all agreeing that to stage is a good thing. I heard a call on the Radio the other day but it is certainly not a new or unusualo occurance for the agencies involved. PD, FD & EMS get sent to an EDP call, I believe it was an attempted suicide call with ALS Potential, but a staging order (with no specific location) was given out over the air to the FD & EMS units on initial dispatch. Everybody responds, and PD is the lead on scene handling the call. Several minutes into the call the FD unit's Officer calls in and asks if they are clear to go in or they still need to stage, because the EMS unit did not stage, followed the PD right in and the crew is inside the building. How on earth is this practicing scene safety? First of all the begining of such an incident is probably the most unstable, and the PD units have more to worry about than just the safety of us as EMT's (who at that point are little more than bystanders with uniforms) until the situation is as calm as possible. But this is brought to light by the FD unit that follows orders and does one thing while an EMS unit from a different agency freelances and gets involved in apotentially dangerous call. Now as often happens, this call ended well for all responders, thankfully noone got hurt and everyone went home that night. But I wonder why anyone would think that because most calls end well, that they all will end well. We can not afford to get so complacent with our own safety. But how do you deal with this type of situation, when there are multiple agencies involved?

I think these trucks fall in to a somewhat shadow category along with Canteen Trucks, that of vehicles that have auxiliary functions within the broader category of emergency services that have and use lights and sirens. The various states do not recognize them, but for the most part we in teh emergency services do, so as a result they do not get into trouble. I know people who used to do blood runs, and they had no lights, no sirens, no company cars, just them and their POV's going with the flow of traffic, sometimes a few towns away to a different hospital. Sure EVOC is an issue, but it is also a relatively new issue in terms of formal training. It seems like this is a relatively new agency, and they will probably grow with the times.

I vaguely remember there being something like that in Northern New Jersey but I don't know where. I remember someone telling me they saw one when visiting a station there. Now obviously the bucket causes a problem since it is too big to see around, and the sutphen one must have had floor issues. I wonder if a collapsible bucket like Metz uses could be used and sit in front of a conventional tillerman's position? Since I'm not an engineer I have no idea if it would be feasible or not.

So illegal aliens and terrorists can cross unimpeded but a bunch of firefighters in fire apparatus and I assume turnout gear are stopped for inspection. Yeah um OK, whatever. Now a possible solution which actually was in a previous post would be to notify the border crossing of the response, which I bet could be done by dispatch either just before or after calling the other department. While I really don't think it should be needed, there is the chance that these vehicles could be misused. I really hate to agree with Schumer on anything, but he does make good points here.

Hey, I don't even drink coffee...lol

Before Wag the Dog there was Capricorn One.....but you know, this isn't a bad idea really. Considering all the bashing of the press that we do around here, this could be the next step for a PIO to use, kind of like a live Press Release, where we control the outgoing info...lol. Besides you have to give them credit for trying.

Like a lot of people here, at first I thought this would be a good idea. I have seen quite a few non-politics forums that have a politics area. Then again I thought, look at how fast we snipe at each other when dealing with fire based topics that lean towards the internal political side of things. As much as I would like to think this would be different, I know it would not be. I am fairly active politically, and I think that one of the things that makes this forum work is that I don't know other posters political views and they do not know mine.

Date: 10/29/2007 Time: 19:11 (Approximate) Location: 22 Greenwood Hill St Frequency: Stamford 800 Trunking Units Operating: SFRD E3,E2,E5,T3,R1,DC2,E6(RIT) - SEMS M3,M92 - SPD Description Of Incident: Working Fire in occupied residence, Fire Marshal & Red Cross also requested to scene. Writer: BFD182

And to add to this insanity, read the comments under the video on YouTube, everyone thinks Coana handled this great, after all he made light of an emergency and kept people who should have been evacuating, laughing. Wouldn't it have been really great if he had been able to use his position to help guide the people to a safe area or at least to be ready at the exits in case of an evacuation.

It is absolutely her right to own and carry that gun, people need to stop confusing law abiding gun owners with criminals and the mentally unstable. Sadly the media is the chief culprit of this kind of hogwash. Two things stuck out of that article to me that bear further investigation. First was the comment from the 16 y/o girl who thought that bringing the gun in response to a potential threat was bringing her teacher's problems to the school. I would argue that it does exactly the oposite. If the Ex-Husband is so inclined to come after her, he will likely show up for his own reasons and on his own schedule, thus it would be him bringing the problem to the school. The teacher being armed, is nothing more than a response to the perceived threat. I also liked the student comment about the teacher bringing the gun while they can't even have scisors. This case is not about arming students, which we can probably all agree is a bad idea, but lets not forget that most if not all the students are likely too young to get the required permits so that argument is nothing if not pure lunacy. Second was the side by side mention of the school shooting by a student who had just come from a domestic shooting and the Legislature's debate on permited gun owners from carrying in schools. How would such a ban have stoppeds the student? It would not have, but the media constantly portrays gun owners as one step away from going nuts and taking out a room full of children. The placement of those facts in the article was in my opinion done to encourage the reader that if a teacher is allowed to bring a gun to school she will first stop at home, kill her parents then come to work and shoot all of her students. I just can't see that happening. I also think that the idea that only the police should have guns is a very dangerous one at best. The second ammendment was written because in England only the nobility can bear arms (this hostorically includes swords as well as guns), that's one way to ensure you will always have a king. We however got rid of the king over 200 years ago, lets keep it that way. The first modern nation to comepleatly take away guns from the citizens was Germany just prior to World War II, under the leadership of Adolph Hitler.

Took me a few tries but I got it 56.658m. Not the best but not the worst, either.

Stack all the points up and see if they reach the moon? Come to think of it, how tall is a point anyway?

While ignoring them might well be the best option we have available, they can not be ignored for one main reason; the liberal media loves to publicize the lunatic fringe which they will portray as the mainstream of conservative politics. This is why this group has been able to gain so much notoriety. They started protesting military funerals simply because they know that the news is always there, and if the family, the military or any veterans groups counter protest it just serves to bring more attention on them. The idea of protesting Firefighter funerals seems like a new spin on this tactic but it is the same old game for them. As for them being national, they have certainly shown up at a large amount of events, but I have to wonder just how nationwide they really are. They may have 1 or 2 members in a given state but are probably strongest in only a handful of states, and travel to high profile events. I doubt their numbers or sphere of influence is really as high as they claim. However they are not really all that terroristic, they are protesting and a great deal of people disagree with them, but so far they have not attempted to threaten the masses or alter the way the entire population goes about our daily life. I object to any comparison between them and Al Qaeda simply because it downplays the true evil that is islamic terrorism. Christianity does not advocate conversion by force or threat of death, so there is absolutely no correlation between islam and Christianity.

It is an old telegraph signal, from the days of telegraph alarms. 5-5-5-5 was struck like a box numer. I may be wrong on the next part but I think it was originally used for any major announcement but has become most associated with Line of Duty Deaths.

Thanks for the online CRACK. Interesting game anyway.

I did not see the show on TV, but from the way they are described, it doesn't sound like any of them include police brutality. If we learned nothing from LA we should have learned that no matter of the length of the video, the news will show the most damaging 30 seconds of it. We should also learn that there is no double jeopardy for Law Enforcement, if some how you are found not guilty, they will find a new and different law to charge you under and let mob rule set the stage for a bogus conviction. I'm not familiar with the Yonkers case, but it sounds like more of the same [something that can't be typed here]

So it is the outside air pressure not the lack of specialized training that keeps the doors closed during flight. It is a good thing he actually tried to open the door, because if he had merely told someone what he was gong to do and they reported it, currently they could be sued for discriminating against him. Lets hope congress passes the law to prevent future Flying Imam's cases from ever happening. Because we all know we will risk the suit to protect ourselves and our families.

Looks like the Chief has a whole bunch of management issues. I just hope the fake pot wasn't someone's ill advised attempt at making the Chief look bad, because if it is, he will end up smelling like roses as a victim.

I absolutely agree with innocent until proven guilty but I also remember seeing a comedian explain it once like this: Only in America can a man walk into a bank weakig a ski mask, point a gun at the teller, demand money, all this being recorded on video tape. As he exits the bank he sees and runs from the police, who chase him down a dead end alley, and catch him still holding the mask, gun and money. They arrest him, bring him down to the station and suddenly he is known as THE SUSPECT. As has been said before Background checks are only good for repeat offenders. This really should be about catching predators and not about shuftuing liability. The idea about rejecting someone who looks like a perv made me think of the Adams Family movie and the line "I'm dressed like a serial killer, they look just like everyone else" sad but true in these cases. As for the department website, even if he is suspended or on other restrictions pending the outcome of the case, I would think that the website couldn't or shouldn't list that status, as it would be a confidential personnel matter. The department might actually face more liability but publicly announcing a suspension like that. That being said, Child predators are the lowest of the low, and it is time we stopped giving them short sentances so that they can come out and become repeat offenders. It should be simple, mess with a kid, go away for the rest of your life. I favor that over death only in that it gives them longer to think about what a scumbag they are. I hope Bubba would not be a reward and not the intended punishment.

I lost track of this thread for a while but I was going to put up the same link to the foundation. I took my basic class back in 1994 or 1995 in Maryland. I know the classes have changed a bit and there is more than just the Basic & Advanced titles there were. In my short time with the team, I was only called out once and that was for a call my department responded to so I had to decline. I eventually let my membership lapse as most of the team's call volume was far from my area.