RescueKujo

You never know what you have until you get there, if you go "Non-emergency" and take your time, and pd advises scene secure, critical situation, and you are not so close, you will be wasting valuable minutes.....

I see both sides of it, having been on the bus and in dispatch, but I agree with what is quoted above. Our units roll hot, as our contracts do not give exemptions for "standbacks" (what we call them).

As for where to stage, I was taught out of sight of the location. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at our AVL maps and a unit "staging" is within 3-4 houses of the incident. While I would feel bad if something happened to the crew, I advised them to standback and they made the decision where. And when giving the verbal info, I make sure the crew acknowledges the need to stand back.

Jimmy,

It's not just your side of the country. I am assuming most of you saw our city run evacuation center during the FireStorm at Qualcomm Stadium. I don't know if this part made the national news, though. On about day 3, they make the announcement over the PA System that ID will be checked to ensure people who actually need the services. They figure about 2000 people packed up and left in a hurry.

Also one example from the local news. While they were closing up shop, they talk to a woman walking through the parking lot, arms full of supplies. The reporter asks her where she's going, and she states to her motor home.

You know how it is, if there's a free hand out, there'll be someone not deserving asking for it. :angry: :angry:

The Reagan docked yesterday here in San Diego Harbor at North Island Naval Air Station at the carrier berth. Federal Fire paramedics from the base then transferred the patient to Children's Hospital San Diego. It is said she will be discharged in time to be home for Christmas.

SoCal Warship Returns with Rescued 14 year old

10:49 a.m. December 18, 2007

SAN DIEGO – A teenager who was rescued by a Navy warship after her appendix ruptured on a Mexican cruise returned to the mainland Tuesday after undergoing surgery at sea.

The USS Ronald Reagan was conducting regular training maneuvers when it got a distress call late Friday from the cruise ship Dawn Princess asking for help with 14-year-old passenger Laura Montero of Albion, Ill.

The Ronald Reagan, which was about 550 miles away from the cruise ship, responded because it was the closest vessel with a hospital facility aboard, Navy officials said. The ship steamed overnight toward the Dawn Princess, which was about 250 miles north-northwest of the Mexican resort of Cabo San Lucas when the call went out.

A rescue helicopter took off from the Ronald Reagan around 5 a.m. Saturday to close the final 175-mile gap between the ships. The helicopter pilot said the crew arrived after a 45-minute flight and dropped a medic onto the cruise ship deck in a basket because there wasn't space to land.

Montero, who was on an antibiotic drip, was loaded into a litter basket, lifted up into the helicopter and flown back to the Ronald Reagan for surgery. Her mother stayed aboard the cruise ship.

“We practice this all the time, but this is the first time I've pulled a civilian off a cruise ship,” said the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Leland.

Montero underwent surgery aboard ship and is expected to make a full recovery, Navy officials said.

She returned to San Diego aboard the Ronald Reagan, which arrived home as scheduled around 9 a.m.

The Dawn Princess returned to San Diego over the weekend.

Scene size-up is an important EARLY part of responding to a call. Check the rest of the car, the trunk, and the other side of the guardrail when you get to a bad MVA.

Depends on what you find. I was on the ambulance when we went on a collision where a lifted Ford 250 went over the top of a sedan. Tore the top off the sedan, and when we got there fire told us we had 2 DOAs. We took the 2 from the truck to a landing zone to meet a helo, then went back to the scene. The passenger in the sedan had been partily decapitated, and as we walked up a firefighter pointed something out in the back seat. Turns out it was a third person. And as they were cutting out the 3 known, a 4th was found between the front and back seats. Sometimes you can only see what you can see.

Good job, Tracy. Nice to hear someone in dispatch getting some press.

This link brings you to one single picture bro!

I am really interested to see your other photos, I love aviation photography! Please fix so I can enjoy, lol!!!!!

The link is fixed, thanks for letting me know. That's what I get for posting so late at night...

For more aviation photos, click this link for my aircraft photos. There's multiple albums in the left upper corner of the page.

Duane's Aviation Photos

In November, I took a trip to Las Vegas for some apparatus photos and the Aviation Nation Airshow at Nellis AFB. Here's a couple for previews, and you can see the rest at my photobucket site: Duane's Vegas Trip Photos

Thank you for remembering. Unfortunately, I was unable to get onto the board due to work the past couple of days. I almost missed this post.

As the Grandson and Cousin of survivors, I try to post a reminder every year in rememberance of their duty that day. My Grandfather spent the entire war recupperating from his wounds, going back into regular service in 1946. My Cousin became a Warrant Officer and stayed in until he retired. They both served on the USS California.

Hey Kujo is truck 21 going to get truck 1's old tiller? Because I saw on EMTBravo West that it might go there due to 21's responce area, which I have been to (visting my uncle who lives in Pacific Beach) and they need a tiller.

I have heard they want to put a tiller at 21's. They ran an older Seagrave TDA until they received their current Saulsbury RMA...

SDFD Truck 21-October 1991

San Diego FD Truck 21-October 2001

Is the San Diego FD the only agency in the city with bomb squad capabilities.

The SDFD MAST/X-Ray units handle everything in the city, San Diego County Sheriff's Department handles everything else in the county (includes cities within the county boundries.

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Seth, I'm looking forward to it. Try to get me some lead time, as I do pick up a lot of OT. It'll also give me time to set up some locations with my contacts.

Rest in Peace, Chief. Take up, your job is done. Thoughts and prayers to his family and fellow firefighters.

The 2nd round of KME deliveries have started with SDFD. 7 engines plus 1 extra that community donations purchased. Engines 11, 7, 22, 35 are at the shops. Engine 17 was the one donated, it is also at the shops. I've also added a photo of the new Truck 47, which will go in service later this month or next month when station 47 opens it's doors...

More to it. Sounds like someone screwed the pooch....

Mayor Steps in After Oakland Recruiting Debacle

CHIP JOHNSON

The San Francisco Chronicle (California)

Firefighters and prospective firefighters from around the Bay Area sounded all alarms Monday over an ill-conceived recruitment effort by the Oakland Fire Department last weekend that was criticized as a disgraceful display of patronage and foul play.

Apparently Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums agreed that the recruitment had gone haywire. After meeting with his city's fire chief, Dan Farrell, Dellums announced he would reopen the process to all applicants who were passed over on Saturday, said the mayor's chief of staff, David Chai.

About 2,000 applicants came from far and wide for a chance to apply for nearly two dozen jobs in the department, and half of them went away unsatisfied - and angry at the way the picks were made.

One of them was Mike Loomis, a firefighter from the Central Valley. He brought a sleeping bag and a folding chair and waited for the chance to be one of the first 1,000 people in line and an opportunity to land one of 23 coveted positions.

He showed up Friday morning, a day early, and thought he had a pretty good shot because by his own count, he was No. 173.

"It's just like any other test," Loomis, 23, said Monday. "You camp out the night before." Last month, he'd camped out in Stockton for a similar event, he said.

But in Oakland, Loomis discovered that being prepared, on time and first in line is no way to get ahead.

On Friday, fire officials informed applicants, including some who'd been queueing since Thursday evening, that the line they were standing in - which had stretched to three city blocks long - was not the line from which applicants would be selected.

That line would be established Saturday morning at 5 a.m. But hardly anyone left their spots in and around Frank Ogawa Plaza.

Saturday morning came, and after some shoving - and fighting - for position, Loomis watched as Farrell and a personnel manager from Oakland City Hall waded through the sea of humanity and started their own kind of search.

"They started walking through the crowd and hand-picking people," Loomis said. "There's no way to describe how they were doing it. There were guys who stepped in line at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning who got picked - and it seemed like city officials knew who they were looking for. I heard a couple of guys on a cell phone describing where they were, and they got picked.

"Had I known it was going to be like this, I never would have bothered," he said.

Karen Boyd, a spokeswoman in City Administrator Deborah Edgerly's office, said the process was compromised because people in the front of the line obtained copies of the officials' plan to establish five entry points and moved toward them.

One of a half dozen San Francisco firefighters who showed up to support friends from across the bay said they never had a chance.

An Oakland firefighter who worked the event said some colleagues standing with police officers at the entry points were visibly upset by what they regarded as an obvious display of patronage and cronyism.

"What hurt me the most was seeing black guys, regular ordinary Oakland guys, passed over for other black guys because they were connected," he said, requesting anonymity for fear of job reprisals.

And it seems there was at least a little bit of that going on as well. In some cases, Oakland firefighters wearing department-issued caps and jackets stood next to their own kids, looking to catch a glance of recognition from the chief - and ready to lobby on their behalf.

The Oakland firefighter said that at least four of the candidates selected are sons of Fire Department employees.

Officials had hoped that more locals would get in line first because of the early opening for Saturday's event. But even if they had, how do you identify an Oakland resident by appearance alone?

More importantly, being in the front of the line meant nothing. And everybody in charge should know that hiring based on physical appearance is illegal. Oakland officials know that ... don't they?

Said one city official: "I cannot imagine a worse system that these morons could have come up with."

What's most worrisome about this situation is that the Fire Department's top brass, who distributed more than 7,000 flyers announcing the event, didn't have the gumption to stand by their word.

The application form clearly spelled out that "the FIRST 1,000 applicants will be received," would-be firefighter Filip Bednarz wrote in an e-mail to dozens of city officials. "I arrived at the location stated at 3:30 a.m., anticipating a long line at the door. I was shocked and disgusted when I was informed that it didn't matter how early I'd gotten there or how much effort I'd put in."

That information was pretty disgusting and shocking to the rest of us as well, including Oakland's mayor, who intervened on behalf of fairness and did the right thing in turning this gravy train right back around.

The good news: Would-be Oakland firefighters who were issued applications but were turned away Saturday will get their chance Jan. 12, when a new recruitment event is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the city's fire training center, 250 Victory Court, Oakland.

It's not just limited to any one region of the country. EMTs become Medics, Private Service Medics leave to become FF/Medics. It is a viscious cycle. Private companies need to find ways to retain these type of people, and have a revolving door of employees.

No you don't. You're not the one that has to shovel it, or scrape ice off the car. Who are you trying to kid???

Gee Jimmy, bust my stones back to limestone why don't ya?? Even though I was born and raised in SoCal I have shoveled snow and even been snowed in once (remember the winter of 1982? Tech school in the DC area). I know how it feels and was truly feeling sorry for ya.

What will hit you guys back east is here right now in Southern California. Weather Channel is saying 3/4" of rain so far in the San Diego area, at my parents house 16 miles east of downtown SD we've had 1.5". Flash flood watches/warnings are announced in all burn areas. Supposedly this will head east early tomorrow morning (Saturday). I feel sorry for you guys when this hits the cold air back there.

Things don't add up on this one. As the article states, there are firmly defined ways that military deaths are announced/notified, and a member's mother notifying the unit is not one of them. As others have said, I pray this gets worked out and this doesn't prove to be a hoax or something much worse.

A couple more shots, these are helos taking off. Copter 19 (sorry for the bad angle) and Copter 16.

Sounds like the one guy was made of porcelain! He blew his knee from being shoved?

It probably depends on how he landed. Land at a bed angle and there goes a ligament or 2. I've seen where someone was being taken down and resisted so hard that in forcibly taking the him down he blew out his knee. Look at Milton Bradley when the Padres manager was trying to keep him from the umpire, he blew out his knee when being pushed.

Thoughts and Prayers to his family and fellow firefighters in Volusia County.

Got this from another board I belong to....

A deal with an undercover operative quickly turned deadly yesterday for a man

looking to sell a hand grenade in the Bronx. Federal agents and an NYPD

detective were monitoring a conversation being held in a car yesterday between

the grenade seller and operative. It was not expected the seller would have the

grenade on him at the time, so when he produced it, agents rushed the scene in

the interest of public safety. The undercover operative left the car and, when

the suspect attempted to drive off, a federal agent shot him fatally once in the

head.

According to the New York Post, the man told the undercover operative, who was

wearing a wire, that he would detonate the grenade if he determined he was being

set up. ""You better not be f------ with me or I'll pull the pin." That's when

the supposed customer left the car and agents approached. The fleeing suspect

dragged a federal agent about 20 feet down the street before he was killed.

Authorities haven't released the identity of the suspect, but the grenade deal

was apparently unrelated to terrorism.

A bomb squad robot recovered the hand grenade from the car and it was determined

it was not a military-style grenade and was actually inert. No law enforcement

agents were seriously injured during the incident, although two were transported

to a nearby hospital. Residents of the Mott Haven section of the Bronx were

confined to their homes for several hours and, since the incident occurred

around 6PM, commuters were re-routed on their way home from work.

In late October, a few makeshift hand grenades were lobbed at the Mexican

consulate on 39th St. near Madison Ave. in Manhattan.

A Happy and safe Thanksgiving to my fellow EMTBravo members. May you all enjoy the joy of family on this day.

To my Brothers and Sisters who are working to keep their communities safe, Thank you and stay safe yourselves. To the members of our Armed Forces away from their families, thank you for your service.

Duane

Mass had a rule on the books since the 1970's that all ambulances operating in the Commonwealth shall be white with an organ stripe as to identify the unit as an ambulance and not a rescue. I forget how the actual wording is stated but this EMS rule was in effect until 2005 / 2006 when it was repealed.

Would that be a kidney or liver??

Seth, great shots. I'm waiting for your next trip out here.

Duane

Rest in Peace, Domino.

As my cousin was a K-9 deputy for the San Diego Sheriff's Department, I can only imagine the emotions being felt by Officer Smith on the loss of his partner and friend. Thoughts and prayers go out to him.

May the Fallen Officer Rest in Peace. Thoughts and Prayers to his family, friends and the CHP Family.