weaselff

I agree, but will not elaborate further on this "slow motion car wreck" of a topic. I can only see myself getting in trouble with this one.

Unless you're a 12 year old girl, I hope you can kick down your typical hollow core wood frame door used for bathrooms and bedrooms.

The Queens "rescue medics" is 49Robert or at least it was as of March '07, I think the CSL was SteinwayXBroadway in Astoria.

No, operating engineers.

The reason commisioners and chiefs dont like this site is because they see many first responders in the 18-40 age group who are unhappy with the state of emergency services in not only the Huson Valley but nationwide. These comissioners/chiefs and their ideas have held power for a long time over their individual fifedoms and kingdoms and they are desperate to hold on to it. There is a whole generation of young people out there who are extremely passionate about firefighting, EMS and law enforcement, and they are getting together on the internet and imagining radical change to the way we train, operate and organize. The "establishment" is terrified of this free exchange of information and ideas.

Very cool video, I have seen another more in depth version of this from an old Rescue 911 episode. If I remember correctly Capt Brown also made a roof rope rescue a few moments later.

Before everybody takes the moral high road, Id find it hard to believe the majority of the guys on this board career or volunteer have not had a few beers in their class A's after a parade, funeral, memorial day, etc. In my 9 years of paid and volly experience I have seen dozens of guys say and do moronic s*** at such functions. Was it at times childish and perhaps innaprpriate(especially at funerals)? Yes. Would I trust many of these same guys with my life in a fire? Absolutely. I will agree that it was especially stupid to film this behavior and post it on youtube. I noticed the West Hempstead HS hockey videos on his site, so Iam guessing he is from an LI department which makes it even dumber since his local paper(newsday) has had a vendetta against the volunteer service out their for a number of years.

If you cant get the rig out, it is time to hire paid FF's(at least drivers), end of story.

Long Island is divided up a little differently than the rest of the state as far as municipalities go. There are very few incorporated villages and citiesso there are less homerule problems. Just about everyone lives in an unincorporated hamlet in a larger township, and these townships are huge! I currently reside in the town of Brookhaven with a pop. close to 300,000 spread out over about 250 square miles!!! There are something like 20 different FD's and school districts in my "town". It is a very different place than Westchester. As for a unionized municipal county wide EMS or FD in Westchester or anywhere else in NYS, I really doubt seeing it anytimes soon, just because it would make sense.

Sorry Oswego but contrary to some big shots in the IAFF and a couple of "left coast" fire chiefs, EMS and firefighting are not similar jobs. The only thing they have in common is driving a vehicle to an emergency scene with lights and sirens. I am not a "problEMS" guy, I have all the respect in the world for EMS. I did it paid for 3 years and did it volly 2 years in college, but trust me they are completely different jobs requiring totally different skills. As for the manpower scenario you brought up its obvious you never worked a large city that actually has fires as either EMS or FD. After you bring the 10th ETOH or abd pain to the hospital and are about to get off tour the last thing you want is to stretch a 2 1/2 into a taxpayer or start cutting a roof on an OLT. Remember aside from a few hardcore buffs, how many guys take the fire test to ride an ambulance? how many EMT's and medics really want to ride a firetruck? Think of how many females and smaller males that are great techs and medics that would be out of a job if the services combined?

Sorry Oswego but contrary to some big shots in the IAFF and a couple of "left coast" fire chiefs, EMS and firefighting are not similar jobs. The only thing they have in common is driving a vehicle to an emergency scene with lights and sirens. I am not a "problEMS" guy, I have all the respect in the world for EMS. I did it paid for 3 years and did it volly 2 years in college, but trust me they are completely different jobs requiring totally different skills. As for the manpower scenario you brought up its obvious you never worked a large city that actually has fires as either EMS or FD. After you bring the 10th ETOH or abd pain to the hospital and are about to get off tour the last thing you want is to stretch a 2 1/2 into a taxpayer or start cutting a roof on an OLT. Remember aside from a few hardcore buffs, how many guys take the fire test to ride an ambulance? how many EMT's and medics really want to ride a firetruck? Think of how many females and smaller males that are great techs and medics that would be out of a job if the services combined?

None that you want to be employed by. They are 2 totally different jobs that require years of training and experience to master. Departments that also run ambulances are in cities with union-busting commisioners, chiefs and mayors who are trying to save a buck anyway they can. They create unhappy worplaces and shortchange their citizens on emergency services. Decide if you want to be a FF or a medic and test/apply accordingly. Both can be rewarding careers...good luck.

A few years back when I was a volly we had that big snowstorm on Christmas night and we ended up playing a big game of tackle football behind the firehouse. Good times, I dont know how much snow you guys are getting though. Down here on the island it just a dusting and a little ice.

Big Birch was renamed Thunder Ridge maybe 10 years ago, alot of people still call it big burch though. It is in Patterson i think, maybe Pawling of Rt 22

Wow this is news to me. I have known for a while that the city of Yonkers wanted to tear down some(if not all) of their public housing. I cant believe they are actually going through with it. I usually laugh when politicians say they are working to clean up Yonkers, but maybe something is actually getting done.

answered my own question by actually looking at the site!!

does anyone know the residency requirements? I no longer live in Westchester but would be intereseted in taking the test.

You guys make good points. My guess is someone in 9 Metrotech is in bed with someone at the GPS company and that individual is laughing all the way to the bank. Sounds like a similar situation that EMS had when implementing the E-PCR.

Most LI fire departments are anything but volunteer. Fire districts have "custodians", "mechanics" or "groundskeepers" who "coincidentally" happen to be company members and apparatus operators. While Newsday has been particularly vicious, many(but not all) fire districts on Long Island have long abused public funding for extravagant firehouses, parties and apparatus. As for the incident in question, lets just say Brentwood is a community that has seen better days. For a Westchester perspective think of the bad part of Mount Vernon relying first due on volunteers and for mutual aid. While not an incorporated village or city, it is a low income-high density "hamlet" within the town of Islip in Suffolk county. This department does alot of work, much more then any volunteer department in Westchester. With multiple structure fires every week they do an outstanding job, but something like this tragedy was bound to happen someday. This community and alot of other communties on the island need to evalutate how they approach fire supression in the 21st century.

Jackson Heights Volunteer Ambulance Astoria Volunteer Ambulance Yonkers VAC(I know others mentioned it, but I never knew it existed until last year when I started working with a guy who was a former member. Its hard for me to fathom anything in Yonkers being volunteer!)

I agree, I have driven past and it is a dump like almost every other FDNY facility. 9 Metrotech is nice but it was built recently and is just a standard NYC office building. The Rock got some cool stuff after 9/11 like the subway simulator and the indoor street scene. The EMS Academy at Ft. Totten is on a beautiful property but the buildings are in need of major renovations. Most EMS stations I have been in are roach infested dumps, the only exception I've experienced is Bn 54 which is brand new. Despite the sterling reputations of its FF's and EMT's, Alot of Buffs who are not employed by FDNY have no idea just how poorly run this department is. The civilian end of the FDNY is the typical NYC make-work beauracratic nightmare, nothing ever gets done, and when it does it will most certainly be a half a$$ed job.

I think you misread my comments. My opinion is the volunteer system should no longer be the primary first responding agency in a suburban/urban area like Westchester. The call volume is too high and unless you live in "fantasy land" this isn't gonna change in the forseeable future. If you are familiar with NYC, you know there are numeros VAC's located all across the city(mostly Queens, but every boro has at least one) that are supported by private donations and government grants. They listen to police scanners and when a potential job goes out in their neighborhood they "buff" it. They may not have all the fancy toys and unlimited budgets like suburban VACs, but young EMT's gain valuable street experience and serve their communities. Some of these volunteer outfits are: Throgs Neck, Central Park, Bay Side, Corona, Bed Stuy, Jamaica Estates and Glendale amongst many others. Ideally I would like to see Westchester have some sort of County-Wide Paid Municipal EMS department that serve as the primary first responders. The VAC's could operate as they do in the city, buffing jobs in their respective communities. I doubt this would ever happen, seeing it would require numerous hard headed individuals to have a spontaneous mutual explosion of common sense. So for now people will continue to die while waiting 15, 30, sometimes 45 minutes for an ambulance that might be coming from 3 towns away.

The volunteer EMS system is something that should go the way of the horse and buggy. There are far too many calls for the volunteers to respond to. You can talk all you want about public education, but nothings gonna change anytime soon. I have no problem with the VAC's but I think they should operate as they do in the city as private non-profit groups that buff jobs. Every municipality/county should have its own paid-unionized EMS department(seperate from PD and FD). The VAC's can operate with donations and political grants and listen to the scanner and when they have a job in their area they can go out and try to beat the paid guys there. They wouldn't be able to afford the freightliner ambulances with CPR chairs anymore, but they would still be out there helping people and thats the most important thing. At least with this plan the VAC's could stay all-volunteer.

Glad I'm not working!

Despite a carefully constructed PR front, Bloomberg, like Giuliani and pretty much every mayor before him is no friend of FDNY, NYPD or EMS. Not to worry though, karma has a way of coming back and biting people in the a$$.