ckroll

A gross exaggeration. It barely makes it to the refrigerator.

All roads need to be maintained, and occasionally improved. That said, 'improving' transit time from Boyds Corners reservoir to the Peekskill train station is ridiculous. The county came up with that as a reason for spending some 8 million on the project. Given the current economic climate, it's a waste of money that verges on criminal. As anyone in emergency services knows, increasing speed has only a small impact on overall transit time. It is 16 miles from Boyds Corners to Peekskill If half the distance is improved, that's 8 miles. 8 miles at 60 mph is 8 minutes, and at 40 mph it's 12 minutes. Millions of dollars to save a few people 4 minutes commute??? Given the traffic tie ups during construction, it will be decades before commuters break even on time spent behind the wheel. Parts of Peekskill Hollow Road are a speedway. I've had motorcycle groups go past my house so fast I could not tell what color they were. Enforcement of the existing speed limits is nonexistent. If safety were the issue, the money would be spent for more personnel in the PCSO to enforce speed limits... and that would mean more jobs in Putnam, more lives saved and improved. As for improving roads increasing accidents... absolutely. Absent enforcement, people drive at whatever speed they perceive is safe, or in the case of PHR, fun. Wider roads with wider turns will without any doubt increase the speed traveled on PHR by 10 to 15 miles an hour which takes the head on impact speed up by 20 or 30 mph. The physics of it is that energy increases as the square of velocity so the added miles an hour on impact increase the energy of impact substantially. Not only will there be more accidents, those accidents will be much more likely to kill and maim. This project isn't just a bad idea, it's evil.

It's funny and informative and correct as far as it goes. The first 4 don't drink for 'free' because there is a cover charge---payroll taxes-- social security and medicare come out directly. And then there's sales tax, gasoline tax et al., that are 'flat' taxes, the poor guys drive the same distance to the bar and pays the same tax for fuel as the rich guy. Then the fellow at the top who pays $59 steps out for an' important phone call' just before the bill comes, so he isn't at the table--it's called a loophole. And the fellow who pays $18 has a good accountant and he writes the $18 off on his taxes as a business expense, so he only ends up $9 out of pocket. Let's back up the story a bit. It's a high school reunion. The bottom 4 had to get jobs right out of high school and they're making minimum wage. The middle 4 went to a state school and make decent salaries. The top 2 went to Yale and are junior partners in daddy's investment house. It's not just breaking my heart that Winston Oglethorpe III is paying more for that beer than Billy Bob Travis. Yes, the top 50% pay almost all the taxes.....but they also earn almost all the money. If something is easy to understand.....then it's definitely not the US tax code.

This goes back to the idea of tiered response and how one makes the decision on what resources to send. The object is to get the appropriate resources to most of the jobs most of the time. If the standard is every job, every time, then towns have to overstaff most of the time to be able to handle high call situations. What isn't done that might be useful would be an incident alert, short of sending EMS. If an investigative vehicle is responding to a scene with unknown injuries, advise EMS or ALS so that those units can perhaps start assembling or moving into position, non emergency. If ALS is rolling towards a potential scene and something more significant drops, it can be diverted. A key concept is getting someone who can make the call on scene in a timely manner. Back in the day...SP would not dispatch fire or ambulance in our town to Parkway calls until they confirmed it was needed. There were patient reports of hour long waits for assistance and in one case of a car wrapped around a tree, the engine compartment split open, the engine was cold when we arrived, so that car and that patient had been sitting for way too long. Obviously we don't send a helicopter to every job because that would be silly. A paramedic, while less silly, may still be too much, and even BLS response as an emergency with airhorns howling seems to me to be too much for AA's with unconfirmed PI. But someone able to make a decision needs to get there. One way to bridge the gap could be non emergency EMS response of some kind that either stages in the vicinity if police are minutes out or does a drive by if police are detained.

And I haven't a clue what the call was about.... In a perfect world every call gets answered, and right away. System management, and there have been papers written on the topic, tries to get most of the calls covered appropriately, most of the time. A system designed where there are NEVER any calls that go bad is a system that may be overstaffed. And anytime 'Volunteer' is part of the equation, well..... we get what we pay for. And that said,-- what about the patients? If what we do has deep personal significance, then getting there most of the time may be good enough for bean counters, but someone, all of us, need to speak up and say most of the time isn't good enough. I chose EMS before paramedics were an option, where time to definitive care meant 30 scary minutes in the back of an ambulance with not much more than good intentions and good rubber, hoping there was time to make the Medical Center. The ability to transport was all we had. .... and without it we don't have anything. Take it to the persons who have responsibility, the town, the city. If a patient has been failed by the system, then the system needs to be changed. Then we need to look at what it will cost to change the system. It sounds like there needs to be serious discussion over what we need and what it will cost. Good topic.

Per my sources it was just a section of old Parkway. I like the idea of it being an overlook, but the topography is wrong. There is a high point between it and Roaring Brook Lake. I'll take a hike out there this weekend.

That's not what the questioner means. There is the old dirt extension from Stillwater to Roaring Brook but WAS, I believe, is referring to the paved bit that mysteriously exits and enters. I've lived here 22 years and have no idea what it is. It was old that long ago. I'll ask someone in town who knows everything and will get back to you.

One needs to be able to shift synchronized standard as second nature before attempting to double clutch. Clutch, take it out of gear, release, match engine speed, then clutch and put it in the new gear. In much the same way, one can drive a standard car without using the clutch per se if one matches engine speeds. It's pretty easy going up with an older car, but downshifting is dicey as yes, one has to speed up the engine to match on the down shift. If one understands the physics of matching gear speeds and then listens to the engine, it's not hard at all. You do need to be one with your machine, and I think it makes for better drivers overall to have had the experience. I fondly remember my fire department many years ago making it a rule that new drivers had to drive the 'original' a.k.a. double clutch trucks first in hopes of discouraging a certain woman who wanted to drive, unaware that she already knew how to double clutch a truck. And double clutching also refers to taking the initial eggs of an endangered species to raise in captivity so that the parent birds will lay a second set of eggs to rear in the wild... double clutching..... but somehow, I don't think that was what he meant, is it?

What the original author may be getting at sounds like he has trouble with his/her back up. One medic alone is going to have a hard time on a code. When we practice 'mega' codes in ACLS there are 4 ALS trained people... and that ever happens when in the field? We all need our BLS providers to know their skills and hopefully know how to interface with ALS. It sounds like that isn't happening, but it may be a filter down of education not a problem with ACLS per se. I know in my BLS corps the person in charge of 'training' outright refuses to let EMT's practice bagging with a tube in place because that's 'an ALS skill' and he has a bug up over anything ALS. What might be useful to us all is an integration course that brought BLS up to date on how to contribute effectively to an ALS response.

I haven't seen the video, but I've certainly taken an ambulance to the back lot to check on snow conditions and handling. If you don't know what an ambulance can do, then that can be an issue, especially with braking. They are heavy and handle like pigs. I'm not sure one can find out about their handling only by asking around. We all drive/react differently and ought to know what any given vehicle will do for us. Several years ago we had a member who was skittish about snowy conditions and we went out back after a call and got her over it. Fun was had, and it was clearly established that 15 mph was top speed for an ambulance in snow. In a genuine emergency is no time to be finding out where the limits are. And that said, I've not seen the need to take my work vehicles out back as my POV is similar and I have plenty of experience with it. The larger issue, and it is becoming a real 800 lb gorilla, is candid video. Footage robbed of context and edited to push an agenda is showing up all the time. Video is a mixed situation. On the one hand, if we live well and do things well, then it shouldn't be an issue. If knowing that we can and WILL be judged by strangers across the nation makes each of us try a little harder and do a little better, then that's good. It becomes a huge problem when there are uneducated audiences looking for mindless entertainment that do not know and do not want to know the context in which events are happening. If the standard we have to meet is that we can never do or say anything that can be clipped or cropped or edited, then that is life lived in a straight jacket.

I've got to be a dinosaur on this one. What patient information? By the time you get the computer fired up, logged in, figured out why it won't let you in, reboot, well,... you don't even know why your patient called for assistance and you certainly haven't taken a history, gotten vitals or forbid, done a thorough physical exam or performed skills. That, or you are on scene for 30 minutes. Now you get to one of the three different hospitals to which you transport and transfer the information how? Empire went to toughbooks when they won the Putnam contract back in 2006 [?]. Many of us spent more time trying to get into the system and keeping it running than we did using it. In theory it's great, just hit buttons and everything gets recorded, big brother gets to watch. In practice, it puts one more obstacle between the provider and the patient. When choosing when and where to use computers and data entry, ask yourself where patient and patient care fits in. If I or my family is ever a patient in an ambulance and I hear the 'health care provider' typing, well they don't make a computer that's going to survive what happens next.

EMT's and paramedics have some experience with being lied to, poor memory, and forgotten details. Perhaps we should start with the assumption that black and white are illusions. Everything is a shade of gray, and it is our job to figure out what shade of gray it is. Trust no one, assume people are good, but don't be surprised if they are not.

AND WHERE IS THE DOG???? Another promise broken. If we'd elected McCain there would be a dog in the whitehouse!

I think it will be problematic in Putnam Valley. We currently don't have a problem covering calls. If 3 EMTs call in, I guess they all go to the scene or station and first one wins? That's great for the patient, but the third time I get left or told I am not needed at scene is when I lose interest in responding. .. and that ends up not being so great for future patients. EMS is dynamic. I think keeping a human element involved in decision making makes for more appropriate responses. Say we have an EMT to the rig and a driver/EMT to the scene. How do we resend the driver/ EMT to the rig? Or do we wait for another driver to call in or go mutual aid because there is no driver at the rig? The advantage of call-in in our district, which is one of the largest in New York, is to get closest resources assigned. If the new system is first speed dial wins, then we might as well tell vollies that they must do duty shifts in quarters, and then we don't need the fancy system.

I think it will be problematic in Putnam Valley. We currently don't have a problem covering calls. If 3 EMTs call in, I guess they all go to the scene or station and first one wins? That's great for the patient, but the third time I get left or told I am not needed at scene is when I lose interest in responding. .. and that ends up not being so great for future patients. EMS is dynamic. I think keeping a human element involved in decision making makes for more appropriate responses. Say we have an EMT to the rig and a driver/EMT to the scene. How do we resend the driver/ EMT to the rig? Or do we wait for another driver to call in or go mutual aid because there is no driver at the rig? The advantage of call-in in our district, which is one of the largest in New York, is to get closest resources assigned. If the new system is first speed dial wins, then we might as well tell vollies that they must do duty shifts in quarters, and then we don't need the fancy system.

Car 54 where are you?, at least it's on topic.

Ok, I have to tell a couple of stories. First, It's the parkway, middle of the night and the call is a head on. I live around the corner and am on scene right away in street clothes. There is this kid, can't be 16, in a ratty plaid shirt telling me to get away from the car. I ignore him and he yells at me, so I yell back who in hell does he think he is and he says 'I'm an off duty trooper, who in hell are you?" and I reply 'captain of the ambulance corps.' And we stand nose to nose snarling for a moment until we recognise we have matching dirty plaid shirts on. Then we laugh and get to work. So, yeah, if you don't look the part, then assume you're going to have to explain yourself. Put the patient first and get over it quickly. Second, and this is 15 years old so everyone involved is moved away or dead or both. Back before medics, a rollover accident, badly injured person and the responding ambulance parks in traffic and the trooper blows a gasket, gets grief from on scene personnel, gives it back, writes a ticket, captain of the ambulance tries to throw a punch and next thing I know, I'm halfway through an extrication all by myself because everyone is either in or watching the cat fight. Court dates got set and changed, as did venues and everyone got so twisted it took weeks to iron out. There was plenty of shame to go around, all of it unnecessary. There were hard feelings for years. Put the patient first and get over it quickly. I think absolutely everyone will agree that getting a patient off scene as quickly as possible is key to traffic control and scene safety...oh, and patient care. Absent significant extrication, 10 minutes the the max on scene time. Put the pateint first and get off scene quickly. Then it doesn't matter who's in charge. Cut the troopers as much slack as you can whenever you can and then when you're jammed up, they'll listen to you.

There needs to be some middle ground here. Cars plowing into accidents are moving too fast and that may be corrected by more aggressive flaring and longer warning tracks. Short story is that drivers are idiots and shutting down traffic increases the odds of secondary accidents and the classic open gates and let 'em run accidents. Hold people in traffic for an hour and many will drive like lunatics when you open it back up. I think too many egos make for poor emergency planning. Asking who's top gorilla doesn't solve the problem. Finding a way to slow traffic to reasonable speeds will solve more problems and save more lives, both civilian and responders. Closing a major highway solves one problem at the expense of others. Let's brainstorm this. If troopers want the lane open, they need to guarantee our safety. Why not arrange a sit down and hash out a plan that makes the SP happy and lets us do our job. Can troopers send a second car so that one can handle the accident and the second can slow traffic? Should we be deploying more fire fighters to slow traffic farther out and stop each car if only for a second before it passes the accident scene? Fines are doubled in work zones. How about a well publicized program that excessive speed in an accident zone will get big fines? How about troopers arresting a few people? That will make the news. The troopers are not the problem, the drivers are. And it's not all drivers. We need a way to control traffic reasonably without punishing overmuch the rest of the population.

I assume you already volunteer somewhere. If not, volunteer a shift or two in a busy town.

One needs to read the whole article. Best and Worst is highly subjective. If one starts by defining the best job as high pay, indoors, no activity, no contact with other people, no stress, no danger, --which is what they did,-- then guess what, it sucks to be an EMT or a firefighter. The list is far from complete. Smoke jumping has to be the absolute 'worst' job on the planet, but if I had it to do over, I think I would have spent a few years at it. Let's see, tax accountant or parachuting into forest fires? That's not a hard choice. The best job is one that makes you happy and pays the bills.

I just drove the New Jersey Tpk. Gas is 1.52 in Fort Lee, 1.57 on the Tpk and 1.54 in Southern NJ.

Crude is still something like 43 a barrel. Lack of demand is keeping the crude price down and OPEC can't do anything about it right now. What may be driving prices is Russia having shut down delivery to Europe in its ongoing spat with the Ukraine. With the price of oil down, Russia which is almost entirely an oil revenue based economy, is staggering. While it is so much fun to blame the Arabs, consider that it is the American oil industry that reaps the windfall profits at our expense when prices spike. Exxon recently had profits of 11.7 billion a quarter... that's three months.... The US oil industry is more than happy to have us blaming the mid east for our problems as they haul our money to the bank. Round those numbers... 12 billion for 3 months....... 4 billion a month......say just under a billion a week, and that's just one company........ damned Arabs.

Very good grasshopper......... Excellent indeed and a variation on what has been taught in Buddhist monasteries for a couple thousand years. Focusing on the breath is key to meditation practice. Mindfulness is something else that might be of benefit to the young fire fighter. It is described in the parable of the snake in the shed. A person walks into a dark shed and sees a large black snake coiled in the corner. Instinctively he grabs a shovel and beats it t pieces....only to discover it was a coil of rope. There are considered to be 5 attributes of awareness ---- form, feeling, perception, consciousness and action. In the case of the coils, the individual became aware of a form--- narrow coils. Then he perceived it to be a snake. A snake is dangerous, it causes feeling of fear and hatred. His brain said, do something! kill it! He took action, he beat it to pieces. It all happens so fast in the mind that we sense things, take action, without a full understanding. As a meditation practice, think about something fearful or bothersome, say a terrible thunderstorm, a barking dog. Then ask yourself what exactly it is and why bothers you. In the case of a face mask or a live burn, it's dark, there are flames, we've heard scary stories..... but that also describes an evening campfire, one of the nicest things on earth. If it is the lack of sensory input, then some people live all their lives with sensory impairment and they live without fear. If it is the fear of not knowing where you are or what is out there, maybe getting lost, then focus on those things. In a burning building, you will be blind, you will not know what is out there and if you do not pay attention you will get lost. Focus on the sensory input you have, pay attention to all your clues, pay close attention to where you are and how you move. One of the huge reasons to do things that are dangerous is that it makes you focus on what matters. There is nothing like the prospect of your own life in the balance to sharpen the mind. That said, if you are not emotionally affected by the dangers of fire fighting you shouldn't be doing it. It is dangerous and must be respected. Acknowledge the fear, examine it, but don't let it own you. You show a healthy respect for fire fighting and you ask questions. It sounds to me like you could make an excellent fire fighter.

At issue are mandatory sentencing requirements. Having done jury duty for same, the law is clear. Juries deliberate on the facts of a case only. The law in this situation mandates the sentence. Mandatory sentencing is not the work of a liberal cabal trying to undermine freedom, it is the demon spawn of conservatives trying to tie the hands of courts to prevent leniency on the part of compassionate judiciary a.k.a. the 'liberals'. Even in the rabidly liberal bastion of New York we live with mandatory sentencing for drug possession crimes that are among the most draconian in the nation. And they are passionately defended by unions who see full prisons as job security. None of this is the work of liberals. In the case of these officers --who, by reasonable account, shot someone in the back, picked up their shell casings and never reported it, all without knowing that drugs were involved-- they should have lost their jobs for what they did, but the severity of the sentence was excessive given the circumstances. It is a cautionary tale for us all. In the name of 'duty' two border officers crossed the boundaries of their profession. When they did that, they lost the protections that that profession offers, and they then fell prey to the mandatory sentencing laws. None of us know the facts of the case, but it sounds as if the greater good was not served by imprisoning these men. While you write asking for these men to be pardoned, consider a letter to NY politicians asking them to close some of our catastrophic budget shortfall by commuting the sentences for thousands of New Yorkers serving 20 to life for trivial possession convictions., and then to take the laws that put them away off the books.

They were convicted by a jury in Texas. Please, never use the words 'libera'l and 'Texas' in the same sentence.