WAS967

Well, as of tonight they have thier ALS back up and running (dunno when exactly it happened, but medics are back online with ALS gear instead of running BLS). As for loosing contracts left and right, every commercial agency has thier fair share of problems.

I wonder how many times said NYC provider has sent a unit from the city to cover jobs in White Plains? Hmmm.....

On the PD side there is a rather famous video that has been making the rounds on "realTV" and the like in the past years of a SWAT officer who had a flashbang grenade go off in his hip pocket. Luckily he got away with only 2nd and 3rd degree burns, but it makes you think.

A large water carrying apparatus status post sex change operation.

I used to live less than a mile from the main Mohegan Fire House. I rarely if EVER heard the fire horn. Now tell me this: how much area does the average fire horn/whistle/kazoo cover and what percentage of the active membership lives within that radius? What do the people who can't hear the noise do if the pagers don't go off? And not for nothing, a lot of fire whistles/horns/party favors are set off by the same electronic notification that sets off the pagers. So if the pagers don't work, what makes you think the fire horns will?

EMD dispatchers might actually be better off not having any medical training. That way they stick to the cards and as mentioned, are not tempted to stray from the prewritten instructions meant to cover everyone's butts.

irishfire: to enhance knowledge of the class, please contact WCDES and speak to the Training Coordinator, Jeff Reilly. He can make arrangements to have a PDF or DOC copy of the class announcement sent via fax and email to all the Fire and EMS agencies in the county.

I think they should take away courtesy lights. Heck, if you want to go to fires/EMS calls, stay at the station. Be on duty. That way the apparatus gets to the emergency quickly and would fix some of the time issues. Plus it gets all the freaking idiots off the road who think that the blue/green/whatever light gives them some law granted power to run people off the road and/or break V&T laws.

resqstuff: some very harsh truths. What I find interesting is people seem to imply that the problem only exists here. The issues at hand are more widespread than just Westchester. Putnam has the same problems, as does Rockland (but to a lesser extent). And don't even get me started about upstate. x635: Even empress calls mutual aid, but will never admit it when they do. All their numbers are smoke and mirrors, always have been.

I'm EMS so here goes: -Cardiology II Stethescope -Penlight -Radio Clip -18 and 20ga Angiocatheters -Trauma Scissors -Several pairs of noncrappy latex gloves unlike the ones from the truck. -Medical Saline Lock Start Kit(Never trust the ones from the gear) -Pen -Nextel Eventually need to buy another copy of the EMS field guide,. Lost my old one ages ago.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/3670786/detail.html

http://cbsnewyork.com/local/NYC--Firehouse...urces_news_html

Last I heard about Bedford's new Firehouse is that at the last commissioner election, the voters voted in the guy who was opposed to the new station instead of the incumbent. Looks like it will be a long hard road before they see any new firehouse there.

Since when does alcohol have fat?

It wasn't a fire (thank the lord). It was when the propane tanker rolled over on Route 172 (Pound Ridge Rd) in Bedford near Grove Rd. We were there for about 9 hours while they worked to get the thing back on it's wheels. It happened on March 13th, 2003 (not a friday) and resulted in the evacuation of one square mile plus 2 or 3 schools in the area. There was no leak thankfully and once it was righted it was towed and all cleared. Two patients were transported from the scene with relatively minor injuries. Additional photos here: http://www.westchesterems.org/gallery/propane

This gets more wierd the more i read about it. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/29222.htm

Every organization has it's bad apples. From the huge FDNY all the way down to the local community FD. FDNY just has a WHOLE LOT more people so it SEEMS as if they are worse than the rest. Problem with society is nobody seems to think in relative terms. Lets say FDNY has 10,000 members. And lets say a mere 1/2 of 1% of the people are "bad apples". That means that 50 members stastically would bring bad press to the department. Seems like a lot, but figure that that is more people than in a lot of towns out west.

My god. I wonder if anything similar has happened before? It does sound very "freak" as I've never heard of anything like it.

It's probably only temporary. A few weeks ago Richard Robinson from NYS-DOH inspected Empire Ambulance in the process of reviewing ALL ambulance operations in NYS (If you haven't been checked yet, you WILL eventually so be ready). While being inspected there were several issues found involving the Narcotics policy and handling. The medical director was summoned and thier narcotics capability was pulled. I do not know if this resulted in thier ALS being pulled or not, but I do know that they have been running all BLS for several (three to four) weeks. They are due to have a meeting with the Hudson Valley region to decide on what happens next. Westchester is expected to follow whatever decision is made by HVREMAC/HVREMSCO. I don't expect that they will loose thier ALS abilities permanently as it was a minor infraction (relatively, no narcs were lost or misappropriated). I can't speak for what the contracts want to do, but I know several facilities from the north have been contacting other agencies to begin duscussions about alternative coverage. I don't know if the REMAC/REMSCO meeting has already taken place. It SHOULD be a matter of public record so calling the region direct for an answer MIGHT yield some results.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/...ynews-headlines

I can't help but wonder: all the arrests for DUI - anyone wonder if they would have so many if the NYPD and the FDNY weren't at each other's throats? I mean the NYPD must have a significant number of incidents of MOS pulled over and found DUI but "let off the hook". Plenty of other places might yield professional courtesy and get the guy a ride home instead of throwing him in the klink. I wonder if the increase of DUI busts is linked to the fued? Food for thought.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/27262.htm

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/stor...4p-192664c.html Originally published on August 21, 2004

This has been getting a LOT of press. The irony of the name "Animal House" gets me eash time I read about this. New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com