RH31379

Mahopac has been piloting it as long as mahopac falls since sometime in the beginning of september. I was originally not a fan. a When we started the county had us piloting it for fire and ems, which worked perfectly during a thunderstorm, multiple calls going on and as we called in enroute teh dispatcher just acknowledged it on the radio. no delay in waiting to get acknowledged. that has since changed and not it is ems geared with the ditpatch center to eliminate the number of incoming calls to cover an ems call. instead tehy have a 40"+ screen on the walls and can have smaller screens on they dispatch consoles to see that a call is covered or not. As for making a phone call while responding to a call? In putnam we call into cover EMS so your on teh phone anyway and now through working out some of our own trial and error and changing the call in options the total phone call doesnt last anymore then 9 seconds. now tell me thats to long? As far as calling in... if you preform a specific task then it can be programmed into a pause function on ur phone and it is even faster. I have the number in speed dial so i hold the button on my phone until it dials and dut the phone down and it hangs up it self so it is not distracting at all. It has worked great with the only exceptions being members not knowing the codes or the internet going down at the 911 center but that wasn't iamresponding. as for the put valley member wondering whats going on, the county did purchase the system for everyone and is in the process of rolling this out to all agencies it takes a little getting used to but seems to work well.

The helicopter was requested as stated above and then looked at from two prospectives, either water or survalience. Apparently things get very complicated when you wanna start dropping water in the vicinity of homes. We decided to what for the arrival of the ranger and then look at all the options he offered. in the interm manpower was requested to the scene with rakes and indian tanks, 2 lines we stretched and then split to 3 foresty lines best guess of a min 500-700' each .The ranger walked the perimeter came back offered is plan everyone (45 firefighters) was pulled out of the woods got some food regroupped and sent back in 3 teams of 10-12 to cut the fireline. An excellent effort was made and greatly appreciated the terrain was extremely rough to say the least and no injuries occured at either morning or evening. The rangers are heading back today to take a widden the fireline as needed.

In theory the entire medic 4 response area will benefit from it, in reality the call volume in brewster will monopilize it. not sure who is paying for it I am starting to feel that the county is hoping its a freebe for a month, I sure its already been discussed and figured out. the county is doing this not the lcal town/ villages so if its there idea then they should fund it. if it were put down to the lcoal level I dont think it would happen.

The plan as I have heard it will provide 3 medics in 3 fly cars, 1 bls/als bus, and 1 bls transport bus. the 4 agencies involved in the trial will im theory be dispatched, respond, begin treatment and then give the patient to the transport rig and the vol rig will go back in service... unless of course you want to follow your partient to the hospital then you can get on the "private rig" and ride to the hospital.... can I ? insurance with this????? we all know that brewsters call volume will most likely eat this bus up. just the other night they had 3 calls and 3 medics in brewster at the same time. one transport bus will not work for an effective trial, but cost is always a concern. the reason behind this trial is "the patient" which I dont see how things are going to change your going to be dispatching the same way so if the medic gets there 1st care is there. this really has nothing to do if the volunteer ambulances get out or not, if you do you dont transport if you don't you don't transport. I see that this is a direct benifit to the als provider, giving them the ability to bill every call and recoop the money they aren't making because many time the volunteers companies are getting out, in my opinion this has been a problem but it has gotten better over the last year rather then worse. the understanding behind allowing the als provider to transport will allow them to offset the als contract price by the amount they make over billing. The reason I say "als provider" is I don't want to point the finger at empire, we know the new all know county legislature is questioning the cost of als and is forcing the county to bid again and will probably cost more money.

I was with one of the Engines relocated from Putnam County and the first Putnam Engine to be sent to the command / staging area. We arived and were directed to sign in and wait to be briefed, which happend pretty quickly. We were told that there would be some down time and would be given an assignment. Thats what happened, we were given a radio, truck company to ride with and a guide and a company to borrow the proper hydrant connection from and our assignment was to handle all emergency calls on that side of the village. We were there through the change of command from the Marmaroneck Command to the Putnam Chiefs taking over and the mobile communications trailer being set up anmd then the tranfer back to the Marmaroneck Chiefs. I would have to say that all in all the situation went well. For what they were dealing with, a stuborn fire that would not go out, the village split in two by flooding, all the agencies coming from whereever, Local people were yelling at verizion and the PD diffused that, they were yelling at the IC to pump there basement, that was handled well. One thing I would say is 60 control at the training center where we staged for 10 min. should of had the proper fitting to lend us from the beginning, not a big deal but the department we barrowed it from was a little confused. We were able to comunicate with the command post using out low band in the engine, the company we were riding with gave us a hi-band portable incase we need side communication. Of course there were peole running around saying this is running horribly and we should just leave were sitting here and not doing anything, yes there was down time and then you had an assignment and ran for a while.... if you stayed home in your own department would you be running non-stop or have down time?