PEMO3

An internet search of headlines turns up titles such as "Police officer injuried in accident enroute to call", "Respected Doctor killed in one car accident", "Belover school teacher killed in tragic auto accident". etc. Based on the explaination given these were journalistically poor headlines?

It seems to me that there is more here than meets the eye. Either this 13 Chiefs are misinformed or this is the platform for a different grudge. Rule one of any leadership position is that you can delegate the task and not the responsibility. I am missing the issue here. Many times the a senior officer will come on scene and monitor an incident but not "take or assume command" that does not mean they escape responsibility for the incident. If the officer in charge or IC has the incident under control and is not overwhelmed what is the purpose of "assuming command" for a already smooth operation. Are these 13 Chiefs claiming they were not able to adequately manage the incident? Where they ineffective at maintaining a smooth operation? Chief Abraira is correct in stating that it is a nationally accepted practice that you only take command if there's is something wrong, you strengthen the position, the IC is overwhelmed or the IC relinquishes the command to you. Needless to say this will be an interesting story to watch play out.

Grumpyff, thank you for that side of the story. Like I said, I thought there had to be more to it. It is one thing to be supportive and stand back while your people do the job well and another thing to "sit back and watch" or as it appears hide when the s--t hit the fan, For that there is no excuse. If in fact the latter is the case then I can truly understand the "no confidence vote".

Still not climbing that tree?

Putting the politics of the events aside. If the threat(s) against the funeral home create a imminent threat against the public as a whole then I personally believe it is incumbent on law enforcement, local, state or federal, to ensure that that threat is mitigated. If no threat exists other than that to the funeral home and it's business for what in their hindsight became a decision of poor judgement then it should be up to the establishment to provide it's own private security the same way malls and stores add additional security (armed or unarmed) during sales and holiday times. The real issue here is what was the level of the threat, how credible was it and who was imperiled by it.

I wonder if the call came in as a "Jumper Up". He was probably thinking he should have just tasered the cat.

I heard a job yesterday, car vs telephone pole. Only picked up on part of the job but if memory serves me correctly it was in Yorktown with YFD, YVAC and 34 Medic. You might want to try that direction. Also not sure if 60 Control can help you (not sure about legalities involved) but if you have her admit time they may be able to do a CAD search for MVA's that occurred in that time period.

Nice looking vessel. Best of luck with her.

The article is an interesting read but clearly raises question about the lack of a unified command, interoperability of communications and the assumption that units should have disregarded the "stage away" order and ran blindly into the scene regardless of the initial intell. Personnel are trained to be mindful of a safe scene, secondary devices and scenes set to draw first responders into the "line of fire". Recently we have seen to many of these later incidents. PD could have transports out to EMS and not the ER. EMS is not trained to enter an unsecured scene and any EMS IC that orders his personnel in without a confirmation that the scene secure should not be an IC. Remember, you are of no help if you become a victim and require resources yourself.

Interesting that Con Ed was working on utilities almost IFO the fire building just prior to the first alarm. Based on the presence of overhead cable one would conclude that they were working on gas service. Will be interesting to hear the determination on this one.

Everyone is looking at sizeup/preliminary report as an FD structure only report. These reports are useful to incoming units and bosses on all types of calls from a structure fire to an MVA to a Ped Struck to a school evacuation. Putting information out such as number of patients, staging area, best access route, hazards, etc. will aid in units getting a clearer picture of what they are "walking into" while enroute. It can also aid a boss in escalating an assignment prior to arrival based on information at hand. The important thing is to think outside the box and do not pigeon hole a reporting tool as only useful for one type of call.

You hit the nail on the head. Ever notice the the weight of the patient increases directly proportionally to the number of flights of stairs they need to be carried down e.g. the 90 lb frail old ladys live on the ground floor and the 400 lbs patients are usually on the top floor of the five story walk up.

Remember the difference between us and sanitation is their garbage doesn't talk back. :-)

We can go back and forth all day that diverted traffic for a road closure is or is not a detour. Fact is simple someone, PD,FD,EMS,DOT, whoever needed to be proactive and send a DOT truck out with a few barrels and orange & black arrow signs and blaze a trail out and around and back to 9 past the incident. DOT was not doing anything until the extrication was done. Those arrow signs and a road closed sign would have freed up PD resources. You are correct that there should be some permanent alternative route signs but we allow know that changes like this in NY let alone Westchester almost require an act of congress.

Helicopper does not the mere closing of a road create a "detour". The difference here is that the closure created a detour sending many drivers onto unfamiliar roads and areas. The statement "just follow the car in front" - really. So if I am going to Rockland and your going to Danbury the solution is if lost just follow the car in front?

No need to appologize. I hindsight this should have been a topic for a separate thread and if anything you are the one owed an apology for having your topic detailed and I appologize for being part of it.

History of the Black & White Police Car. Black and white is an American slang term for a police car that is painted in large panels of black and white or generally any "marked" police car. Historically, this scheme was much favored by North American police forces because it allowed the unambiguous recognition of patrol units from a significant distance. However, as the color scheme is not standardized, each police agency in the U.S. and Canada can choose their own color scheme. The most common variant of the black and white color scheme is white roof and four white doors, the second most common is white roof and only the two front doors. In Sweden, the black and white police cars had black roofs to make them visible in high snow. Taken in text from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_white_%28police_vehicle%29

Helicopper, to answer your question, no PD should not should the full blame. There is plenty of blame to go around on this one. Various news agencies reported that "9A was closed at Cedar" - usual spot for the famous "can't keep the shiny side up drivers". No news agency that I heard ever stated that route 9 north was also closed. The traffic was allowed to go through the route 134 intersection for hours and forced off at Cedar - again no issue, been done before except that Route 9 north was closed. In turn traffic then went south to make its way back north to 9A south to get to Rt 134 where they were met with hot tempers and traffic running the red light as they tried to navigate RT 134 toward the Taconic. Compound this with CBS 880 reporting the Taconic north closed at Underhill for a fatal MVA investigation causing more drivers that normal heading toward 9A north to opt for a detour as opposed to a closed highway. Put this together and you have a perfect storm so to speak. So did some proactive or reactive planning need to be done - yes. Remember, I said plenty to go around - we have blamed PD, DOT, and the news media, lets not leave the county without a piece of the pie. Remember CENS - the Community Emergency Notification System, that they wanted everyone to sign up for so they could communicate information to the general public. The system that comes alive and sends a message about every leap year. Use of such a system would have gotten timely accurate information to the public about roads that were open and closed and suggested detours. Remember with the Taconic closed just south of the Am-Vet Bridge and 9a and 9 both closed at the merge and traffic refusing to allow people to turn or merge left or right in some cases people were placed in what felt like a never ending loop. This could have become a public health or safety issue rapidly as buses were stuck with children on board, let alone in cars with parents and emergency vehicle would have been hampered responding through this gridlock.

Seth, you threw your hook in the water and in the process caught a lot of fish. I hope you take the time to carefully process all of the quality advice you have been given and make a careful and informed decision on a choice that will be with you for life. It will be a lot like a marriage. Easy to enter but costly if you decide you made the wrong choice.

Don't go into this without a tattoo that you truly want. Remember that this is basically going to be forever and being on your wrist both forever and visible forever. Sit down and carefully think is this something that 20 or 30 years from now I will still want visible on my wrist. Lastly, make sure you go to a clean and reputable location as there are a lot of "extras" you can get such as Hep from an unclean location.

I do not want to read into your statement but if I understand it correctly the "real" reason no decon unit was on site as even a standby status was because somebody (I am not pointing fingers anywhere) allowed a valuable response team to be dismantled to a level that is would not be available to respond? In today's day and age if this were the case I find it troubling. Again, no finger pointing, no second guessing just a question. For all we know the IC and HazMat may have deemed the operation such that strict decon was not required.

Glad you are back & hope you are feeling better. I am sure there is some sense of accomplishment in pulling of this fabulous restore. Again, great job and welcome back, we missed you and EMTBravo. It like they say: you never truly appreciate what you had until it's gone.

I agree, tablet devices are the wave of the future. The only restriction is the creation of "apps" that will so what existing software does now. There needs to be a call and push for developers to start creating these software programs as apps in both IOS and the more affordable android platform.which has its advantages along with Apples IOS.

Does this number include EMS jobs at the airport or is it more than just airport jobs?

If the mayor and council see this you may be Bike 2306.