Florida (Orange Co) Volunteer Ambulance Closing.

[50-65 205]

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141003/NEWS/410040310/101008/NEWS

If I read the article correctly, it said that one of the problems getting members for the ambulance was that they had to first join the fire department and take fire classes. (presumably FF1?). If that is/was a known barrier, did they try to work around it?

[EMT111 149]

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141003/NEWS/410040310/101008/NEWS

If I read the article correctly, it said that one of the problems getting members for the ambulance was that they had to first join the fire department and take fire classes. (presumably FF1?). If that is/was a known barrier, did they try to work around it?

I don't know that they had to go to ff1, but they did have to join the fire side of the department and go through whatever in house training, ffd had, and no, they never dropped that requirement. Another problem they had was that they had new EMTs and who had to be "cleared" to ride by themselves as an EMT, but the senior EMTs weren't showing up for calls, so the new EMTs weren't getting cleared. There were several times when they had a driver and a new EMT, but they'd turn over the call cause they didn't have a "cleard" EMT. Also, about four years ago they brought in Emstar as their BLS backup as well as ALS provider after the surrounding corps got tired of covering all of of florida's calls, so if there was a call they didn't want to go on, they just let the Emstar go and became over reliant on paid crews. It basically comes down to the commissioner's didn't really want anything to do EMS and and didn't work with the ambulance members at all, and it's hard to run a corps when the leadership doesn't want to. And that's just the tip of the ice berg, they've been having issues for years.

[50-65 205]

I had often wondered why they were there after hearing them go to 3rd and 4th dispatches for most of the calls that I heard. Did they ever look at seperating the fire district and ambulance? I know of a department upstate that did that to some success. That was mostly so they could bill for services though rather than a manpower issue.

[SteveC7010 58]

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141003/NEWS/410040310/101008/NEWS

If I read the article correctly, it said that one of the problems getting members for the ambulance was that they had to first join the fire department and take fire classes. (presumably FF1?). If that is/was a known barrier, did they try to work around it?

Let me ask a couple of questions to fill in the conversation:

First, does anyone here know if there is anything in NYS law that would prevent a fire department from creating a separate class of membership that would not be required to take FF1 and, of course, not required to respond to fire calls? It would be valuable to know if this is strictly an in-house rule, or there is some legal requirement.

And, to take 50-65's question one step further, if they did not try to work around their rule, why not? If this was just an in-house rule, the answer to this is very important.

[EMT111 149]

I had often wondered why they were there after hearing them go to 3rd and 4th dispatches for most of the calls that I heard. Did they ever look at seperating the fire district and ambulance? I know of a department upstate that did that to some success. That was mostly so they could bill for services though rather than a manpower issue.

Honestly, I don't know why this wasn't ever tried. It was the opinion of high ranking personnel from very well run neighboring agencies that Florida EMS should have tried to separate from fire, but the leadership of Florida EMS never went for it. Also, I think the senior members where afraid to loose their benefits through the FD, and the FD liked that they could tax for EMS and spend only a little on EMS and keep the rest for fire.

Let me ask a couple of questions to fill in the conversation:

First, does anyone here know if there is anything in NYS law that would prevent a fire department from creating a separate class of membership that would not be required to take FF1 and, of course, not required to respond to fire calls? It would be valuable to know if this is strictly an in-house rule, or there is some legal requirement.

And, to take 50-65's question one step further, if they did not try to work around their rule, why not? If this was just an in-house rule, the answer to this is very important.

The first FD I thought of that also does EMS is Somers, and based on the Somers' website you can be either fire or EMS if you choose, but not knowing anything Somers FD, i could be wrong.

I will preface this next statement by saying that i am not, and never have been, a member of Florida FD/EMS, and most of the information I have on the topic comes second hand, from very reliable sources, but I still could be getting it wrong. As I understand it, the Commissioners of Florida FD wanted to be a FD, no interest in EMS at all. So they were a FD first, and then if you wanted to do EMS, that was something you figured out how to do yourself after joining the FD, and the FD was gonna put the bare minimum into the ambulance just to prevent anyone from claiming negligence on their part. Why it took them so long to drop EMS, I don't know, I would have figured they would have done it as soon as these feeling arose. To put this in perspective, they went to the Towns of Warwick and Goshen, and said "we're done with EMS, now you figure it out". Then as one FFD EMS member put it, "they "fired" their employees, and then told them they needed to continue working for the next 6 months and do the job well". I don't know of any job where they fire you but keep you working for any further length of time.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Its an in-house rule. It may require a change to their by-laws. But that is easy to do, if they want this.

[sympathomedic 383]

Somers lets you be EMS only. Mohegan EMS was part of Fire DEPT (Not District) and seperated quite well.

[x635 4,066]

How many fire calls does Florida do a year, and how many EMS?

[EMT111 149]

EMS wise is about 500 a year. However they only respond to about 20% on average.

[EMT111 149]

As of 1800 hours today, Florida EMS will be shut down with Warwick EMS taking the village of Florida and the town of Warwick, Goshen EMS taking the town of Goshen, and Mobile Life taking Valley View. Warwick EMS has bought all the EMS equipment and ambulance from FFD, and once the rigs are re-lettered and the state certifies them, Warwick will be running station 2 with two BLS units out of the Florida fire house until a new bay can be constructed in that district can be constructed.

Edited December 31, 2014 by EMT111

[Dinosaur 844]

Sign of the times...

http://ithaca-cortland.twcnews.com/content/news/ithacacortland/796656/slaterville-ambulance-service-may-be-coming-to-an-end/

Will community ambulance corps still be around in 2020?