Firemonkey Madness

[Dustdevil]

Not Bitter????? Bull!

Good luck improving relationships when you know so little of human behaviour that you can't tell the difference between being bitter and simply being annoyed. Generally, those who try so hard to attach emotions to others are those who suffer those emotions themselves. Just like it is usually a cheater who constantly worries about their mate cheating on them, I would bet that it is your own bitterness that drives you to try and find it in others.

Nicely written, but kind of the response I imagined from your first post.

So then I was correct when I said that your imagination was your strongest attribute.

Hope you can fix the things that piss you off.

Unfortunately, they won't give me the power to ban people here.

Meanwhile I'll do my part to improve relationships where I can.

Okay, dude, get real. Regardless of what you think of me personally, you cannot possibly, for one second, read your first posts here and think that ANYBODY here believes you are about improving relationships! Either that whole claim is a lie, or you are just the world's most inept relationship improver. You very clearly came here with an agenda to put all us un-worthy, non-firemonkeys in our place for daring to claim that we could be medical professionals without the seal of approval from the IAFF. If you want to admit that, and move forward from there, then we can get somewhere. This is an intelligent bunch here, who is actually very quick to forgive our occasional sins. But you're not going to get anywhere by trying to bullshit us into believing you are the altruistic unifier of EMS future. That nonsense my fly in SoCal, but the rest of the world knows better.

[Scaramedic]

Unfortunately, they won't give me the power to ban people here.

Thank god.

Membership count 4.

[brentoli]

Thank god.

Membership count 4.

[speedygodzilla]

Unfortunately, they won't give me the power to ban people here.

If they did this place would be boring as everyone must see things the :twisted: way.

I like the EMT city with the many opinions. My opinion on Fire and EMS is clear (putting them together is fine) and many here disagree, making it an interesting place to discuss the topic, although it gets old.

[Dustdevil]

Hehehe... I love serious cat!

Good observation, Speedy. I agree that, while a lot of us frequently feel like we are beating our heads against the wall, as we fight the forces of evil, it is a much better alternative to simply preaching to the choir. As much as I joke about it, I would be the last person here to ever limit opposing viewpoints. It's easy to convert somebody to your point of view by preaching. But real understanding takes place only when people are allowed to see all sides and come to an informed and intelligent conclusion through comparison.

Brother Andy, I would never silence you here, even if it were within my power. And I don't think you are just another hopeless firemonkey whose opinion is of no value either. Sounds to me like you have a lot of valuable experience to contribute to both this forum and to the profession and its future. I apologise for coming on so strongly. It is not my intention or desire to run you off or belittle your input. Just please, in the future, try a little harder to understand my point of view before you start criticising it. I believe we are probably a lot closer in our philosophies than you may think.

[Scaramedic]

...I apologise...

[Lone Star]

[1835wayne]

WOW. I am going to make my first post here in this thread????!!!!

YEP.

Fire based EMS can and does work. Does it work as well as a EMS department??

It varies from location to location, and depends on what Medic is on the rig that day! Does a burned out Medic on a county run EMS do a better job than a caring Medic on a FD run rig??

Lets just start arguing about paid vs. volunteer and what blue light moves traffic best next! :roll: :roll:

To answer the poll, I do not believe it should be a requirement unless the department is facing a shortage of EMS trained personnell and have to provide the service. I think that is likely where the requirement got started.

As for further combination of services. I think that it is going to continue. I don't like it in all situations, but there is almost no way of stopping it. The politicians want to save money, and if they can staff an engine with two guys and put two guys on an ambulance out of the same house to respond with the engine as firefighters on fires, they just got more bang for their buck(IN THEIR OPINION NOT MINE)!! I look for more"Public Safety Departments" in the future where they will want us all to wear freakin gunbelts and chase speeders too!! :evil:

As for me, I am a 16 year Firefighter, 7 years in EMS.

My home Department is a Volunteer FD/ BLS nontransport dept.

We have a County run EMS service which my wife works for.

I am a Industrial Fire Officer at a major steel producer in NW Indiana.

[lfdcaptain]

[/font:2196f7d245] Dustdevil, as I expressed in an earlier post, please forgive my newness to this arena. My reaction and subsequent communication, was "knee-jerk" at best and an ineffective attempt to defend a system, (Fire/EMT), that I firmly believe in. This is your arena and I reacted badly.

I've been a Fire/EMT for a LONG time and I have never experienced the levels animosity that I perceived reading some of the posts in this forum. To be totally honest, I took it personally. In my career I've taken great pride in the the competence levels of my personnel as well a maintaining a training and working relationship with the EMS side. I haven't experienced Fire trying to put Professional EMS out of business but if you say it exists I believe you.

I have experienced second-guessing, posturing, and bad-mouthing, (in both directions), on occasion but I would try to make a point of addressing any of those issues as soon as possible, in a effort to maintain our working relationship.

I don't have the answers or solutions to the issues that you and others have expressed, but I can tell you that, in my experience, my "firemonkeys"welcome the arrival of the ambulance personnel on scene. Any Firefighter that's worth-a-shit will appreciate the value of any trained and competent EMS resource. I would have hoped that the feeling would have been mutual.

I don't quite understand the expressed difference in skill or competence levels between Fire and Ambulance EMTs. I thought we all received the same training and passed the same National Registry exam. If those on this forum are experiencing poor Fire/EMT performance then that issue should be challenged and presented formally. There's no doubt we could all point fingers and trade tales of perceived malpractice or negligence on both sides, but there is no excuse for poor patient care from anyone. As a Training Officer, I posted a sign in my office that stated: "Mediocre is NOT an Acceptable Level of Service". I firmly believe that but I will not accept that mediocre only exists on the Fire side.

Here's my bottom line on EMS. EMS to me is similar to CPR in that, the critical factor is often the time to patient contact and administration of care. And to be absolutely-totally honest with you, assuming that all responders are competent, that's all I care about. (I will not argue the competence of responders because, from experience, it can be argued BOTH ways)

If my wife or sons will have a better chance of survival because the first arriving unit capable of rendering emergency medical care happens to be a fire engine, then that service will get my vote every time. If it's an ambulance, that's fine too, but I will not support putting lives in jeopardy for some of the reasons that I've read on this forum.

I'll admit that I haven't read every post but so far the gist of what I've read seems to suggest that:

1. the firemonkeys (or what-ever) are taking our jobs or trying to put us out of business

2. the firemonkeys should just do fire and rescue

3. the fire monkeys can't be as skilled in EMS as we are

I haven't read a solution yet (realistic or otherwise) that would guarantee the same EMS to contact times with the elimination of Fire/EMS.

I promise to read and try to understand any response to this rambling attempt at clarity. If this is just a place to bitch, that's cool, but I can't accept that this is all there is or will be.

I've tried to be respectful in this post, in YOUR forum, and would appreciate the same in any response.

Dustdevil, just as a side note, I don't consider the term Professional EMT an oxymoron. I respect the position and the fact that some certified EMTs are not employed as such. I have EMTs on staff that make a living as Professionals.

Sincerely,

Andy

[DwayneEMTP]

Wow. Eloquent and intelligent response Captain. I look forward to your further posts.

A couple of things I seem to see differently on the private/fire issue than you do.

First. If I have an MI, the most likely response (in my area) will be a fire truck with 6 people trained to the basic level in a couple of minutes, while I wait 5-10 minutes for medics with ALS knowledge and supplies to arrive? Why is that a good thing?

As a citizen only, I would love to halve the number of firehouses and double the number of medic units and reverse the above scenario.

And I have mixed feeling on the quality of fire medics. In any of my biology classes, without exception the worst students have been those getting their medic to be able to apply to fire. They rarely show up for class, talk and doodle during lecture, are happy, and sometimes eager to explain to anyone that will listen why it's idiotic that a fireman should need all of these useless classes. That has been my experience throughout college prereqs and in medic school as well.

Now, where I get confused is on the flip side of this. I've just completed my phase one clinicals with a private company, and with very few exceptions, when on scene, wished that I had been attached to the fire medics (who were all women, which surprised me for some reason) instead of the units I was with. I saw much more aggressive treatment, compassion and professionalism from the fire medics than the crew (singular experience) I was riding with.

I'm not sure what this says, to tell the truth. The fire students I see seem to have no respect for education or professionalism, yet the (very few) fire medics I was exposed to seemed to be the opposite.

Though my experience is so limited that it certainly can't be considered any type of evidence, this is where the logic for my arguements comes from. (Edited to add this sentence.)

So, I guess I don't really know anything, dang it.

Well, perhaps this. I know that you and Dustdevil, though scrapping now, are going to develop a lot of respect for each other. One of the reasons for his tone (And I'm in no way an apologist for him) is that it's VERY rare that we get someone from the fire side that is intelligent, eloquent, and willing to be involved in passionate, heated debate without running away. And there is no one one this forum that I've been exposed to that appreciates being shown an error in their thinking more so than Dustdevil. Even if it comes from a hosemenkey. Normally we are exposed to a few ignorant, common stereotyped comments that don't hold up to logical scrutiny, and then they disappear. When we are blessed with someone that sticks, many of us are happy for the great resource that offers, as it is, not absent, but lacking here.

Welcome to the City. Thanks for your thoughts!

Dwayne