Thanks Fire! For Screwing us over... yet agian.

[JPINFV]

Perhaps not all can learn to be good ones, because the two sets of tasks call on different aptitudes?* But maybe your question was rhetorical/ironic.

It was rhetorical. I was basically getting at the fact that if fire service administrators think that they can turn fire fighters into medics, then why shouldn't medics be turned into fire fighters? After all, if one is true, shouldn't the other side be true as well? Especially since at least one poster seems to think that medic-fire fighters [as compared to fire-medics whose primary job is fire suppression] is not possible.

[DwayneEMTP]

NR...Responding from home certainly takes more time, but many ambulance crews spend their whole shift in their ambulance. Why is this good for EMS but not good for fire?

If response time is critical to these dedicated professionals (meant seriously, not sniping) then why not simply post them in their truck like EMS? Why does fire require a lounge, kitchen and intertainment area but not EMS? After all most of the calls will be medical, right?

Wouldn't their response times be cut down to even a fraction of their previous times if posted in their trucks?

Just a thought...

Dwayne

[Michael]

rhetorical

Roger. 'Course, heartburn could be handled by either discipline.

[NREMT-Basic]

NR...Responding from home certainly takes more time, but many ambulance crews spend their whole shift in their ambulance. Why is this good for EMS but not good for fire?

If response time is critical to these dedicated professionals (meant seriously, not sniping) then why not simply post them in their truck like EMS? Why does fire require a lounge, kitchen and intertainment area but not EMS? After all most of the calls will be medical, right?

Wouldn't their response times be cut down to even a fraction of their previous times if posted in their trucks?

Just a thought...

Dwayne

Dwayne-

I appreciate your thoughtful post. I'll try to address it point by point.

Last Saturday when I was in Academy class, there were I think 5 or 6 calls toned out. I believe the breakdown was (over the course of 4 hours) 3 medical, 1 rescue, 1 residential fire and one call the nature of which I cannot remember.

I agree that it is an efficient system for EMS responders to be posted in their rigs around their response area. However, this would be impractical for fire trucks, engines and ladders for a number of reasons. First, are you really going to put 5 unpaid volunteers in an engine at their post for several hours at a time. If you know the cost of keeping an ambulance full of fuel, imagine keeping a fire apparatus sitting somewhere with its engine running on 100's of gallons of diesel. It takes a great deal of energy (fuel wise) to fire up an engine or tender and the engineer not only has to deal with the function of the truck, but its systems, hydraulic pressures, etc which need to be monitored while the truck is running. Its just not practical or feasible.

Also, while some people will look twice if they see an ambulance sitting in a parking lot or driving around town with its lights off, imagine not only the public concern but the logistical nightmare of driving a fire engine around a given area for say....12 hours. Again, in addition to the astronomical cost, its a logistics nightmare especially given the accidents that can occur when a fire engine is just trying to turn a corner in a non-emergent situation.

You mention the need for fire fighters to have kitchens, loungers, etc. We have 5 private ambulance agencies in my area and their posts look more like comfortable homes than an emergency post. Anytime you have people posted away from home and not moving around constantly, these kinds of facilities are required. This isnt unique to the fire service.

According to the NFPA, there are approximately 800,000 firefighters in the US. 75% of that number are some variant of volunteer, either paid on call, paid per call, or unpaid. Sitting around waiting for a call is not possible for the 12 or 24 hour shifts that most paid firefighters work. People have to earn a living. Many firefighters who are not paid or are paid per call will stay at the station or in quarters when they are not at their "career" jobs. However, when a municipality makes the decision to remove EMS response from a fire department and outsource it, and then house the paid EMS crews in what were formerly firefighter quarters there really is no place for a firefighter to wait between calls. So the department with which I train has established that we respond to the station from home and to the fire ground from the station. Some of the younger firefighters without family obligations will stand around the firehouse for hours on end on weekends, evenings, etc, but I am sure you can see how this is practical only for the minority.

Before EMS was outsourced at the my department, we had a large number of very well trained and experienced EMT-Bs and paramedics. Now we have mostly MFRs and only a handful of EMT-Bs because those who were operating at a higher level before did not see the point in maintaining a certification when they chose to be unpaid volunteers and they were not going to be allowed to use the skills and certs that take large amounts of time and money to maintain. It just wasnt practical. So now we have a situation where if 5 or 6 FFs respond from home, and 1 of them is an EMT, that person may be in charge of that medical call until the private ambulance service arrives. Sometimes they get there before fire/rescue and sometimes after depending on their call volume on a given shift.

[DwayneEMTP]

Ah, got it NREMT-Basic, somehow I missed the fact that we were talking about volunteer.

I can certainly see the need to add perqs if you want to hold your people without pay...

Thanks for your thorough response.

You know, you can ruffle some feathers here...but when you're not on the attack you are one of the most valuable posters we have not only for basics, fire and volunteers, but many subjects.

I for one am grateful that you can handle the heat...many of us are interested in your thoughts and opinions, even when those same opinions get a little under our skin. :wink:

Dwayne

[Richard B the EMT]

NREMT-Basic mentions the potential fuel usage for fire apparatus if they stand by on something like a street corner between calls, as does the FDNY EMS. We don't put Cool Aid into the ambulance fuel tanks, pal, they are powered by diesel engines, too. Multiple good reasons we shouldn't have the engines on, or be at a street corner, too, but we sit where we were told to sit by proper authority within the department.

[p3medic]

There have been several studies showing that sitting around in an idleing truck leads to long term issues with back pain. Google whole body vibration, you'll see what I mean. No one should have to spend 8-12 hrs or more sitting on a street corner in a vehicle, its not good for anyone.

As for my IMSERT question, NREMT-B mentioned training with a fire department, I was curious if it was task specific training to your IMSERT volunteer work. I see now your training to be a firefighter, so that answered my question.

[SSG G-man]

Here is a little anecdote for the EMS based Fire Suppression. I have been a vol EMT for a few in years in MD. My Department is fire and EMS. You can do what you want, fire only, EMS only or both. Well, I recently moved to VA. I was looking to continue to volunteer. The county I want to volunteer in has huge well respected career department. Volunteers are mostly supplemental. What I find humorous is, the way the county has it set up if you want to volunteer to do fire, you HAVE to get qualified as an EMT first!!!! So to me that shows they know what the priority is!!

Just thought I would throw that out there. This department is very large in the DC metro area!

[Michael]

I remember reading a story about a boy who kept a hunting dog that through training developed very delicate lips (if that's the term) to retrieve downed fowl without biting them. Then the dog got lost and was on its own in the wilderness for an extended time. It survived and was eventually reunited with its master, who of course rejoiced to have his companion back. But the dog had changed: Deprived of the comforts of civilization, it had had to fend for its own food in the woods, and learned quickly that taking something into its mouth without biting would not promote survival. Whether the dog was "rehabilitated" into a tool for harmlessly retrieving birds I don't know, but the image of diverse developments for a variety of tasks comes to mind here. And I'm not thinking of physical callouses so much as the kind of activity to which one's soul is drawn and for which it then, through practice, shapes itself.

If you're attracted to combating stuff physically bigger than you, like fires, I'd say by all means go for it. The rest of us, who enjoy more moderate temperatures, will be grateful.

If you are drawn to the sensitive operations of detecting irregularities in an ailing human organisms and providing comfort and healing, please engage, as there are more than enough helpless sufferers to go around.

My sense is that the touch cultivated for each vocation - fighter and healer - has its own features; if someone is inclined to toggle between the two and can do so, great. But - and again, it's only my sense of it - making extended nursing (in the broad sense) an ancillary duty of a professional combatant is as counter-productive as would be expecting the retriever in the story, once its circumstances had required it to bite aggressively, to transport fragile quarry while restraining its instinct to bite. Just as expecting it to fight when it's been "declawed" would be to compromise its trained orientation.

I imagine that people go into firefighting because they want personally to win, on behalf of human beings, victories against an elemental power that demands suppression through gross rather than fine tactics. There is a wholesome thrill in the prospect of defending life and property from unplanned natural destruction. Forcing such individuals to suspend their aggressive posture by demanding they exercise systematic empathetic sensitivity for the experiences of the ill and injured seems like a diversion from their self-identified aptitude, just as would forcing a would-be caregiver to double as a combatant.

I realize there are inherent crossovers: Any battlefield can produce sudden injuries that a warrior without other resources would be prudent to know promptly how to identify and treat, just as medical practitioners should know and practice fire-preventive measures with their own equipment and how to handle a local accidental conflagration. Street-practitioners have additional requirements of vigilance and sometimes rapid and forceful responses to ambush by circumstance or misguided human intention. And some roles - like police-work - are inherently generalist, or rather multivalent. But when deciding how best to meet diverse needs, it seems to me most sensible to let people specialize in what they want to do best. When I have a fever, I think I'd rather be treated by someone who's primarily interested in pathology, just as when my house has a fever, I'd like it to be addressed by someone who loves extinguishing fires, rather than, in either case, a possibly reluctant conscript. The wonderful thing about the diversity of human interests is that aggregately it can form a harmonious, functional ecology of complementary services. Just giving my opinion (which is what I do best ).

[NREMT-Basic]

Ah, got it NREMT-Basic, somehow I missed the fact that we were talking about volunteer.

I can certainly see the need to add perqs if you want to hold your people without pay...

Thanks for your thorough response.

You know, you can ruffle some feathers here...but when you're not on the attack you are one of the most valuable posters we have not only for basics, fire and volunteers, but many subjects.

I for one am grateful that you can handle the heat...many of us are interested in your thoughts and opinions, even when those same opinions get a little under our skin. :wink:

Dwayne

Dwayne-

Thanks for your comments. I suppose I could blame my often bombastic disposition on my mother's side of the family being Scottish and my father's being Irish, but that would be an easy out. I tend to be passionate about things in which I am involved and so when I step in, I REALLY step in. As my LEO father always told me "Never bring a knife to a gunfight."

In any case, I due wish to apologize for my conduct. While I feel that if I want to make an ass of myself in a private message I have the right to do that and expect that it be kept private, I will say that I was out of line. With grad school, recruit academy, job hunting, etc there tends to be a lot of pressure on my cork these days. Also, more practically, I tend to yell first and think later. While Ive done so in the past and in the past said I will work on it, I want to re-iterate that its not a part of my character that I am proud of and I will continue to work on thinking first, then posting.

Again, thanks for your kind words of encouragement.

Stay safe and don't play with the siren. :wink: