"Taking care of our own"

[Richard B the EMT]

I was the "one of our own" in May of 2007.

I actually fell sick, needing hospitalization, while at the FDNY EMS Academy at Fort Totten, Bayside, New York, during EMT Refresher classes (SOB, with a known cardiac history).

Here I am, an FDNY EMS personnel, at an FDNY EMS facility, with an FDNY EMS station on the campus. Who transported me to the hospital?

A Paramedic team from Flushing Hospital! They are under 9-1-1 FDNY EMD control, but are not members of the FDNY or FDNY EMS.

This got the FDNY EMS Academy staff, both BLS, ALS, and the Academy supervisors so angry, they now have one of the training ambulances, and several of the Paramedic staff set up as a "Go" unit and team, strictly for taking care of "Our Own" at the Academy.

There is some spillover from this.

At FDNY headquarters, where we can have sick EMTs, Paramedics, Fire Fighters, Fire Marshals, and the civilian staff in the building, any request for an ambulance is now supposed to be responded to by an FDNY EMS ambulance, not one from Long Island College Hospital, or the Metrocare contract ambulance from Brooklyn Hospital. Nothing says that the patient won't go to these hospitals, just that they will try to use one of our own ambulances from the FDNY EMS station at the Cumberland Family Care Center.

Side note: On November 9, 2007, while working a special detail at the FDNY EMS station on the grounds of the Kings County Hospital, just about 400 feet from that hospital's ED, I tripped and fell, sustaining an injury. Here I was, surrounded by FDNY EMS, Fire Fighters, and Bureau of Health Services Doctors and Nurses, again, at an FDNY facility, and the ambulance that transported me up the hill to the ED was...an AMR contract ambulance from Kingsbrook Jewish Hospital!