the 100% directionless thread

Apparently my brother and his gf were looking at renting there earlier this year.
 
So my partner called out today which means I’m with morning ODS for at least a few hours. Wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for this nagging feeling that he doesn’t like me.
 
One of our STCU crews broke the power loader. Big oof.
 
EpiEMS said:
Pump up those volumes, get that big budget increase!
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Well we were trying to set up a new Rescue company (like a USAR type squad... although the vast majority of their calls are lost/injured hikers/Swimmers lol). We have two, this would have been the third.

They bought 2 brand new Rescue trucks (intending to use one of the then current trucks as a frontline for the new Rescue 3, and the other as a spare reserve), got the boat (Rescue tows around a 22ft boat for those ocean calls) all the gear and jazz.

They had a temporary Station set up (in the basement of my old station)

They had the budget for it. Everything except any crews.

Turns out they couldn't find 15 (or even 12) Spare qualified Rescue guys to staff a brand new company.

Part of the problem is that just to get your foot in the door to be considered by the Rescue guys to be trained up as a Rescueman, is on top of our modified Biddle PAT for Firefighters, they have their own Rescue Agility Test (RAT) you have to pass.

The current RAT is 5 parts (and I'm quoting from the official department notice here):
  1. Swim. Candidates shall continuously swim, without resting or stopping, a 600-meter course at a designated pool. Any swim stroke is acceptable. Time to complete the swim: 12 minutes 30 seconds (Pass/Fail)
  2. Treading Water. This event shall be held in an 8'x8' square at a designated pool. Candidates shall hold a ten-pound weight, and one hand may be used to assist in treading water. Candidates head and torso shall be in a vertical position. Any style kick is acceptable. Passing time: 10 minutes (Pass/Fail) (it used to be no weight, but both hands and wrists had to be held up out of the water the entire time...)
  3. Mountain hike. Candidates shall participate in a mountain hike with a 20-pound pack while carrying a 20-pound weight with a straight arm's length carry. Candidates may use only one arm at a time and proceed at his/her own pace. Candidates are able to switch hands at any time and ground the weight if needed. No running will be allowed. Time to complete the hike 26 minutes (Pass/Fail)
  4. Rope Climb. Candidates are required to climb to a height of 20' using 1½" rope. Candidates shall start from a sitting position on a chair with legs extended out and climb to a 20' mark using only upper body strength. Candidates will be disqualified if they use their legs in any manner to assist in the climb. The use of fall protection equipment shall be implemented. (Pass/Fail)
  5. Self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA)/personal protective equipment stair climb. Candidates are required to don full fire protective equipment (turnout jacket, pants, boots, helmet, gloves, and SCBA without mask) and walk up 10 floors/20 flights of stairs. Time to complete the stair climb: 1 minute 20 seconds (Pass/Fail)
Fail one event, fail the whole test.

Yeah, they have just enough guys to staff the 3 shifts on the 2 existing Rescues, but there weren't/aren't enough guys who can staff a whole new truck, 3 new shifts.

The Fire Chief just wanted them to assign guys anyway, regardless of ability to pass the RAT. The existing Rescue Captains fought him, went to the Union, even went to the City with a bill flat put prohibiting the FC from assigning someone to one of those spots if they're not fully qualified.

It was kind of a whole soap opera mess (didn't help that our old FC and the Union absolutely hated each other and fought eachother on every little thing...)

Needless to say, Rescue 3 died, and eventually the City took the funding away (and this all happened right before the Pandemic hit)
 
[mention]Jim37F [/mention] Certainly seems like a challenge to staff. I guess I would think cross staffing would make sense but perhaps that is a problem too?
 
Another part of the problem for us is that Rescue Specialist is a promoted position. Firefighter 1s are regular engine and ladder Ffs. FF2 are Rescue Specialist (or Hazmat, or Tiller driver, Chiefs Aid, or in Dispatch, Fire Inspector in Prevention Bureau or Investigators...) with FF3 being Engineers (or essentially 2nd in command after the Captain for those non Operations sections).

So even if you have guys who are interested amd can pass the RAT, they have to go thru the whole formal "Apply, Test, Interview" for Promotion process that's run by the City HR.

And then a lot of guys simply aren't even interested. Rescue is just Rescue. They don't staff an Engine for fire calls in between Rescue calls, and because of being that FF2 promoted position they can't fill an open FF1 spot on an Engine, so until they get promoted to Engineer, that's it, no more Engine/Ladder time


It's a bit of a mess....
 
Hmm..
Meanwhile word is our EMS might be rearranging how they do things.

Currently it's all Basic+Medic (or dual Medic if the staffing is available) ambulances. Occasionally a Rapid Response SUV if they have an extra or odd number of medics.

Now we were talking with one of their guys who's saying the units in town will be moving to dual BLS units (due to the high number of BLS calls) with the medics moving to SUV fly cars essentially (not sure if LAC style dual Medic Squads or single Medic cars), with all the outlying "country" ambulances being dual Medic as standard (basically concentrating all the EMTs in town, Medics outa town sounds like).

They're also in the beginning stages of changing uniform. Currently they wear white shirts with black pants, they're trialing dark navy blue, like ours.

We're half wondering if that's the beginning stages of prepping the ground work for merging our two departments...
 
I was talking to the night ODS about bringing back CEU classes and she told me that they’re going to bring them back within the next few months. I asked about classes on deescalation and she said that’s a good idea so she’s going to run it by the education person at the office.
 
Jim37F said:
Well we were trying to set up a new Rescue company (like a USAR type squad... although the vast majority of their calls are lost/injured hikers/Swimmers lol). We have two, this would have been the third.

They bought 2 brand new Rescue trucks (intending to use one of the then current trucks as a frontline for the new Rescue 3, and the other as a spare reserve), got the boat (Rescue tows around a 22ft boat for those ocean calls) all the gear and jazz.

They had a temporary Station set up (in the basement of my old station)

They had the budget for it. Everything except any crews.

Turns out they couldn't find 15 (or even 12) Spare qualified Rescue guys to staff a brand new company.

Part of the problem is that just to get your foot in the door to be considered by the Rescue guys to be trained up as a Rescueman, is on top of our modified Biddle PAT for Firefighters, they have their own Rescue Agility Test (RAT) you have to pass.

The current RAT is 5 parts (and I'm quoting from the official department notice here):
  1. Swim. Candidates shall continuously swim, without resting or stopping, a 600-meter course at a designated pool. Any swim stroke is acceptable. Time to complete the swim: 12 minutes 30 seconds (Pass/Fail)
  2. Treading Water. This event shall be held in an 8'x8' square at a designated pool. Candidates shall hold a ten-pound weight, and one hand may be used to assist in treading water. Candidates head and torso shall be in a vertical position. Any style kick is acceptable. Passing time: 10 minutes (Pass/Fail) (it used to be no weight, but both hands and wrists had to be held up out of the water the entire time...)
  3. Mountain hike. Candidates shall participate in a mountain hike with a 20-pound pack while carrying a 20-pound weight with a straight arm's length carry. Candidates may use only one arm at a time and proceed at his/her own pace. Candidates are able to switch hands at any time and ground the weight if needed. No running will be allowed. Time to complete the hike 26 minutes (Pass/Fail)
  4. Rope Climb. Candidates are required to climb to a height of 20' using 1½" rope. Candidates shall start from a sitting position on a chair with legs extended out and climb to a 20' mark using only upper body strength. Candidates will be disqualified if they use their legs in any manner to assist in the climb. The use of fall protection equipment shall be implemented. (Pass/Fail)
  5. Self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA)/personal protective equipment stair climb. Candidates are required to don full fire protective equipment (turnout jacket, pants, boots, helmet, gloves, and SCBA without mask) and walk up 10 floors/20 flights of stairs. Time to complete the stair climb: 1 minute 20 seconds (Pass/Fail)
Fail one event, fail the whole test.

Yeah, they have just enough guys to staff the 3 shifts on the 2 existing Rescues, but there weren't/aren't enough guys who can staff a whole new truck, 3 new shifts.

The Fire Chief just wanted them to assign guys anyway, regardless of ability to pass the RAT. The existing Rescue Captains fought him, went to the Union, even went to the City with a bill flat put prohibiting the FC from assigning someone to one of those spots if they're not fully qualified.

It was kind of a whole soap opera mess (didn't help that our old FC and the Union absolutely hated each other and fought eachother on every little thing...)

Needless to say, Rescue 3 died, and eventually the City took the funding away (and this all happened right before the Pandemic hit)
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Good for them, I cant stand people who just want bodies in seats without some sort of reasonable standard.
 
Jim37F said:
Hmm..
Meanwhile word is our EMS might be rearranging how they do things.

Currently it's all Basic+Medic (or dual Medic if the staffing is available) ambulances. Occasionally a Rapid Response SUV if they have an extra or odd number of medics.

Now we were talking with one of their guys who's saying the units in town will be moving to dual BLS units (due to the high number of BLS calls) with the medics moving to SUV fly cars essentially (not sure if LAC style dual Medic Squads or single Medic cars), with all the outlying "country" ambulances being dual Medic as standard (basically concentrating all the EMTs in town, Medics outa town sounds like).

They're also in the beginning stages of changing uniform. Currently they wear white shirts with black pants, they're trialing dark navy blue, like ours.

We're half wondering if that's the beginning stages of prepping the ground work for merging our two departments...
Click to expand...

I don’t love the idea of merging but it is good to see EMTs in town where transport times are short & ALS where times are longer.
 
Jim37F said:
Hmm..
Meanwhile word is our EMS might be rearranging how they do things.

Currently it's all Basic+Medic (or dual Medic if the staffing is available) ambulances. Occasionally a Rapid Response SUV if they have an extra or odd number of medics.

Now we were talking with one of their guys who's saying the units in town will be moving to dual BLS units (due to the high number of BLS calls) with the medics moving to SUV fly cars essentially (not sure if LAC style dual Medic Squads or single Medic cars), with all the outlying "country" ambulances being dual Medic as standard (basically concentrating all the EMTs in town, Medics outa town sounds like).

They're also in the beginning stages of changing uniform. Currently they wear white shirts with black pants, they're trialing dark navy blue, like ours.

We're half wondering if that's the beginning stages of prepping the ground work for merging our two departments...
Click to expand...
Is your EMS an AMR shop or third service (I feel like you've said AMR in the past). If it's AMR, the shops around us have been moving to the dark blue shirts for the last year or so, I wouldn't put much thought into that one.
 
GMCmedic said:
Is your EMS an AMR shop or third service (I feel like you've said AMR in the past). If it's AMR, the shops around us have been moving to the dark blue shirts for the last year or so, I wouldn't put much thought into that one.
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We have a full on Third Service EMS Agency. It's actually technically the Emergency Services Department, with EMS and Ocean Safety Lifeguards under them.
(Although with the occasional talk of moving EMS to the Fire Department, there was some recent talk of making Ocean Safety a full Fourth Service by themselves...)

AMR is present (and as far as I'm aware) is the only private ambulance on island. So they primarily do all the IFT (BLS, ALS, and CCT IFT). Occasionally EMS will get an AMR emergent transfer call as back up to them, and once in a while AMR will do 911 back up for EMS.

The only other ambulance here is Fed Fire (they cover Pearl Harbor, Hickam AFB, Schofield Barracks, and all the other military/fed owned sites). Same thing, every once in a blue moon they'll show up to one of our calls as backup ambulance (though it seems far more common we're going on base lol. There's a Navy housing area in my first in that's technically their area, but pretty much everytime someone calls 911 it'll end up routing through to us. Dispatch is supposed to alert theirs, from there idk how that works).

State Department of Transportation runs the Airport ARFF (State Crash) who uses AMR for medicals at the airport.

But for the most part, City and County EMS is their own agency that will be the ambulance that shows up if you call 911 nine times outa ten.

(and the medic we were talking to said because they have an actual contract with their uniform supplier, the trials with the new blue uniform probably wouldn't be the new issued uniform until that current contract expires in a few years, so it's not gonna be an overnight change even if they do decide to adopt the new color)
 
VentMonkey said:
When all three of us boys get their nails painted (to include the dog) by our 10-year old, guess you know who really rules the roost.
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Very clearly isn't you.
 
I did some practice questions for the C-NPT exam yesterday.

I'm not sure what I expected.......harder, I guess.

Either way, I think I'll read the S.T.A.B.L.E. book and take the class and pass on taking C-NPT.
 
About to start my first volly 911 shift. It’s weird not wearing a polo shirt, instead I’m wearing a bit of a cringe EMS t-shirt I got in EMT school since the volly place doesn’t have any t-shirts in my size.
 
GMCmedic said:
I did some practice questions for the C-NPT exam yesterday.

I'm not sure what I expected.......harder, I guess.

Either way, I think I'll read the S.T.A.B.L.E. book and take the class and pass on taking C-NPT.
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Was it too easy?
 
So I’m now watching fire fighters practice breaking down doors.
 
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