Hey, Ambo Driver!
Saw your post on foolish attempts to bring the not-yet-stinky-but-definitely-cooling back to.
While you're passing on such pearls of wisdom, you think that you could circulate the concept to rural fire personnel that they don't have to run lights and sirens when, say... they're going to lunch? That it's possible to run the lights without the siren? That, when they run Code 3 to a Citizen Requests Assistance (Fell down; can't get back up) call in which the dispatcher specifically said during the page-out that the caller had begged for no lights and sirens in her cul de sac neighborhood, that she'll likely decide NOT to call, next time she could use the assistance of a burly firefighter or two?
Labels: jeering, public service message
posted by Matt G @ 6:13 AM
6 Comments:
Yeah, tried that one last "fall". I think it's part of departmental P&P to go Code 3 until they are on scene and have an accurate assessment of the situation themselves.
Doesn't matter WHAT the caller says, it's for liability purposes.
Blame Lawyers and a litigious society.
Around here I see police using the lights and siren to run red lights and stop signs, and then turn into the local Denny's for free coffee. Not all of them are like that, but enough to give the rest a bad name.
We have some discretion, depending on what the call is and how it comes in. A lot of it is left up to the officer in the engine.
When I ride up as LT., we run hot to medical calls, MVA's, and fires only. Elderly assists, gas leaks, fire alarms(from the alarm company) and such get a code 1 response.
I am also on a volunteer department, and, well, some of the guys are just really happy to be volunteers.
Add another one to the mix - could they spend some extra training time actually learning the roads? I cannot count how many times I've sat up in the ER at night listening to them call back in to dispatch asking directions and getting completely lost - or how many times another one already on scene will tell the dispatcher to tell them to just look for the big FIRE...
Babs, reference Mr. Fixit's post. I've seen volunteers that will come 20 miles to come work a shift, and they're sorely out of their area. Heck, when I run out of my city (which is in a far corner of the county that I grew up in, but a corner of which I never really explored before I came to work there) to assist our fire department on calls, I routinely have to ask directions and cross streets. Our fire district is HUGE-- about 150 square miles, from a city about 1/25 that size. Especially when new streets and roads are built in new housing additions and haven't been added to the CAD map at Dispatch, and sure's hell aren't on the paper map in the car, and aren't even yet updated on Google Maps (which is my Home Page on the browser on the laptop in my patrol car, opened to Hybred View over our city), it can be a trial. "Ah feel their pain." [/Clinton]
Bear with 'em.
Also, please also understand: A.D. is absolutely correct: Dispatcher lie. Or if they don't lie, they don't care that your reality doesn't match what the map on their computer screen shows; they've got the 411, so just shut up and appear where they told you to go!
(I'm joking, of course; while there are some crummy dispatchers out there, I've worked with some who amazed me with their abilities, and whom I owe my sincere thanks. I may write a tribute up, before long.)
Sweetie - this is a rural area and these are all local boys. And I hear the directions coming from people already at the fire (ie the prison FD for example) trying to bring the local FD in (not volunteer).
And I know all too well somebody does some lying. I was in a gas station one morning on my way to work when a truck at the pump caught fire. Guy was pushing it out of the way but it was an inferno. When we called 911 back wondering where the local FD was after all this time, we were told they were already there. "Where?" we asked. "We're standing right here and there's no fire department anywhere."
Meanwhile the tires on the truck exploded....and I was getting my happy little ass outta there.
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