Victorville to contract with county fire

[Eng74]

What good is a paramedic on a fire truck? That's funny. Paramedics work out of ambulances not fire trucks. What idiots. Let's see, I'm dying of a heart attack and a engine pulls up? I'd have a stroke on top of the heart attack. Sounds like they need a refresher class for the 1st grade... I've been a paramedic since 1971 and I've never ridden in a fire truck, except in a parade once.

Jim

Sounds like someone who didn't pass the Firefighter test. SBCoFD runs medic engines, medic ambulances and BLS ambulances. I don't know how it is in your area but in California right now there is a problem with EMS system. You can have Paramedics holding the walls in the ER waiting for a bed for their PT for an hour or more. Guess what that makes the that ALS Ambulance OOS you can get it for your heart attack. Also there are more Fire Stations than ambulace stations. You can get a Firefighter/Paramedic starting PT care faster than waiting for the ALS ambulance to show up. How many people are there to work on a full arrest? You can have anywhere from three to four on the engine and two on the ambulance so you can have five to six people there giving PT care. That is a lot better than just two on an ambulance.

 

[Duster]

What good is a paramedic on a fire truck? That's funny. Paramedics work out of ambulances not fire trucks. What idiots. Let's see, I'm dying of a heart attack and a engine pulls up? I'd have a stroke on top of the heart attack. Sounds like they need a refresher class for the 1st grade... I've been a paramedic since 1971 and I've never ridden in a fire truck, except in a parade once.

Jim

What is sad, is that this is the general mentality of first responders in the Midwest, especially with the fire departments. I'm originally from Kansas, and worked public safety (EMS, Fire, LE) there. Nobody shares their pie. Fire does not roll on EMS calls unless it's an extrication (and in some counties, the AMBULANCE crew does the extrication. Fire only comes out if something's burning). Ambulance crews balk at doing fire standbys. Fire departments (especially the volunteers) want no EMS training...the list goes on. I fought for the two years I was a volunteer fire chief there to have my units dispatched on EMS calls in our district...never happened, even though our ambulance was 15-20 minutes away. "You're not in California...we don't do it that way here."

Same way with NIIMS. No one east of Nevada wanted anything to do with it when it was called ICS, because it was some damn California idea. So the feds took it, renamed it NIIMS, and then mandated its use. Most of my Midwestern colleagues I've spoken to had no idea that NIIMS originated in California in the 1970's as the ICS system.

Sometimes a little change is a good thing... Just my .02

 

[SCPD]

Depending of the department, 60-80% of fire department responses and calls to the dispatch center are medical. Back in the 1970's I met a Phoenix firefighter who said fire departments should not be getting into the on scene emergency medical business at all. I wonder now if he would say the same thing about Hazmat, since not every Hazmat situation involves a fire or even the threat of a fire. Both Hazmat and on scene emergency medical care are well served by the infrastructure and personnel of fire departments. Fire departments have station networks with equipment, communications, training, and command to handle emergencies that is well suited for quick response to a wide variety of situations. If there is a cave in at a construction site excavation who would you call except a fire department? There is no question about this now, but 100 years ago there might have been. Like it or not, firefighting has evolved into far more than fighting flames.

Another good example of this evolution is the use of incident management teams developed by wildland fire management agencies. These teams have been used for non fire incidents for more than 20 years. Did you know that a National Interagency Incident Management Team organized by the U.S. Forest Service was used to manage the logistics and planning for the World Trade Center incident on 9/11? How about the recovery of the debris from the Columbia space shuttle disaster? One of the 17 national incident management teams was in charge and wildland fire suppression crews were used to search the multi-state area. Many of these national teams were used during Katrina, and Forest Service, BLM, and National Park Service hotshot crews, engines, and dozers were used to clear debris and look for victims.

The point is that we use fire suppression and management agency resources when they are the best resource for the job, whether something is burning or not. More and more departments are putting paramedics on engines here in California. This is not some type of attempt to be trendy. It probably got started when a paramedic-firefighter was working on an engine to cover a shift for a regular firefighter and on an incident or two it was found to be real effective. While the engine is not used to transport a patient much of the portable gear a paramedic carries on an ambulance can be carried on an engine. Engines are often the first on scene of a medical call and the on board paramedic can begin ALS care right away and hand the situation over to the paramedic crew and be available for the next call right away. I fail to see how having paramedics on an engine makes anything but perfect sense to me.

I can validate the point duster makes about the nationwide adoption of ICS. When ICS was being developed Forest Service personnel in other Forest Service regions talked about not wanting to use ICS, and that it would be used to facilitate the Region 5 (Forest Service Region that covers California) "invasion" into areas outside of California. When the decision was made to implement ICS nationwide within the Forest Service around 1982, the required date was by 1986. Region 1 of the Forest Service (northern Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota) was the last to implement it as all the other Regions got busy and had it in place a couple of years after the decision was made. Region 1 refused to implement until it was forced to and I heard a lot of their personnel say "we are not about to use something that came out of California."

This type of resistance to change that is based on geographic bias does not make sense to me. If an idea or procedure works, lets implement it so we can best serve the citizen. Showing provincial jealousy is really something we should have given up a few years before we received our high school diplomas.

 

[SCPD]

Getting back on the subject I should mention that I inherited a piece of property in Apple Valley that my dad bought back in the 1950's. When I first obtained this property the taxes on this vacant 10 acre parcel were about $200 per year. About half of that bill was to supply funding for the local fire department and whatever provision that allowed this collection came up for a vote in the late 1990's or early 2000's. I received information from the town or city of Apple Valley explaining what the trade offs were to ending this tax. It seemed pretty clear to me, based on my own experience and the information in the mailing, that ending the tax would be one of those "pay me a little now or much more later" types of situations. I could not vote as I'm a resident elsewhere but would have supported the fire department special assessment if I could have voted. The Apple Valley voters turned down the extension of the tax.

Is this situation with Victorville, adjacent to Apple Valley, a continuation of the same type of thinking that influenced the Apple Valley voters to eliminate much of the funding for their fire department? A savings of $38,000 is really small in comparison to the type of costs that could occur by not having the service they have now. You could spend that much per year or more by just having the response time to one annual structure fire increased by a minute.

 

[kd6ecz]

Is this situation with Victorville, adjacent to Apple Valley, a continuation of the same type of thinking that influenced the Apple Valley voters to eliminate much of the funding for their fire department?

I may be mistaken but I get the impression that a large portion of the population of the Victor Valley area (which includes Adelanto, Apple Valley, Hesperia, Victorville and some unincoprated areas around those cities) have this "I want services but I don't want to pay for them" sort of mentality. I have seen a few instances where a tax for public safety services was put on the ballot but voted down by a majority of residents. The City of Hesperia comes to mind with an initiative a few years ago that was designed to help fund their fire department. It was voted down so the city decided to disband the fire department and contract with San Bernardino County Fire to save money.

I don't understand how people can expect a decent level of service without paying for it.

 

[Eng74]

I think a lot of it has to do with L.A. transplants. We are seeing the same thing happening in Bakersfield. You have people who are coming out of the L.A. area where there is a big tax base and they have always had Paramedics with the Fire Department so they think it should be the same everywhere. i know some of the guys who sold there houses at the right time and were able to buy others but they could not do it today with the way the prices have went. More people are driving into L.A. for work everyday over the Grapevine on 5 or down the Cajon pass on the 15.

 

[jrholm]

Funny how people are proud of being pramedics but they don't want anything to do with something that came out of California.

James O. Page is often referred to as the father of fire department-based EMS because of his roles as the LACoFD chief in charge of the firefighter/paramedic program, the expert consultant for the show Emergency!, and the founder of JEMS.

The first paramedics began operating in the 1970s with expansion throughout the country since that time.

 

[disp10]

I may be mistaken but I get the impression that a large portion of the population of the Victor Valley area (which includes Adelanto, Apple Valley, Hesperia, Victorville and some unincoprated areas around those cities) have this "I want services but I don't want to pay for them" sort of mentality. I have seen a few instances where a tax for public safety services was put on the ballot but voted down by a majority of residents. The City of Hesperia comes to mind with an initiative a few years ago that was designed to help fund their fire department. It was voted down so the city decided to disband the fire department and contract with San Bernardino County Fire to save money.

I don't understand how people can expect a decent level of service without paying for it.

Gee....that sounds like San Diego County as well. "We want a county fire department!....What? We have to pay for it? Forget it!"

 

[SCPD]

It reminds me of the Sun City area near Phoenix where the retired folks wanted to have all their properties exempt from school taxation when the Maricopa County tax bill was sent to them. Schools, libraries, fire departments, EMS, police departments, airports, roads, parks, public lands, etc. are of benefit to all citizens, whether you actually use them yourself. In the case of Arizona, back in the late 1990's, the entire state came very close to having the federal court system take over all the school districts in the state. The folks from Sun Valley were saying "so what, we don't have kids in school!"

I'm 57 and have never had kids, so should I ask to be exempt from that portion of the property tax (including one special assessement for schools in my town)? No, because of the schools we have plays and football games to go to, Boy Scout and Cub Scout organizations, and much of the need for the library. We all benefit from an educated society whether we are young and have kids or are much older and don't have them anymore. I will probably never visit the Gateway National Recreation Area next to New York City, does that mean I should be exempt from paying a portion of my income taxes for it? Heck no, the shop that repairs my cameras has employees whose sanity may be supported by this little bit of open space New York has to offer. The point being that we are all in this together, so lets make it easier and all pay a small portion of what benefits we receive.

But what is not understandable about fire department funding is that it is usually a pay me some up front now, and if not, pay me an equal amount or more later. You either pay the tax or you pay with a higher insurance premium later and the insurance premium increase is most often more than the tax.

jrholm, I grew up in southern California in the 1960's, left in 1972 when I enrolled in college, then went off on my tour of the western U.S. with the U.S. Forest Service. I remember the paramedic concept growing out of a heart attack response ambulance that worked out of Harbor General Hospital, and thus L.A. County being the first fire department in the western U.S. to start a paramedic program. Much of the impetus for the paramedic program came from the Navy medic program in Vietnam, where early intervention and some traditional "doctor/nurse" type procedures used in the field by non-doctor/nurse personnel were saving lives. Thinking back on all of this a couple of months ago, I looked up the topic of where the first paramedic program began and it was actually somewhere in the eastern portion of the U.S. HEY - California heard of a program from the east that had some roots in the military and didn't turn it down because it was from another part of the country! They picked up the ball and started running with it because it made a lot of sense. This last paragraph should be brought to the attention of the paramedic from Oklahoma.

 

[SCPD]

Lots of people around the U.S. don't know that the number one agricultural state in the U.S. is California. They may not realize that half the fresh fruit and vegetables consumed in the U.S. come from California. What many people around the country, and even a large number here in California often don't realize is much of the water to grow those crops comes from the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada of California. Many don't realize that these mountains are the longest continuous mountain range in the U.S. and that many of the records for snowfall such as most snow in 24 hours, greatest depth at one time, and other U.S. snowfall records were set in the Sierra Nevada of California. Without the snow from those mountains there are a number of crops that would not be available in the U.S. at all. Raisins, almonds, table grapes, and a few others are grown exclusively in California. Do you have some cantaloupe in that fruit salad at your Midwestern Memorial Day barbecue? Well it probably came from California and was probably watered with the Sierra snow pack. If you have a problem with California then stop eating lettuce, fruit, and many of the other products produced here.

The largest seaport in the U.S. is in southern California, so if lots of folks who live in that, so popular to rag about, Los Angeles and the surrounding area, did not get up and go to work everyday, you would be left without many different products. Do you have insurance, cash checks, or complete other transactions almost every day? Did you know that the largest financial center on the eastern portion of the world's Pacific Rim (Asia is on the western portion) is centered in a few square blocks of Los Angeles? Then there is the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific naval fleet in San Diego and the so called Silicone Valley of California's Bay Area. You are reading this on the Internet because of this last area of California.

The point is that provincialism is an attitude easily stated but it does not have much practical application.

Oh and speaking of snow, I'm watching it snow outside my window right now. We received a late spring snowstorm of about 3" Thursday morning, and it has been snowing since early this morning as well. I've seen it snow and stick to the ground at my house every single month of the year except August, here in the eastern Sierra of California. It snowed at my house in Bridgeport, California early in the morning of 4th of July, 1983! During August of 1990 it snowed 11" above 9500 feet, and since I live at only 8,000 feet, it rained. I have to hear Midwesterners say that those of us in California don't know anything about winter and snow! We had our first fire in our wood stove on September 10th, and now more than 8 months later the stove is still heating the house. It averages 208" (17 feet) of snowfall at my house and that is less than half of what the average is in the western portion of the town I live in (I live in the eastern flatland portion of town!). There are many parts of the Midwestern U.S. where it doesn't even average 17 inches of snowfall per year. I've skied and shoveled snow every month of the year while on the payroll for the U.S. Forest Service and would not be able to say that unless I worked and lived in Mono County, California.

Every part of the country has treasures in both geography and culture. Every part of the country makes excellent contributions in so many different ways. I don't claim that California is the best at everything, but I've lived in other parts of the country and watched people turn their noses up at something just because it is from California.

 

[kd6ecz]

Here's the latest article:

Sid Hultquist appointed Victorville fire division chief
BROOKE EDWARDS Staff Writer
June 18, 2008 - 3:21PM

VICTORVILLE — Sid Hultquist has been appointed division chief for the soon-to-be San Bernardino County Fire Department’s Victorville station.

“I am elated to be back in Victorville as its fire chief,” Hultquist said.

His promotion was announced Wednesday, after the Victorville City Council’s unanimous vote Tuesday night to approve the final contract with the county for fire services.

Each councilmember gave a lengthy speech before making the contract final, with Mike Rothschild saying the decision was the most difficult of his career and Rudy Cabriales vowing to always be there for the Victorville firefighters, while still trying to understand the finances behind the change.

“I applaud the City Council for adding paramedic services, as it will surely save lives,” Hultquist said. He became a paramedic himself in 1985 and said, “I look forward to working closely with the city in enhancing fire and medical response to the citizens of Victorville.”

Hultquist, a Victor Valley native, began his career in fire service in 1979, as a seasonal firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service. In 1983 he became a paid-call firefighter for the City of Victorville and for the county.

He made his way up through the ranks of the Barstow and Apple Valley fire districts, until accepting a position with County Fire in 1997. He has since been assigned to the Valley, North Desert and High Desert Battalions, and was a part of the team for both the CSA 38 and Hesperia transitions to County Fire.

“Chief Hultquist brings with him a long history of leadership in the fire service, both as an administrator and as a fire ground commander,” said County Fire Chief Pat Dennen.

Hultquist has also served as the chairman of the Regional Fire Protection Authority Operations group and helped implement the Emergency Medical Dispatch Program at Desert Communications.

He now lives in Apple Valley with his wife Debi and their 12-year-old triplet daughters.

Hultquist will take over as division chief of the inaugural San Bernardino County Fire Department Victorville station when the new contract takes effect July 5.

 

[kd6ecz]

Here is the latest article. Sounds like switching to County Fire is working out pretty well so far.

Firefighter-paramedics making a big difference

By RYAN ORR Staff Writer
August 6, 2008 - 9:56PM

VICTORVILLE — In the 33 days that paramedic-trained firefighters have been on Victorville fire engines, several lives have been saved, including two 1-year-old children in two days, officials announced Wednesday.

Since July 5, the San Bernardino County Fire Department has been handling fire protection and paramedic services for the city of Victorville. In that time, it has responded to 769 medical emergencies in Victorville, said Gary Bush, Victorville battalion chief.

On Tuesday, firefighters from the Victorville station received a call of a 1-year-old girl who was found face up but submerged in a small inflatable pool. Firefighters quickly rendered advance life support and supported her airway. The child is expected to survive, officials said.

On Wednesday, firefighter-paramedics responded to a call that a 1-year-old boy may have accidentally hung himself. Finding the child unresponsive, firefighter-paramedics quickly inserted a breathing tube and monitored the child’s heart and oxygen levels. The child was eventually airlifted to Loma Linda Medical Center. The boy is alive but his condition is unknown, officials said.

“Very similar stuff like that happens every day in a city of 107,000,” said Bush, who manages the paramedic program. “We’re rolling right up to the front door and taking care of business.”

Before the county took over services, the Victorville Fire Department wasn’t authorized to have firefighter-paramedics on their engines. In some cases, minutes would go by before American Medical Response could arrive on scene and begin life-saving techniques.

“A large percentage of the time, we’re there first,” said Victorville Division Chief Sid Hultquist.

Another benefit of the paramedic-staffed fire engines is that when AMR does show up, they can team up with the firefighter-paramedic and work on one victim. In many cases one can perform life-saving techniques while another administers medicine, Hultquist said.

Bush added that with fire engines staffed with firefighter-paramedics, they can get into situations to help victims that AMR paramedics are not trained for, such as cliff rescues. Once there, they can immediately begin performing life-saving techniques.

“We’re seeing some very positive things,” added Bush.

 

[cousinkix1953]

Also there are more Fire Stations than ambulace stations. You can get a Firefighter/Paramedic starting PT care faster than waiting for the ALS ambulance to show up..

We have 5 AMR ambulances scattered throughout Santa Cruz county; but there is a fire station in everybody's neighborhood. It's more common for cities to contract with CAL-FIRE up here. Hollister comes to mind...

I have seen a few instances where a tax for public safety services was put on the ballot but voted down by a majority of residents.

Me too. Many of these taxes are voted down because city hall has money to waste on BS (like a $43 million artists' colony in Santa Cruz). They don't have the money for police, fire, teachers, schools and maintaining public roads which government is supposed to do. I'll vote against those 9-1-1 taxes, as long as these idiots want to throw money down the toilet.

Move to Amsterdam if you expect government to subsidize your finger painting hobby...

 

[karldotcom]

I heard Santa Cruz just bought a rail line....the Davenport Cement Plant will be the first affected. (close)

 

[MiLadyDancesWithHorses]

County cuts to save $38,000

I work in the jail system for San Bernardino County, and we are feeling the effect of "let's cut the budget" here too. We are already at minimum staffing, and now a plan that will be implemented with the next shift rotation is to put us back on 8-hr days/5 days a week ( from current 4 10-hr days.) This will supposedly cut overtime costs and spread us out more evenly across the days and shifts, but I have a feeling sick time usage will go up, since is already difficult to get a day off if needed. And in kind of a funny sidenote, we already have had coffee/and tea pulled from our breakrooms, if you want that while on duty you have to bring your own. Might be a good idea to start carrying toilet paper around, in case they decide to save money by not supplying that either . . . I have noticed that the Admin. breakfast/lunch buffets seem to go on as usual, though, guess cost cuts don't cut that high.

 

[SCPD]

I work in the jail system for San Bernardino County, and we are feeling the effect of "let's cut the budget" here too. We are already at minimum staffing, and now a plan that will be implemented with the next shift rotation is to put us back on 8-hr days/5 days a week ( from current 4 10-hr days.) This will supposedly cut overtime costs and spread us out more evenly across the days and shifts, but I have a feeling sick time usage will go up, since is already difficult to get a day off if needed. And in kind of a funny sidenote, we already have had coffee/and tea pulled from our breakrooms, if you want that while on duty you have to bring your own. Might be a good idea to start carrying toilet paper around, in case they decide to save money by not supplying that either . . . I have noticed that the Admin. breakfast/lunch buffets seem to go on as usual, though, guess cost cuts don't cut that high.

What you are pointing out is all too common right now. For a lot of reasons we seem to be in a free fall right now. What is done to cut expenses causes a ripple effect, which then results in many other entities cutting their costs, and then that causes a renewed round of ripples. It is if someone threw a huge rock into a pond and we don't know how or when the ripples (maybe huge waves is more accurate?) will stop. Our reaction, out of necessity seems to be throwing more rocks at the ripples to get them to stop.

My wife was forced into an early retirement and the penalty for retiring before 55 is significant. Now my wife and I have a whole lot less to spend, so we aren't eating out, going to movies and even renting them, and will not be able to afford the special discounted season pass at the local ski area for future years. We had the cable TV shut off and turned in our cell phone. We are eating some meals that cost about 80 cents a piece (mac and cheese, frozen bean burritos, noodles with soup mixed in). The ski area just laid off 60 people today and that is just the opening round. Each of those people will be eating mac and cheese a lot of the time. I was in the grocery store yesterday and a number of people were paged and told it was vacation time. That is, there wasn't enough business for them to be working and all of us buying mac and cheese can pay salaries. This in turn will challenge many marriages and other relationships so law enforcement will be dealing with more 415 physicals, such as the one that just got dispatched in a town near me as I type, and there will be increased mental health and social costs. But since we will be paying less sales tax and our incomes are down less goes into the public coffers, making it difficult if not impossible for public agencies to respond to this increased workload.

This seems very close to the description of the late 20's and the 30's. The New Deal cut the unemployment rate considerably, but it was still 20% when World War II started. We are already in a couple of wars and they are draining us, not helping, from an economic point of view.

How did this start and how does it end, or does it? Is all we have to fear, is fear itself?

 

[MiLadyDancesWithHorses]

What good is a paramedic on a fire truck? That's funny. Paramedics work out of ambulances not fire trucks. What idiots. Let's see, I'm dying of a heart attack and a engine pulls up? I'd have a stroke on top of the heart attack. Sounds like they need a refresher class for the 1st grade... I've been a paramedic since 1971 and I've never ridden in a fire truck, except in a parade once.

Jim

I like the way your mind thinks, although from my own experience ( i.e. the last time I had paramedics standing over me I was looking up at them from the dirt, past the puzzled expressions of my horse and one very worried German Shepherd) and I could not have told you how they got there or what they arrived in/on, since I was having a little trouble focusing on trying to stay concious. I think most people would just be glad help had arrived. I have SAT inside a firetruck once on a ride-along though, and I cannot imagine where the paramedic would put all his equipment --

 

[RobertW1]

Fred, Although true, you're bumming me out! :O)

 

[Eng74]

I like the way your mind thinks, although from my own experience ( i.e. the last time I had paramedics standing over me I was looking up at them from the dirt, past the puzzled expressions of my horse and one very worried German Shepherd) and I could not have told you how they got there or what they arrived in/on, since I was having a little trouble focusing on trying to stay concious. I think most people would just be glad help had arrived. I have SAT inside a firetruck once on a ride-along though, and I cannot imagine where the paramedic would put all his equipment --

There is not much stuff that is different that a Medic Engine has than a BLS (EMT) Engine. The Medic engine will have a combo defib/EKG set up and not an AED. The drugs and a little bigger airway kit. The only thing that is different is they have a place to lock up the drugs.

 

[jtallen]

I spent last night reading up on all this. There is an article from March stating the fire department was hit with some OSHA violations during inspections of two stations, and there was a desire by the City of Victorville to have paramedics on every engine, which the current dept said would take 2 years, while the county said it would start July 1.

There was a question as to what would happen to DesertComm.

Desert Comm is still dispatching the Victorville units along with Apple Valley. As a side note does anyone have the current frequencies for their trunked radio system?