Sep 21
From the Interstate Emergency Vehicles Facebook page:
Hampshire Fire -Rescue
Hampshire, IL
3500 Gallon TankerInspection day at Rosenbauer America
Interstate Emergency Vehicles photo
Interstate Emergency Vehicles photo
Interstate Emergency Vehicles photo
Excerpts from Chicago.cbslocal.com:
A Waukegan family who lost their home in a fire last week received a special gift from firefighters. While family heirlooms are irreplaceable, Waukegan firefighters tried to lend the family some comfort by putting together care packages they tucked into backpacks.
Sylvia Pilar Bout shared a video on Facebook Sunday of Waukegan FD Captain Matt Burleson and Firefighter/Paramedic Beth Moss surprising her 12-year-old niece Neveah Escobedo with a replica of a stuffed toy she lost in the fire on September 11. The video has been viewed 58,000 times on Facebook.
“If that doesn’t show you how amazing these people truly are than I dont know what will,” Bout wrote on Facebook. “Thank you Waukegan Fire Department for everything you have done for my family, we will never forget the compassion you have shown to us.”
Excerpts from nlfpd.com:
On September 17th, the New Lenox Fire Protection District (NLFPD) held a swearing in ceremony during their Board of Trustees meeting to promote a lieutenant and a battalion chief. The new battalion chief is Michael Parkhurst; he has been in the fire service for 17 years, eight of those with the NLFPD. Currently, he also serves the district as the training officer, pre-plans coordinator, equipment testing coordinator, fire/arson investigator, Black CART Team member, and Southwest Hazardous Materials Response Team Technician. Battalion Chief Parkhurst will oversee all day-to-day operations for the district’s four fire stations on gold shift.
The new lieutenant is Zach Cook. He has been in the fire service for 8 years, over half of those with the New Lenox Fire Protection District. He has been an active member with the district and served as co-chair for the MDA Fill the Boot Drive. He most recently was the engineer for Truck 61 on red shift. Lieutenant Cook will remain on red shift and be in charge of the firefighter/paramedics at Station 3.
Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
Calumet Park’a mayor told residents Saturday that he was considering outsourcing the village’s fire department. Speaking before a crowd of about 50 people during a citizens’ forum at the Calumet Park Recreation Center, he said the village was looking to cut costs in the wake of shrinking revenues.
“If the revenue is not there, where are we going to get it? Where are we going to get the salaries that they require?” he continued, adding that he also had examined outsourcing the Public Works Department, but ultimately decided against it.
The fire department’s tenuous status was revealed during the forum’s question-and-answer portion, which followed a series of presentations by village department heads who spoke about the work they do in the community and encouraged residents to contact them with questions and concerns.
Fire Chief Howard Fisher did not mention the department’s plight during his presentation, but confirmed afterward that outsourcing operations had been discussed as part of ongoing contract negotiations with the village.
Neither he nor Denson would discuss the content of the ongoing negotiations or what outsourcing the department might look like.
The mayor said that he had no intention of transitioning to an all-volunteer department, as had been suggested by one resident at the forum, because he did not believe it was feasible and that he wasn’t aware of any south suburban communities that had outsourced fire operations, but knew that others were also considering it in an effort to cut costs.
Money has been especially tight for Calumet Park since the closure of Ultra Foods, the community’s only traditional grocery store, last year. In addition to reducing the village’s fresh food options, the grocer’s demise wiped out one of the village’s major revenue streams.
Because the department of approximately 30 firefighters is unionized — a rarity for a part-time department — its workers receive benefits and good salaries, which the mayor said has made sustaining it difficult. Village firefighters are compensated at a great rate, guaranteed a minimum number of hours, and have negotiated minimum manning requirements.
The mayor did not offer a timeline for when a decision on the ultimate fate of the department might be forthcoming. He said he was still waiting on estimates of how much outsourcing fire protection services might cost.
thanks Scott and Mike
Sep 20
Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:
Off-duty paramedics will make house calls to check on certain patients released from Northwest Community Hospital (NWCH) in Arlington Heights as part of a new pilot program involving two other agencies. Paramedics from the Palatine, Rolling Meadows, and the Palatine Rural fire departments are to collaborate in their coverage areas to work for Northwest Community’s mobile integrated health care pilot, which is designed to improve patient outcomes by reducing preventable hospital visits and re-admissions. Northwest Community has budgeted about $131,100 for the one-year pilot and will reimburse the public agencies for the paramedics and other expenses.
NWCH will provide notification about the patients needing the paramedic house calls within 12 to 48 hours of discharge.
Three or four paramedic house calls are projected for each patient. About nine paramedics from the three departments are expected to be available for the house calls to make sure the patients are following post-discharge directions.
Patients 18 and older will be eligible for the program which will focus on patients who were in the hospital and sent home to recover from heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia with a high risk for sepsis, or a major joint replacement.
Northwest Community will reimburse the fire departments a minimum of $135 per visit, covering the paramedics’ pay and other expenses. Data will be collected from 480 discharged patients for NWCH to evaluate the effectiveness of the mobile integrated health care pilot, documents show.
Excerpts from abc7chicago.com:
A 69-year-old grandfather who threw his 7-year-old grandson out a second-story window to Chicago police officers below as their home burned has died, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed on Monday.
Apolonio Castellano was critically injured in the Sept. 9 fire in the 10000 block of South Avenue L in Chicago’s East Side neighborhood. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center with burns and smoke inhalation. The boy survived thanks to Castellano efforts.
Sep 19
Excerpts from the chicagotribune.com:
Aurora Fire Capt. Brandon Matson said firefighters and paramedics go on hundreds of emergency calls a year, but rarely do they hear back from the people they’ve taken to the hospital. So firefighters at Station 8 were surprised when they received a request from Aurora residents Lisa and Ted Yee, who wanted to bring them dinner to celebrate Lisa’s recovery from a crash a decade ago that left her with traumatic brain injury.
On Sept. 10, 2008, Lisa Yee was a passenger in a vehicle that was T-boned at Asbury Drive and New York Street in Aurora. Firefighters and paramedics from Station 8 responded to the crash, transporting her to Rush Copley Medical Center. She was later flown by helicopter to Loyola Medical Center in Maywood.
Doctors had trouble explaining why Yee was in a coma for five days, telling her husband Ted that she should be awake, until later realizing it was due to traumatic brain injury that left her with epilepsy. When she awoke from the coma, she had lost about five years of memories.
She still doesn’t remember the accident happening and gets choked up each time she hears about it, adding that she thinks her brain blocks out the thought of it. With a fractured pelvis, four broken ribs, a lacerated liver, bruised lung and four cracked teeth, she stayed at Loyola for two months and later spent years in extensive physical therapy and rehab.
Now, she is a certified yoga instructor and volunteers teaching yoga at a shelter for veterans and also at Mutual Ground, a women’s shelter in Aurora.
Ted Yee told Matson the names of the people who helped Lisa, and Matson tracked down some of the retired ones, as well as firefighters who now work at other stations, and gathered them for dinner Monday.
“It means a lot to us,” Matson said. “I’ve met patients after the fact and it’s nice to see what happens and see a good outcome. We have all these calls, but sometimes you never know what happens after the fact.”
Until 2015, Lisa Yee had multiple seizures which Aurora paramedics responded to as well. Lisa Yee also received help from doctors at Northwestern Hospital who got her on some neurological drugs, and she has been seizure free for two and a half years.
“In this journey, we learned its crummy circumstances, but every time we got to a bad point, we got a break,” Ted Yee said. “We heard a nugget of information, there was a supporter who came out of nowhere, there was a professional who did their job. It just makes you grateful that as crappy as the situation is, we actually wound up being pretty darn lucky and we wanted to say thanks on this 10th anniversary.”
This from Matt Tessler:
Leyden new 78ft quint on order.
E-ONE HP78 quint for the Leyden Township FPD
Excerpts from jg-tc.com:
Last year, Charleston joined several other cities in the area in a class action lawsuit against Pierce Manufacturing, Inc. and Global Fire Equipment, Inc. claiming that they violated the terms of the warranty on the fire trucks they had made for the cities.
Charleston purchased two fire trucks in the early 2000s over a five-year period from the company.
Tim Meister, Charleston Fire Department assistant fire chief, said at the time that there is a lifetime warranty on the frame of the fire trucks for rust and corrosion damage, and currently, all three have varying degrees of rust on the frame. The city claimed that the company has not repaired or replaced the frames even though it is spelled out in the warranty to do so.
After some back and forth between attorneys involved in the case, a tentative agreement has been made.
Charleston Fire Chief Steve Bennett said one truck would get an entirely new rail and another would get repairs to the existing rail on the truck in the settlement. Both would be sent in for repair and replacement one at a time with a loaner truck provided.
Other terms of the agreement include:
- Charleston paying $13,333 for the frame rail replacement, receiving credit of equal value to be used toward other repairs and trucks from Pierce.
- Pierce will pickup and deliver the trucks from the city.
- Pierce will pay attorney costs.
- Pierce will provide recommended written maintenance practices and service bulletins regarding maintenance.
- Pierce will continue to honor existing warranties on the trucks
Today, council members will vote on whether they accept the new terms of the agreement at their meeting set for 6:30 p.m. at Charleston City Hall, 520 Jackson Ave.
The settlement included in the meeting documents did not include that of the other cities involved in the lawsuit.
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