Archive for January, 2019

Mount Prospect Fire Department news

Excerpts from the journal-topics.com:

In 2018, Mount Prospect experienced 25 cardiac arrest incidents. Of those, 18 were pronounced dead at the scene, seven were taken to a hospital where six patients recovered and one passed away.

Mount Prospect Fire Chief Brian Lambel presented the PulsePoint app to the village board Committee of the Whole meeting. The app, which has been used in Naperville for the past three years, allows volunteers trained in CPR and/or to use an automatic external defibrillator (AED) to register for an alert if there is a cardiac arrest event reported nearby.

The 911 system connects with the app and sends an alert to the mobile phones of volunteers who are within a quarter mile of the victim’s location. The app will also advise where the nearest public AED is located. Emphasizing that his investigation and consideration of PulsePoint is in the preliminary stages, Lambel said it will cost $10,000 to implement with an annual subscription fee of either $8,000 or $13,000.

The fire department is part of the Northwest Central Dispatch (NWCD) system which dispatches 11 fire departments. If they will embrace the program, the costs would be shared by all 11 communities.

If Mount Prospect were to join the PulsePoint program alone, the village would bear the entire implementation fee and the annual subscription fee, which would be reduced to $8,000,  the price for communities of under 300,000 residents.

Lambel assured the board there would be after-action surveys that go out, “If it doesn’t work or there are problems we either fix the problem or get rid of the app.”

“3,300 communities in 42 states already have PulsePoint,” Lambel said. Rapid City, SD, is a town slightly larger than Mount Prospect and is reporting that 85% of cardiac incidents are getting early CPR with a reported 45% survival rate.

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Commercial fire in Palatine, 1-25-19 (more)

Palatine FD press release

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Commercial fire in Palatine, 1-25-19

Palatine, Palatine Rural, and Rolling Meadows firefighters responded to a reported kitchen fire at Durty Nellies at 180 Smith Street in Palatine Friday morning.

kitchen fire at Durty Nellies at 180 Smith Street in Palatine

Tim McLaughlin photo

kitchen fire at Durty Nellies at 180 Smith Street in Palatine

Tim McLaughlin photo

 

Excerpts from the NWHerald.com:

According to Palatine Deputy Fire Chief Patrick Gratzianna, the fire department received an activated fire alarm at approximately 10:17 a.m. and crews were on scene six minutes later. “Police arrived first and notified us they had visual flames and smoke, so we bumped up the call to a Code 4” he said.

Crews extended a hose line into the kitchen’s hood, grill and duct area, but gas was feeding the fire. Nicor crews arrived and shut off gas to the building, and the remaining fire quickly went out.

kitchen fire at Durty Nellies at 180 Smith Street in Palatine

Larry Shapiro photo

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MVA with entrapment and medevac in Northbrook, 1-17-19 (more)

Excerpts from wgntv.com:

Frank Visconti and a friend were heading to the hospital last week for blood work. They were southbound on I-294 near Willow Road when just a few feet in front of them, they saw debris flying and traffic come to a halt. As he drove by the crash, he felt compelled to pull over and aid a woman who some thought was dead. The car driven by Kim Huguelet slammed into the back of the semi and trapped her inside.

“To see the vehicle and the condition it was in, I thought maybe it was going to be a fatality,” Visconti said. “But when she looked up at me, that was it.”

Visconti, a former a paid on-call firefighter in Knollwood, used his training from years ago.

“I just crawled into the vehicle and started pulling pieces of the dashboard off of her,” he said. “I observed her head had a really big cut and I just put pressure on her head and stopped the bleeding as much as I could.

Visconti continued to talk to Huguelet and tried to keep her calm and awake until the fire department.

Huguelet is recovering at Lutheran General Hospital and Visconti visits regularly, calls daily, and expects to throw a big party for her when she recovers.

Her family said she’s not out of the woods yet. She’s had a couple of surgeries. They are hopeful, but doctors are taking it day by day. They wanted to bring attention to Visconti ‘s heroic actions.

thanks Evan

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Cancer in the Fire Service

Excerpts from Richmond.com:

Retired Richmond (VA) Fire Marshal David Creasy, who died in October after more than four years battling cancer, was represented in the annual legislative battle to extend workers’ compensation benefits automatically to firefighters and other emergency personnel stricken by certain forms of cancer they say are caused by exposure to toxic chemicals in the line of duty.

Colon cancer is among three forms of the disease that would be presumed eligible for workers’ compensation under Senate Bill 1030. The bill also adds cancer of the brain and testicles to the list of diseases presumed eligible for compensation under the program.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) agreed last month to study the workers’ compensation program, including the presumption in the law that shifts the burden of proof to the state in determining whether a listed disease is related to work.

The Finance Committee ultimately approved the bill on a 14-2 vote but opponents representing local governments, insurers and major employers urged the committee to wait for the JLARC study.

“Please allow the study to go forward before you enact legislation such as this,” said a lobbyist for the Virginia Self-Insurers Association and Metis Services Inc., a risk-control firm for employers.

But some senators said they’ve waited long enough to address a long-standing concern for firefighters and other public safety employees. The bill survived a motion to kill the bill, which died on a 7-9 vote, and a motion to amend the measure so it would not become law unless the budget includes money to pay for what the state estimates would be indeterminate costs. The proposed amendment failed on an 8-8 tie.

However, the committee killed a similar bill to extend workers’ compensation benefits to police and other public safety employees suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of events they witness in the line of duty, including the death or serious injury of a co-worker. Instead, that issue will become part of the pending JLARC study.

Firefighters earn the benefit of workers’ compensation through their repeated exposure to toxins they believe cause cancer, including the kind that killed Creasy.

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Harvard Fire Protection District news

Excerpts from the nwherald.com:

The Harvard Fire Protection District and the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call around 1:05 a.m. Wednesday in the 4400 block of Pagles Road. The report came in as a snowmobile crash with an unresponsive victim. It was snowing heavily at the time of the incident.

The victim, identified as 32-year-old Brandon Shields of Harvard, was killed in the crash. An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday to determine the cause of death. He was wearing a helmet.

A second snowmobiler at the scene took a group of paramedics to the crash site, which was several hundred feet off the roadway. The victim’s snowmobile had struck a tree.

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Of interest … Distracted Driver Awareness

wrecked truck along roadway

WECT photo

Excerpts from wect.com:

A destroyed truck and sign on the side of a Columbus County (NC) highway have caught the attention of thousands of drivers, and the fire chief behind the display hopes the message will shock people into yielding to emergency vehicles on the road. The mutilated truck is not a random vehicle. It’s a fire department truck that was destroyed in a fiery crash and now serves as a warning symbol. The sign in all-caps reads, “THE RESULTS OF NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO EMERGENCY LIGHTS & VEHICLES ON A TRAFFIC SCENE.”

“The message is: Put down your phones, pay attention to what’s going on, give us your undivided attention, so that way we can remain safe,” said Steve Camlin, chief of Acme-Delco-Riegelwood Fire-Rescue.

The explosive accident on Dec. 10, 2018 involved a tractor-trailer crashing into the firefighter’s vehicle, and then plowing into a family’s car as they received assistance.

The wrecked truck and sign will remain by the highway until the salvage company removes it in the next one to two weeks. 

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Working fire in Chicago, 1-13-19

This from Chi-Town Fire Photos:

Here are some shots from a fire @ 6229 s Aberdeen on 1/13/19. E116 deck gunned it on arrival, knocking down the bulk of the fire. Two lines were dropped and T20 worked the roof. 

smoke and flames from house on fire

Chi-Town Fire Photos

smoke and flames from house on fire

Chi-Town Fire Photos

smoke and flames from house on fire

Chi-Town Fire Photos

Firefighter pulls hose in the snow

Chi-Town Fire Photos

Firefighters vent house roof with axes

Chi-Town Fire Photos

Chicago FD Engine 116

Chi-Town Fire Photos

Chicago FD Truck 20

Chi-Town Fire Photos

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Huntley Fire Protection District news (more)

rendering of Huntley FPD headquarters station

Excerpts from the nwherald.com:

Plans for a new Huntley Fire Protection District station and an 8,700-square-foot expansion and renovations to its administrative building will be discussed at Thursday’s village board meeting at 7 p.m. at Village Hall, 10987 Main St. Trustees heard about the expansion plans during a joint meeting with the fire protection district board in November.

The new 10,239-square-foot station would be at the southeast corner of Jim Dhamer Drive and Hennig Road, adjacent to the southwest corner. Data from a station location study requested by the district indicate that an additional fire station south of Sun City would have taken on about 600 of the district’s more than 5,000 calls from 2017.

The district’s building at 11118 Main St. serves as its administrative offices and maintenance facility, but by building a 8,700-square-foot addition, it would serve as the new headquarters. Should this occur, the district’s existing Station 1 and headquarters at 11808 Coral St. would be vacated and sold upon completion of the Main Street remodeling. The addition would include offices on the first floor, living quarters on the second floor and training facilities in the basement.

Huntley Deputy Fire Chief Al Schlick said frugal budgeting in the past 10 years will allow both projects to move forward without the need for a tax-based funding mechanism.

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2-Alarm fire in Northbrook, 1-16-19 (more)

Excerpts from nbcchicago.com:

Authorities investigating an explosion and fire last week at a home in Northbrook have found no evidence the blaze was intentionally set or to indicate it was suspicious in nature, but the cause remains undetermined.

Fire Chief Andy Carlson said the cause of the blaze remained under investigation, and the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s office will continue to investigate plus experts will be sent out by the insurance company that covers the home and they are expected to look at the home’s appliances, including the furnace.

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