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Not Carrying Equipment Due to Mutual Aid
In college my roomate worked as a volunteer for a town of in Vermont. And he told me one time that they did not carry jaws on any of their apparatus. When I asked him why he said because the chief told the department that if a extrication comes in they just call one of the mutual aid departments and would rather not spend the money on the equipment.
Now I know almost 90% of the people on here maybe even close to 100% depend on mutual aid at one time or another. Not for every call but alot of departments cant handle certain calls do to staffing issues or other reasons.
But what if mutual aid isnt available?
Is the reason to not spend the extra money because you have mutual aid with the equipment a valid reason?
I know there is certain equipment towns and departments cant afford all the time but what about when you can?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on
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Joshua, obviously your comments are a complaint about a situation your aware of. What my feelings are or what I think arnt of any consequence to the circumstance your aware of. That is for the management or leadership of those involved to resolve. I have witnessed this narrow mindedness not just in what equipment a Dept will have but also in medical response. Bottom line. You can only do what you are capable of doing given the constraints of your Departments leaderships direction.
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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Mutual aid is always available, at least in this state, just depends on how long you can wait. We consider this often and do our best not to duplicate services. You really need to look at statics here, if you run a lot of certain calls then you need that equipment, but if you only, and just as an example, run extraction 1 or 2 times a year, then maybe you don't, but buy something to compliment what your MA does. We normally don't consider this on the small ticket items such as jaws, but more so in types of rigs, for us we don't have brush trucks or tenders but one call and a whole host of such rigs come a runnin.
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Permalink Reply by Sparky3317 on
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Its not my department so I could not answer that question sorry but I will find out and respond with the information when I can.
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understandable thank you fireyladd preciate the post.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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And that can be the issue at hand here. If a dept becomes so reliant upon another dept to do extrication, what happens if that dept isn't available? Yes, you may have to rely on hand tools, but it can be easy to get complacent in the mindset that so and so dept will respond anyway because that is what our MA agreement says. Personally, I don't buy the cost savings reasoning for jaws and there really isn't a reason a dept can't have a set, even an older used set.
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Permalink Reply by Roy Walker on
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My question is this , being in Canada I'm not sure of your laws and agreements but what happens if you call for the jaws and while they are servicing you they are needed back in their jurisdiction ,especially when it is established that it is common for them to be out of district. I'm not trying to start an issue but I know a lot of the funds for this equipment is often raised locally and the view of these citizens maybe that they should have a right to expect them in their area when they need them. Just my thoughts.
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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It seems that you consider extrication equipment to be a needed tool for every FD. I'm not disagreeing with you, but sometimes specialization comes at a price. One of our engines does carry a set of jaws, but no cribbing or any other stabalization equipment. If there is a Haz-Mat incident, we call mutual aid. No truck company so when the tree-trimmer got stuck, mutual aid.
The concept of mutual aid is that there is help if you need it and ask for it. It can also reduce a need for duplications of services.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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I feel your pain, but there are a couple of things to consider:
1) How far out is mutual aid? At my last station, we didn't carry any extrication tools because a squad was always 5-10 minutes away. Carrying squad gear would have been a needless duplication. If they were an hour away, that's a different story.
2) The cost of buying the kit is more than the price tag on equipment. You also need to consider maintenance, training, certification regime, and other ongoing costs beyond your original capital investment.
3) How often would you use this gear? My current station runs 1-2 big cut jobs/year (a local heavy squad provides the gear). It would not be a good use of funds for us to invest in the tools and training when there are other more pressing needs
Good luck. I really do feel your frustration and I hope you guys can work out a good solution.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Isn't carrying jaws but no cribbing kind of like carrying a spineboard but no cervical collar or carrying a nozzle but no hose?
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There's only so much room on an engine company.
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There are several ways to carry a reasonable amount of cribbing on engine companies.
Tool boards can free up compartment space that can be used for cribbing.
If you have hinged compartment doors, the inside surface of the doors can be used to mount tools.
Additional shelving can be used to divide other tools and equipment and the additional space can be used for cribbing and/or step chocks.
Cribbing vehicles prior to extricating has been an industry "best practice" for at least 5 years. Proper cribbing eliminates virtually all of the movement from the tires, suspension, and other moveable/deformable car components. Car movement is transmitted to the patient and can create further injuries.
I'd hate to go to court trying to defend an additional patient injury on the grounds that "we didn't have room on the engine".
Another option is to carry the jaws on a ligiht rescue with room for cribbing and additional tools - kind of like a toolbox on wheels.
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No cribbing was an hyperbole on my part. The neighboring FD, part of the new JPA, has a light rescue. Two other 'heavy' rescues are part of the automatic aid agreement.
Part of my arguement is this: Tools to fight fires are #1. All of the engines are now paramedic staffed. You have to find room for all of their toys. With no truck in the dept., you have to find room for fans, salvage, etc tools. There just isn't that 'extra' space for a complete set of rescue/extracations tools.
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