Author: Chris Ferrari

Jan. 11, 2023 In 1947, President Harry Truman said: “It is the responsibility of every state and local official, and every citizen, to aggressively support this national war against the growing menace of fire.”

By Susan Nicol Source firehouse.com News

“It is the responsibility of every state and local official, and every citizen, to aggressively support this national war against the growing menace of fire.”

That’s what President Harry Truman said of the nation’s fire problem in 1947.

Rather than sit idly by and simply discuss how fires were killing Americans, Truman called officials to formulate a plan to address the issue.

While there have been strides, the country is a long way to calling the issue under control. Last year, 2,276 people died in home fires, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. 

During the USFA Fire Prevention and Control Summit last year, U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell pointed out that Jan. 8 was a historic day as there were no home fire fatalities reported.

In August, fire service officials from around the country met in Independence, MO, marking the 75th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s National Conference, and completed work initiated at three previous sessions.

The Truman Fire Forum Report, released Tuesday by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation which hosted the conference, provides recommendations on actions that can be taken today, as well as strategies that will need the whole of the fire service to work toward decreasing the number of lives impacted by preventable fires. 

Among the themes that emerged from the groups included:

1. Fire service members need to participate greater in community risk reduction.

2. The fire service should take a leadership role in working toward equity in housing to ensure citizens have both affordable and fire-safe housing.

3. All levels of government must increase enforcement and inspection of existing codes and standards for new construction, occupied structures, and vacant structures.

4. Coordinated collaboration from fire departments, governmental agencies, non-government organizations, and private enterprises is needed to address the challenges and solutions to the fire problem in America.

5. The goal of community risk reduction efforts must be long-term behavioral modification through data collection and analysis, storytelling, consistent messaging, and individual accountability.

6. The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Fire Chiefs’ Association needs to be engaged in all efforts to make tribal communities fire safe. 

Report authors made recommendations for specific organizations but stressed throughout the document at preventing fires is everyone’s responsibility. 

They noted:

1. Improve academy instructions and emphasis for CRR and fire prevention. (It isn’t just about teaching stop-drop-and roll and smoke alarms.)

2. Rebrand CRR so that failure is considered with each fire.

3. Encourage and establish interaction with Fire Marshal’s Office and operations.

4. Make changes to AFG and SAFER grant programs to promote the use of grants for CRR, risk reduction training, and risk reduction staffing.

5. Utilize fire investigation findings to identify fire prevention needs.

6. Add fire prevention to Firefighter I and II training programs  

Jan. 11, 2023 On Nov. 19, Firefighter Johnny Tetrick was working on I-90 when he was struck and killed.

By Shelley Terry Source Star Beacon, Ashtabula, Ohio (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jan. 10—CLEVELAND — A Cuyahoga County grand jury has indicted a Cleveland man in the death of Johnny Tetrick, a firefighter originally from Geneva.

The grand jury indicted Leander Bissell, 40, in the death of the firefighter on charges of murder, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, failure to comply, failure to stop after an accident and aggravated vehicular homicide.

Bissell could face 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of the murder charge.

Tetrick, 51, a 27-year veteran of the Cleveland Fire Department, was working Nov. 19 at the scene of a motor vehicle accident on I-90 near the Martin Luther King exit.

At about 8:15 p.m., he was struck by a vehicle that went around emergency vehicles, according to a Facebook post from Cleveland Fire Fighters IAFF Local 93.

Tetrick died at a hospital. He was a 27-year veteran of the fire department.

The driver who struck Tetrick fled the scene, but firefighters gave police a description of the vehicle — a white Chevy Malibu with front-end damage.

Bratenahl police officers caught up with a suspect — Bissell — around 1 a.m. Nov. 20, according to reports.

At Bissell’s initial court appearance, a judge set bail at $500,000, according to court records.

Tetrick, a graduate of Geneva High School, was the father of three girls.

Jan. 10, 2023 The LifeStar Ambulance Service employees transported the patient face down on the cot.

Source Firehouse.com News

Two EMS personnel have been charged with murder following the death of a patient they were sent to help.

Peter Cadigan and Peggy Finley were arrested and charged with first-degree murder, according to Sangamon County, IL State’s Attorney Dan Wright.

They are being held in the Sangamon County Jail in lieu of $1M bail, WICS reported. 

Lifestar Ambulance Service refused to comment about the arrests of its employees, the station reported.

Police called EMS to a home after noticing Earl L. Moore Jr., 35, was in distress. 

Cadigan and Finley placed Moore face down on the gurney and tightened the straps across his back. He was transported to HSHS St. John’s Hospital where he died at 3:14 a.m. on Dec. 18, reports indicated.

The coroner found that the cause of death was compressional and positional asphyxia due to prone face-down restraint on a paramedic transportation stretcher due to straps across the back.

The Illinois State Police handled the investigation.

Jan. 10, 2023 EMS responders have been historically underpaid compared to FDNY firefighters since merging with the department in 1996.

By Thomas Tracy Source New York Daily News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The federal government wants the city to resolve the massive salary gaps between its firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics — a bombshell determination that has become the backbone of a new class action discrimination lawsuit for equal pay among the city’s first responders, the Daily News has learned.

About 25 current and retired city Emergency Medical Service workers have signed onto the lawsuit, which centers around the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s decision that City Hall has “discriminated against current and former first responders of the FDNY’s EMS, based on race and sex, from at least November 8, 2018 to the present with respect to pay, benefits and terms and conditions of employment.”

The feds recommended in December 2021 that the city “reach a just resolution of this matter” and opened the door for a potential lawsuit if the city “declined to enter into conciliation discussions.”

With no further movement on the issue, EMS unions stepped through that door on Dec. 7 with the class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal court seeking to correct the pay disparity.

Citing the EEOC report, the 57-page suit argues that the city “suppressed the salaries of EMS First Responders despite the fact that they perform work that is substantially equal in the required skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions as their fire side colleagues.”

As a result, EMTs and paramedics have suffered a “loss of wages, salaries and benefits, as well as emotional hardship and mental anguish,” the lawsuit notes.

EMS employees have been historically underpaid compared to FDNY firefighters and other first responders since merging with the department in 1996.

The pay gaps between the two groups continue to this day, even though the EEOC determined that EMTs and paramedics work just as hard as their firefighting counterparts, something that was made abundantly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The investigation showed that workloads, working conditions, training, and risks to EMS first responders and firefighters are comparable, with a substantial degree of overlapping duties, especially with respect to medical emergencies,” according to the EEOC decision, which was completed after a two year investigation. “The evidence further shows the two groups have comparable accountability and responsibility.”

Despite their interlocking duties with the firefighters, city EMTs and paramedics weren’t considered uniformed personnel until a 2001 City Council law was passed. The Council further intervened in 2020, passing a resolution calling for EMS to be paid the same as firefighters, but the city has failed to take action, the EEOC decision noted.

Entry-level EMTs are paid a base salary of $39,386, according to the lawsuit. Within five years, their pay increases to $59,534. City firefighters start their career with a salary of $43,904 that goes up to $85,292 after five years.

The pay gaps continue throughout the EMS member’s career. EMS chiefs and commanders earn $135,053 a year while their counterparts on the fire side “who perform substantially equal work in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions” make $235,000 a year.

While the city’s firefighter force is mostly made up of white men, EMS is mostly people of color and has many women, causing a racial and gender disparity, the lawsuit added.

“EMS first responders work in the same conditions and perform at least as rigorous work and require at least as much training and effort, with at least as much regular hazards, if not more than, fire first responders,” the lawsuit said.

“Yet it is [the city’s] policy and practice to compensate the EMS first responders substantially less than their almost exclusively male and overwhelmingly white counterparts on the fire side of the FDNY,” the suit said.

“The injustice of pay inequity in the FDNY was not created by the current mayor or the current fire commissioner,” said Vincent Variale, president of Local 3621, which represents EMS lieutenants and captains. “But it is their moral and legal obligation to end it. Thanks to the work of the EEOC they have the opportunity to put this dark chapter of the FDNY behind us.”

Oren Barzilay, head of Local 2507, which represents rank-and-file EMTs and paramedics, called the EEOC decision “a historic moment for New York City’s emergency medical servicemembers.”

An FDNY spokesman could not comment on the lawsuit, citing the ongoing litigation.

“The FDNY is committed to fair and equitable pay practices. The case is under review,” a Law Department spokesman said in a statement.

When pay disparity issues are raised, the FDNY says they’re not to blame and any pay increases are hashed out by the city and union negotiators at the bargaining table.

“I personally believe that they are not compensated as they should,” former Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told a City Council committee in 2021 when asked why EMS isn’t receiving better wages. “But we don’t control the process.”

When she was the FDNY first deputy commissioner, current FDNY Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh was involved in the EMS union’s 2021 contract negotiations, which led to a salary increase for EMS employees, including a 6% bump for all EMTs and paramedics who agreed to be trained to respond to mental health calls.