Gorham firefighters wore breathing apparatus to avoid possibly getting high while fighting a fire at a medical marijuana growing facility.

By Bonnie Washuk Source Portland Press Herald, Maine (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Dec. 4—Firefighters wore breathing apparatus to avoid possibly getting high while fighting a fire Saturday at a medical marijuana growing facility in Gorham.

The fire severely damaged one of the grow rooms and a foyer, but didn’t spread to the other grow rooms, Gorham Fire Chief Kenneth Fickett said Sunday. “It’s a huge facility. There are 10 grow rooms,” he added.

No one was injured in the fire, he said.

The call came in around 7:30 p.m. after temperature monitors alerted a facility worker, Fickett said. The worker investigated and found the grow room was filled with smoke. He slammed the door and called for help.

When firefighters arrived, the grow room, which is about 20 by 40 feet, was filled with black smoke and a foul smell of plastic burning. The fire was caused by older grow lights that had malfunctioned, the fire chief said.

Firefighters wore a breathing apparatus to protect them from getting high in the smoky room, Fickett said.

“Luckily these weren’t full-fledged plants. We didn’t have that issue,” he said. “But that’s why we would never enter that building without a breathing apparatus.”

Gorham received mutual aid on the scene from Westbrook, Windham and Standish.

Flames erupted in a Lowe’s hardware warehouse structure in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood Sunday.

By Nora Mishanec Source San Francisco Chronicle (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Dec. 5—Flames erupted in a Lowe’s hardware warehouse structure in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood Sunday, authorities said.

The fire started where construction material was being stored, and a crew of 70 firefighters, who were called around 3:50 p.m., had it out by 4:15 p.m., said Capt. Jonathan Baxter of the San Francisco Fire Department.

No injuries were reported in the blaze, which was at 491 Bayshore between Cortland and Waterloo, and no cars were involved, Baxter said.

The cause of the fire was under investigation Sunday.

A suit filed in Manhattan federal court claims that Empress Ambulance did not notify patients that their data system was hack for four months.

Source Firehouse.com News

A lawsuit has been filed against Empress Ambulance in New York after hackers accessed patient information.

According to the class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court last week, Empress Ambulance – one of the state’s largest private ambulance services – failed to notify customers about the information that hackers were able to obtain. 

Ransomware group Hive Gang, known for infiltrating security systems, hacked the system in May but it was not realized by Empress officials until July, according to the New York Post.

About 318,000 customers were not notified about the data breach until September, the newspaper reported.

In the suit, it stated that the social security numbers and medical records of at least 100,000 has been compromised. 

According to the FBI, Hive Gang has received over $100 million from companies they hacked.

Investigator said customer data has since been found on the internet.

Penn Hills Paramedic Joshua Smith said Nicholas Theofilis would go on ride-alongs as a teen and shadow medical personnel

By Michael DiVittorio The Tribune-Review, Greensburg Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

PITTSBURGH — Penn Hills resident Nicholas Theofilis dedicated his life to public service.

The Eagle Scout had dreams of working in the medical field, and while in high school, already had begun training as an emergency medical technician.

Those dreams were cut short when the 23-year-old paramedic died on Nov. 27 while on duty driving an ambulance in Pittsburgh.

While in high school, he was a member of Penn Hills High’s Navy Junior ROTC program; he graduated in 2017.

Theofilis became a volunteer firefighter at the Rosedale Fire Department and showed an interest in his hometown ambulance company.

“He was one of the few people that were so interested he would show up here on a regular basis,” said Penn Hills paramedic Joshua Smith. He recalled Theofilis going on ride-alongs as a teenager and shadowing medical personnel.

“He just kept pushing forward and forward and never looked back from there,” Smith said.

Constantly working and learning, Theofilis became an EMT.

He started working part-time for Penn Hills EMS in January 2019.

He also worked for Oklahoma EMS in the Apollo area before he was hired full-time by White Oak EMS in March 2019.

“Nick was a very light-hearted guy, but had the ability to be professional and serious when he needed to be, which seems to be a good quality for everybody in this field,” White Oak EMS Chief Paul Falavolito said. “Nick was one of the instrumental EMTs during the pandemic. When everything was just very bad with covid, Nick wasn’t fazed by that. He didn’t mind going out on those types of calls.”

He continued his studies at the Penn State Fayette-Eberly Campus and eventually got his paramedic certification through the state Department of Health.

Theofilis left his left position in White Oak to become a Penn Hills paramedic this past June.

“I knew that he was leaving for a long time,” Falavolito said. “He’s a Penn Hills guy through and through. It was hard when he left us in May, but I knew that was coming, and I can’t fault him for wanted to return to his home community. He loved White Oak. He loved our community. He loved our residents and those he worked with here. That’s why he chose to work here part-time as well. … He didn’t want to shoulder the burden of feeling he abandoned us.”

Smith said his friends at the Penn Hills station would help him prepare for the exams. He believes Theofilis’ happiest day was becoming a certified paramedic.

“Everyone here was very impressed with him,” Smith said. “Very mature beyond his years. … We made sure he knew everything he needed to know.”

Then came the Nov. 27 crash that that claimed his life.

Theofilis was driving an ambulance at the intersection of Fifth and Morewood avenues in Pittsburgh shortly after 11 p.m. Nov. 27. There was no patient at the time, but Theofilis had a front-seat passenger.

Penn Hills EMS Supervisor Diane Fitzhenry said Theofilis died of blunt force trauma resulting in a traumatic cardiac arrest secondary to a motor vehicle accident.

Neither the passenger, whose name was not released, nor the driver of the other vehicle, were seriously hurt.

The crash remains under investigation.

Meanwhile, Fitzhenry tries to be strong for her department.

“To say Penn Hills EMS is devastated by this loss is an understatement,” she said. “This community and the entire region has been very supportive of Penn Hills EMS in this time of tragedy. I want to thank public services in Pittsburgh for their prompt and thorough care of Nick. He had the best opportunity by the care that was given to him by the Pittsburgh EMS Division and UPMC Trauma Team. Even with the best care scenario he wasn’t able to survive, but we are extremely grateful for the people who tried to save him.”

Fitzhenry said it’s the first line-of-duty death in her company’s 48-year history and prays it will be the last.

“He has accomplished more in his 23 years on this earth than people three times his age have accomplished,” Fitzhenry said. “Even in death, he’s a hero. “He continued to think about mankind because he is an organ donor, and they were able to use him to save other people’s lives. He was a good all-around kid.”

Falavolito said he will remember Theofilis as a brave and outgoing man.

“It hurts,” he said. “It hits deep and heavy.”

A GoFundMe page was created to help the family with funeral expenses. It had raised more than $9,700 toward its $15,000 goal as of Dec. 1.

There have been multiple social media posts offering condolences and messages of support for his family and Theofilis’ EMS departments. Others have commented on the official department pages.

“He’s loved by many, and if you take a look at social media I don’t think there’s anybody that can say a bad word about the kid,” Fitzhenry said. “He was a fine young man and certainly dedicated to making the community a better place.”

Theofilis is survived by his parents, Peter and Lori Theofilis; brother, Max Theofilis; paternal grandmother, Angela “Yia Yia” Theofilis; and maternal grandmother, Delores Patrizi; numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Broward citizens now have a video upload through an app, but the new tool would let dispatchers send an invitation link to any cellphone call via text message

By Lisa J. Huriash South Florida Sun-Sentinel Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — Angst between the County Commission and the Sheriff’s Office over the regional emergency call dispatching center continues to mount as politicians plan to question the Sheriff’s Office about why the county lags in 911 technology.

County Commissioner Michael Udine, whose term as mayor ended Tuesday, said he’s interested in pursuing video-to-911 technology, which exists now in Volusia County and in Miami-Dade as a pilot project. The technology would allow the 911 call center to turn voice calls to live video, but recently told county commissioners “the problem that we keep having is the sheriff tells us he’s not ready for this just yet.”

The 911 video option allows a call taker to send an SMS invitation link to the caller. The caller can then accept the invitation to share device location information and activate the device’s camera. The technology would show a caller’s location, and a “breadcrumb depiction of movement” is updated every three seconds, “which is extremely valuable when the caller is in a moving vehicle or a boat on the water and requires assistance,” according to the business proposal.

“It’s great stuff; it’s stuff we should be doing,” Udine said at a public meeting. “This should be so easy to do. Let’s figure out a way.”

Dan Plunkett, a sales executive with Carbyne, a public safety technology company, told county leaders at the same meeting “this is life-saving technology that takes maybe an hour to install” and is technology comparable to a ride service or food delivery service.

He said there was no technology overhaul needed with Broward’s current system “so we’re a bit perplexed as to why the Sheriff maintains they are not ready for this.”

The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a question about its concerns about 911 video capability, instead saying a citizen video upload portal has been available for months. The SaferWatch App allows people to report incidents and receive real-time safety alerts directly from law enforcement — but citizens need the app to do it.

County Commissioner Mark Bogen said this week the topic of 911 video will be added to his laundry list of grievances that he’s expected to broach at the Dec. 6 County Commission meeting, which includes recommending that the Sheriff’s Office be removed from running the 911 system.

“We’re going to talk about everything. We need to be using the best technology and why aren’t we?” he said. “Everyone is going to have to be accountable.”

“Look, the Sheriff has shown no leadership at 911,” Bogen said at a recent commission meeting discussing the 911 video option.

“We found out about the problem from the Sun Sentinel,” he said referring to a Sun Sentinel investigation in April in which the media company discovered a slew of 911 problems including unanswered calls and staffing problems at the Sheriff’s Office.

“He never came and said ‘My people are underpaid, I got a mess here, I need help,’” Bogen said. “We need to lead. Because there is no leadership in 911.”

“It was a new one to us,” officials from the Burlington FD said after a synthetic-material jacket overheated and ignited a pile of clothes on a bed

By Alison Cutler The Charlotte Observer Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

BURLINGTON, N.C. — After a North Carolina fire department was called to a house fire on Nov. 29, officials said they had never seen anything like it.

“It was a new one to us,” the Burlington Fire Department told WGHP.

Homeowner Anthony Mebane said he was stunned to learn what caused the fire, too, he told WFMY.

“Nothing ever happened to me in that capacity, you know. … Initially when I first heard about it, I didn’t believe it,” Mebane told WFMY.

The source of the fire? A pile of laundry ignited while sitting on Mebane’s bed, according to the Burlington Fire Department.

Officials got the call of a fire at a Burlington home around 12:20 a.m. on Nov. 29, according to a news release from the fire department. When firefighters arrived, Mebane was at work.

Firefighters found a fire that ignited in a bedroom and extinguished it in about 15 minutes, according to the release.

Mebane had dried his laundry in the dryer, but the fire didn’t start until the clothes were already removed, according to the release. The pile of clothes became so hot in the dryer that when they were placed on the bed, the clothes “smoldered subsequently catching other clothing articles and furniture on fire,” according to the release.

The fire caused about $30,000 in damages, according to the fire department.

There was a synthetic material jacket in the laundry that overheated so much it ignited on the bed in the middle of the night, WFMY reported.

While the source was unusual, the U.S. Fire Administration offers tips for general laundry safety to avoid fire:

• Don’t use a clothes dryer without a lint filter or with a lint filter that is loose, damaged or clogged.
• Don’t overload the dryer.
• Don’t use a wire screen or cloth to cover the wall damper. They can collect lint and clog the dryer vent.
• Don’t dry anything containing foam, rubber or plastic. An example of an item not to place in a dryer is a bathroom rug with a rubber backing.
• Don’t dry any item for which manufacturers’ instructions state “dry away from heat.”
• Don’t dry glass fiber materials (unless manufacturers’ instructions allow).
• Don’t dry items that have come into contact with anything flammable like alcohol, cooking oils or gasoline. Dry them outdoors or in a well-ventilated room, away from heat.
• Don’t leave a clothes dryer running if you leave home or when you go to bed.

Burlington is about 60 miles northwest of Raleigh.

Hall County Fire Rescue says its divers will operate a drone that can reach depths of up to 305 meters and has a camera, a sonar system and a robotic arm

By Ben Anderson The Times Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

HALL COUNTY, Ga. — Hall County’s Marine Rescue Team will replace its dive team with an underwater drone that will be used to try to rescue and recover drowning victims.

Hall County Fire Chief Chris Armstrong said there will be few changes.

“The only difference is that rather than send a person down in dive gear to either do a rescue or recovery of a person underwater, we’re using an underwater drone to do that instead,” Armstrong said.

That means the fire department will no longer have divers who are trained and equipped to jump in the water and rescue people who have gone underwater or recover people who have drowned.

Divers will be replaced by a $100,000 underwater drone that can be deployed in three minutes or less and reach depths of up to 305 meters, according to the department. The drone is equipped with a camera, a sonar system and a robotic arm that can grab onto drowning victims and tow them to the surface. In effect, divers will become drone operators.

The robot is expected to arrive in January, and Armstrong said they will spend the six months after that training firefighters to operate it, in time for Memorial Day. The fire department will also be purchasing a boat with a fire hose that is expected to cost around $650,000.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman B.J. Williams said they are not planning to make any changes to their Underwater Search and Rescue dive team.

Some people are worried about these changes, including Todd Jordan, an emergency physician at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center who says he and his wife are certified dive instructors who have been training the fire department’s dive team for the last 10 years.

In a post in the Lanier Lake Life Facebook group, he wrote, “If the Public Safety Divers respond to a boat fire and see burnt victims jump overboard, they cannot go underwater after them. If there is a drowning, they will have to stand on the shore or stay on the boat without attempting to save a life. They will only be able to operate a robot. If they respond to a jumper on a bridge and see them jump, they cannot dive to save them. If they respond to a car off a bridge in ten feet of water with children trapped in car seats, they cannot help. Robots cannot enter a car to save a human child in a car seat. Robots cannot untangle themselves when they are trapped in fishing line and trees. It IS possible to save a person in this lake.”

He added: “As a citizen of Hall County, I find this very concerning. I feel that all the residents in North Georgia, who frequent Lake Lanier, should be aware of this potentially dangerous change and that they will no longer be protected by a Public Safety Dive Team.”

Jordan reiterated those concerns in an interview with The Times.

Armstrong said their divers haven’t saved a single drowning victim in the 20 years since the county’s Marine Rescue Team was founded. In the past five years, there have been 32 drownings, and the dive team has responded to 10 of them. They have recovered four bodies but saved zero lives.

Armstrong said he isn’t sure whether the underwater drone might have more success, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try.

“We’re still doing rescues,” he said. “We’re just changing the way we’re rescuing people.”

Lake Lanier is one of the most visited lakes with 12 million enjoying its waters annually.

In 2022, six people drowned in the lake.

The decision is also motivated by concerns about diver safety.

“One of the most risky things we do is diving in that lake,” Armstrong said. “If I spend a lot of time, energy and money diving in that lake and I haven’t saved anybody — and all I’m doing is, unfortunately, bringing deceased victims out of the water — rather than risk my divers, why would I not use technology to do that instead?”

Commission Chairman Richard Higgins echoed Armstrong’s concerns about diver safety. “It’s really dangerous to dive in Lake Lanier,” he said.

Commissioner Shelly Echols said the decision to replace the dive team with a robot is supported by the data.

“People are expecting that this team goes out and they dive and they rescue people drowning, and the data shows that that just doesn’t happen,” she said, adding that by the time the dive team arrives, assesses the area and puts on all their gear, the operation inevitably shifts from rescue to recovery. Armstrong said a rescue becomes a recovery 30 minutes after a person goes under.

Echols said she is frustrated that none of the people raising concerns on social media have reached out to commissioners or county staff.

“The rumor mill goes running rampant and that’s really frustrating as an elected official, that people would rather just take to social media and spread rumors instead of actually calling or emailing to find out for sure what’s going on and why things are being done.”

Police reports showed the driver was drunk when he struck Firefighter Johnn Tetrick, who was working a rollover crash at the time of the incident

By Rachel Engel FireRescue1

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County judge set the bail for a driver accused of killing a Cleveland firefighter at $500,000, ABC 13 reported. 

Leander Bissell, 40, was indicted on charges of murder, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, failure to stop after an accident, failure to comply and aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of Firefighter Johnny Tetrick. 

One of Tetrick’s three daughters spoke at Bissell’s arraignment, requesting bail be set at $1 million.

“I would like to ask the court for a million dollar bond on Mr. Bissell’s prior record, the fact that he fled the scene, he was inebriated and he killed my father,” she said.

Police reports showed Bissell was drunk when he struck Tetrick, who was working a rollover crash at the time of the incident. He later died from his injuries.

Bissell then fled the scene, police said. He was arrested several hours later at a Cleveland home.

A court date for Bissell is set for Dec. 7.

Family, friends and colleagues gathered to honor Tetrick at a funeral ceremony on Saturday, Nov. 26. 

To participate, junior firefighters will need permission from their parent or guardian and the fire chief.

Source The Mercury, Pottstown, Pa. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Dec. 2—WEST CHESTER — Junior firefighters will now have an earlier opportunity to access the training they need to become full firefighters across Pennsylvania, state Sen. Carolyn Comitta said.

Act 155 of 2022 allows junior firefighters, age 17, to train on live-burn, interior firefighter modules. Currently, only those 18 and older are allowed to enroll in this training program.

Comitta, who serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, said the measure helps ensure that junior firefighters are immediately able to serve as full-fledged firefighters once they turn 18.

PA Cadets Put Through the Paces at Training Academy 

“I hope this law helps bolster the ranks of our volunteer firefighters by harnessing the interest and energy young people have for the fire service and empowering them to hit the ground running once they turn 18,” she said. “Our fire companies continue to face significant challenges in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Allowing young people to access this training earlier is one way we can help ensure they continue serving our communities.”

The bill, sponsored by Senator Pat Stefano, unanimously passed the legislature and was recently signed into law by the governor.

To participate in live burns, junior firefighters would need their parent or guardian’s permission and the local fire chief’s permission. The training would be completed under the instruction of a credentialed Pennsylvania State Fire Academy instructor.