The training drill brought smiles and a flood of emotions for Sandy Springs firefighters and their tiny fans.
The rappelling exercise at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta will be a fond memory for many.
“Not everyone wants someone in the room with the kids, so it was a cool way of them getting to be close to us without us having to go in their rooms,” Capt. Kyle Sweeney told FOX5.
He said crews formed an instant bond as they saw the children’s eyes light up. There were fist bumps and high-fives through the glass.
“It really brightened his day,” said Zach Lansdell, whose son Levi has been in the hospital for 200 days.
“It really made a huge impact on Levi and was a huge morale booster,” said Zach, adding that it was one of his three-year-old son’s best days.
Lt. Chris Mileshko was among the firefighters. His father’s video company, Mileshko.com, took some unforgettable photos of video of the special day.
After their high-angle introduction, the firefighters went inside to visit. But, it didn’t end there.
Some have developed friendships with parents and have gone back to spend time.
San Antonio police continue to search for the person who fired shots while firefighters were tending to a patient early Sunday.
Someone drove up to the crew and said they were being followed, according to KENS 5.
“An argument ensued between the occupants of the vehicles. The crew then heard gunfire from those vehicles and proceeded to take cover,” SAFD Spokesman Woody Woodward said, adding it does not appear that the firefighters were the intended target.
Radio traffic obtained by the station indicated that when the bullets were flying, the firefighters ducked for cover and then left.
They sustained minor cuts and bruises.
Police said Monday they are still investigating the incident.
Six Pompton Lakes firefighters who were in a house when it exploded walked away with minor injuries.
Dramatic body cam footage of the January blast has just been released, CBS2 reported.
Just seconds before, footage shows one firefighter walking into the home from the porch.
“Two of them were blown out because they were right by the door. They got blown out the door into the driveway,” Pompton Lakes fire official John Keating told reporters.
Two firefighters, along with a lieutenant, were in the basement and the lieutenant helped them out.
Three other firefighters including an assistant chief, were on the first floor. Two were pulling a line into the home.
“It was the assistant chief and the two other guys who got blown out. Thankfully, they were in the right spot of the house,” Keating said, adding that their gear saved them.
“They have their full-time jobs. They have their families, and they give up their time to come to something like this. It’s really truly amazing,” a neighbor, Tracey Alvarez said.
She went on to describe the incident: “The house literally lifted off the foundation and came back down. It was like The Wizard of Oz.”
All those injured are volunteers.
The assistant fire chief had burns to his ears because his hood blew off while the lieutenant, suffered third-degree burns to his hands.
Feb. 27, 2023 All eight of Lincoln Fire and Rescue’s medic units will be equipped with the latest emergency medical response and cardiac care technology.
Feb. 17—All eight of Lincoln Fire and Rescue’s medic units will be equipped with the latest emergency medical response and cardiac care technology thanks to a $2.2 million investment from the city, officials announced Friday.
The new equipment includes 35 cardiac monitors that will alert first responders earlier to changes in a patient’s heart condition and a dozen “power cots” that could lift 750-pound patients without human assistance, said Jamie Pospisil, the department’s chief of emergency medical services.
Altogether, the new equipment — which also includes 20 heart rhythm simulators, six automatic external defibrillators and 12 “stair chairs” that help responders move patients up and down stairs — is meant to reduce the strain on firefighters and paramedics while helping improve patient outcomes, Fire Chief Dave Engler said.
“The new equipment will also make certain that the members of our community are getting the best patient care,” Engler said at a Friday news conference at Lincoln Fire and Rescue Station No. 15, where he appeared alongside Pospisil, Medical Director Noah Bernhardson and Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird.
Also added are eight automated compression delivery devices, which replace the need for first responders to hand-deliver chest compressions when performing CPR.
The department’s seven regularly used medic units — along with an eighth medic unit Engler activated earlier this month to serve during peak call hours to ease paramedic workload — will be outfitted with the equipment, which officials repeatedly said would be “lifesaving.”
Lincoln Fire and Rescue reserve medic units, which are deployed when all normal medic units are out on calls, will also be equipped with the department’s latest purchases, which Engler said were included in the agency’s annual budget.
And each of the department’s engine companies will also be equipped with a state-of-the-art cardiac monitor, Pospisil said.
The city is leasing the equipment from Stryker Sales, a medical equipment manufacturing company, for $2.19 million over the course of 49 months, paid in annual installments of $439,000, according to the city’s lease agreement with the company.
Pospisil said the city will have to replace the equipment when the lease period ends.
The equipment is meant to provide an additional boost to the city’s response to cardiac arrest calls — an area where Lincoln Fire and Rescue already excels, with a cardiac arrest survival rate that is more than double the national average.
Bernhardson, the department’s medical director, credited that success both to the agency’s medics and Lincoln’s residents, who, as bystanders, provided CPR in 70.8% of the 141 non-traumatic cardiac events in 2022, he said.
The national average for bystander intervention is 40.8%, he said.
“This is an outstanding contribution by the members of the Lincoln community,” Bernhardson said, before encouraging all residents to learn to administer CPR.
For Gaylor Baird, Friday’s announcement marked the latest in a series of news conferences where the mayor has touted her office’s investment in the city’s public safety agencies — a theme that has become a hallmark of her reelection campaign.
“As Lincoln grows, my administration continues to prioritize public safety investments in our city budget that keep you, your families and our first responders safe,” she said. “Those investments are contributing to impressive results.”
Earlier this month, the mayor announced that the Lincoln Police Department’s Special Victims Unit had moved into the BraveBe Child Advocacy Center following a public-private expansion of the center, which was predominantly funded by a private fundraising campaign.
And last week, Gaylor Baird unveiled a $400,000 federal grant the city received from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help create a traffic safety action plan in an effort to eliminate traffic fatalities in Lincoln.
Firefighters, EMS crews and officers examine the scene.
Western Taney County firefighters likely recognized the vehicle involved in a crash Sunday afternoon.
It was the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard.
The two occupants were transported to a hospital for minor injuries.
The vehicle was the historic car used on the set of the popular show. They noted that there were 309 General Lees built for the show and another 26 made for the 2005 remake.
Roy City Fire and Rescue has replaced its aging ambulances with new larger rigs.
They are larger and more powerful, crews told KSL.
“Even though we are a fire department, most of what we do is medically related,” Battalion Chief Jake Rast said, adding that 90 percent of the 6,078 calls last year were EMS-related.
“I think we average right around 21 calls a day, at times last year,” Rast said.
“Plenty of power: It gets us where we need to go,” said Battalion Chief Jake Rast.
Morgan Palmer, an advanced EMT, said she has noticed a big difference in the new ambulances.
“It’s bigger — more spacious — lets us get ready quicker for those fire calls,” Palmer said…”There are people pulling to the left. There are people stopping. There are people going to the right, so you have to be basically NASCAR!”
The new colored light options are another telltale sign the ambulances are new. In this case, the blue lights are known to be more calming for patients and everyone on hand.
All the providers said they’re really happy about the increase in space.
“The size of the compartments gives firefighters going on calls more space to work and better patient care,” Rast said. “You can hang fluids from both of these, so if people need medications via IV lines…Those are newer. It stabilizes the bag, too.”
A Philadelphia firefighter suffered serious injuries in a fall from a roof while battling a fire Saturday.
Firefighter Randy Ballinger fell about 25 feet from the roof at the two-story house in Kingseesing, WPVI reported.
Ballinger, assigned to Ladder 13, suffered a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and multiple long bone fractures in both legs.
By Monday morning, the GoFundMe has raised over $44,000, reaching closer to its goal of $50,000.
“On this job things happen. For all the safety precautions we have, this is something that just happened. I believe Randy was lowering his equipment off the roof through a rope, lowering saws down and was in the overhaul process where he got hurt,” Raymond Vozzelli, a trustee with Local 22, IAFF Philadelphia Firefighters’ & Paramedics’ Union, told reporters.
“Just keep the firefighters in mind. It’s a dangerous job. The more positive vibes we have coming to us the better.”
Evidence shows the Care Flight plane that crashed Friday night killing everyone aboard broke up in flight.
NTSB officials will be on the scene near Stagecoach, NV for days.
“How do we know if the airplane broke up in flight? We found parts of the airplane one-half to three-quarters of a mile away” from the crash scene, NTSB Vice Chair Bruce Landsberg told reporters at a briefing. “Right now, we just don’t know. This is like a three-dimensional puzzle. It’s harder when you don’t have the pieces all in one place.”
The pilot of the single-engine Pilatus PC-12 was notified about turbulence in the area around Reno. Audio recordings revealed the air traffic controller issuing the warning and moments later, trying to reach him again.
Airline pilots also tried to communicate with the plane and were asked to keep an eye out for wreckage.
It took local firefighters more than two hours to find the downed aircraft.
Scott Walton was a PC-12 pilot and spent many years flying and teaching students around the world. He left behind a wife and three small children.
The others aboard the Flight Care plane included Flight Medic Ryan Wilson, a new father; Flight Nurse Ed Prikola, a father with two young children; Mark Rand, the patient, and his wife, Terry.
Fire and rescue personnel along with law enforcement officers from the Stagecoach and Reno areas escorted the crew.
Feb. 27, 2023 San Antonio firefighters had to use poles and other tools to get to the patients.
By Taylor Pettaway, Jacob Beltran Source San Antonio Express-News (TNS) Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.
Feb. 24—An elderly man is dead and his wife is in critical condition after the couple was mauled by dogs in a West Side neighborhood Friday afternoon.
San Antonio police said Friday evening that they had arrested Christian Alexander Moreno, 31.
Moreno is facing charges of attack by dangerous dog, causing death, and injury to an elderly person, the San Antonio Police Department said in a Facebook post. Both are felony charges. No further information about Moreno was provided.
First responders were called to the 2800 block of Depla just before 2 p.m. for reports of a dog attack. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they could see an 81-year-old man being dragged by a dog, and firefighters could see the man was “completely bloody before they even got out of the truck,” Fire Chief Charles Hood said.
The firefighters had to repel the dogs with pickaxes and poles in order to get to the man.
His wife, 74, also was mauled, officials said.
In addition to the couple, a relative of the couple was bitten, according to a city news release. A fire department captain also was bitten in the leg during the altercation, officials said.
All four people were taken to the hospital, where the 81-year-old died, the city news release said. The other three are still under medical care, it added.
“No one expects to go out and fight dogs in the way they did today,” Hood said. “It was a horrific scene, horrific for the people who had to experience it and for the firefighters who were part of the rescue who had to save themselves and these people attacked today.”
Officers with Animal Care Services learned that three Staffordshire terriers, a type of pit bull, who lived at a nearby property had become untethered and left the yard they were kept in. Witnesses said the dogs had broken through the front gate, according to the city news release.
At least two of the dogs attacked the couple as they got out of their vehicle, according to the release. The two were visiting a resident in the house next to dogs’ home, the police said.
Video taken by an unidentified resident shows one dog attacking the man while other dogs stand nearby in an aggressive posture.
ACS took custody of all three dogs. They will be euthanized, according to the city news release. Multiple charges are pending, it added.
This is not the first time ACS has been called to that property for reports of a dog bite.
At least two of the dogs were involved in “confirmed bite cases” in January and also in September 2021, according to the city news release. The injuries in those cases were described as “moderate or mild,” and the individuals involved “declined to file a dangerous dog designation,” the release said. The animals were returned to their owner after a quarantine period in accordance with state law.
A dangerous dog designation would have imposed several requirements, including that the owners keep the animals in a secured enclosure, get a $100,000 liability insurance policy and muzzle the dogs when they were outside. Special warning signs also would have been required.
In addition to the bite cases, ACS has been called to the property several times in the last two years for calls about neglect, aggression and loose animals, ACS Director Shannon Sims said.
Silvia Hernandez, whose family lives across the street from the pit bulls’ owners, said the residence has a history of aggression. She said her brother was bit by the dogs in 2021 and that the owners did not face any consequences.
“The owners don’t care. The problem are the owners who use these dogs as a form of protection and they make these dogs more aggressive. Dogs will be however you train them to be,” Hernandez said. “There is not enough accountability on the owners.”
Hernandez was at the scene after her mother, who lives with her brother, called in a frantic state during the attack. Worried that her mother was the one being attacked, Hernandez rushed to the Depla residence and was met by a chaotic and bloody scene.
“It shouldn’t have gotten to this point,” she said.
The teenagers were initially charged with arson, but the felony murder charge was added by the Office of the Maine Attorney General in October 2021 because Betu’s death happened during the alleged act of arson, which is a felony crime.
Two of the three juvenile’s names have not been made public. The Sun Journal has not published any of their names.
Active-retired District Court Judge Keith Powers ruled last year that none of the three juveniles was competent to continue with the criminal judicial process and future court hearings were suspended.
His ruling came after the defendants had been examined by a state forensic psychologist.
The teens are expected to be examined again periodically to determine whether they have become competent to proceed in court, according to Powers. No court documents indicated any of the charges against the three had been dismissed.
The teenagers were taken into custody after the fire and placed at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.
No information about their current detention was found in court files.
The fire heavily damaged the third and fourth floors in the 10-unit apartment building and left 27 tenants without housing, according to authorities.
