Category: Safety & Health

Oakland officials are looking to take money from insurance and other programs to reopen two fire stations closed last month.

By Sarah Ravani  Source San Francisco Chronicle

Feb. 13—Oakland officials announced a plan that they said would prevent the closure of additional fire stations as the city struggles to address its massive budget deficit, by shifting money from other city funds.

On Thursday, Council Members Janani Ramachandran, Rebecca Kaplan and Zac Unger introduced an ordinance that, if approved, would also reopen two fire stations that were temporarily closedearlier this year to save money.

“Oaklanders are united in wanting safer communities. Firehouses are our bread and butter for keeping our communities safe,” Ramachandran said at a news conference Thursday.

Unger said more fire station closures would be catastrophic for the city and the fire department. Seth Olyer, the president of the firefighters association, said the closure of fire stations is “detrimental to public safety.”

Their proposal would use about $8 million taken from the city’s self-insurance liability and other funds. The city is already using a portion of those funds to address the deficit. Their proposal also uses $2.6 million from the Joint Powers Authority, the governing body that oversees operations at the Coliseum, to keep the stations open.

Though council members originally said some of the money would come from the city’s affordable housing trust fund, and the proposed ordinance named the fund in its title, Ramachandran later said the fund would not be tapped. Unger said the council members are still finalizing the funding that they will use. City staff still need to analyze the proposal.

Damon Covington, the city’s fire chief, said in a statement that he’s encouraged by the city’s consideration of “viable options” to reopen closed fire stations and prevent additional closures.

“Oakland residents understand the value of our department and its ability to respond 24 hours a day to over 80,000 calls per year, and they deserve to have the full complement of fire and medical service resources available when they call us,” Covington said. “I will continue to work with the City Council and City Administration to reinforce this message.”

The City Council will vote on their proposal on March 4. The move comes as the city grapples with a nearly $130 million budget deficit that is eviscerating basic services.

The budget deficit has already resulted in the layoffs of nearly 100 city staff members, the elimination of grants to arts and violence prevention organizations, slashing police overtime and closing two fire stations. The city planned to close four more fire stations this month.

Jestin Johnson, the city administrator, told city staff in an email last month that more harsh cuts remain to address the city’s budget woes. Other proposed cuts have not been released.

“We will be guided by our systems and values, and by our strategic plan, and we will continue to work with our departments, our mayor and city council, and our community to chart the path forward,” he said.

Interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins will release a budget plan in the spring that will be amended and voted on by the City Council by June 30, per the city charter.

A mobile lung cancer screening unit will be going to firehouses across the city.

By Jon Harris Source The Buffalo News, N.Y. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Nov. 29—Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center may have just rolled out its largest tool yet in its battle against lung cancer.

“Let me introduce you to Eddy,” President and CEO Candace S. Johnson told those gathered Tuesday at the Buffalo Fire Department’s Rescue 1 quarters on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo.

Eddy is Roswell’s new mobile lung cancer screening unit — the size of a tractor-trailer — and its mission is in its name: Early Detection Driven to You. Eddy, funded in part by state dollars, has a CT scanner on board, geared toward bringing lung cancer screening directly into underserved and high-risk communities. By boosting access, the hope is that more people will get screened for lung cancer.

“We wanted this lifesaving cancer screening easier, more accessible and equitable,” Johnson said. “We want everyone who should be screened to get screened. We have a tremendous opportunity here to save a lot of lives.”

The need is clear: Johnson said that only 5.7% of those eligible for lung cancer screening actually get screened. Compare that, she noted, with how more than 90% of women get mammograms to screen for breast cancer.

“Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer,” said Mary Reid, Roswell’s chief of cancer screening, survivorship and mentorship. “It kills more people than all the other major cancers combined, and it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Screening firefighters

To get Eddy rolling, Roswell announced a program that will allow every Buffalo firefighter to get screened for lung cancer through the mobile unit’s visits to firehouses around the city.

Some studies have found that firefighters face a 60% higher risk of developing lung cancer, even though most firefighters do not qualify for lung cancer early detection based on current federal guidelines.

Roswell officials said its program to screen Buffalo firefighters is the first of its kind in New York and one of the only ones in the country.

It’s a program that Garnell Whitfield, the former Buffalo fire commissioner, appreciates.

Speaking at the Jefferson Avenue fire quarters Tuesday, Whitfield said it was the first time he had been at the firehouse since May 14, the day of the mass shooting just one block away at the Tops grocery store where his mother, Ruth Whitfield, was one of the 10 people murdered in the attack.

It was a racist attack that showed, on a national stage, Buffalo’s longstanding inequities.

“The truth of the matter is firefighters and the community are underserved — not taken care of in terms of lung cancer,” Whitfield said. “Neither of them get the care that they need in terms of lung cancer and for Roswell to be here and to provide that service, not only to the Fire Department but to this community, is a big deal.”

“I’m sure it’s going to help save lives,” he added.

Eddy’s future

This is just Eddy’s start.

Roswell has been screening Buffalo firefighters for the past two weeks and plans to screen the entire department, including retirees, Reid said.

The cancer center also is beginning to schedule residents who have reached out to see if they’re eligible for screening. Those interested can visit roswellpark.org/eddy and fill out a form to see if they qualify for a mobile lung cancer screening.

If they do, Roswell will schedule an appointment with them. Roswell officials said the screening is usually covered by insurance but if a resident doesn’t have insurance and wants to pay out of pocket, Reid said the cancer center is “establishing a really low rate for that.”

Eddy is staffed with a radiology technician, a nurse, a physician’s assistant and navigators to talk to patients getting scanned. Back at the mothership on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Roswell’s radiologists can read the scan.

It was an effort that got a big boost from the state.

This year’s state budget provided a one-time investment of $4 million to Roswell for the procurement of lung cancer screening mobile units and medical technology. Reid said the plan is to bring Eddy all over the eight counties of Western New York, from Niagara County down to Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties.

State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes said it was money well spent.

“People say, you know, you’re bringing government money,” she said Tuesday. “No, I’m bringing back taxpayer money. This money belongs to people because it was given by the people. And when we are able to take the money that people give us to provide the service that’s beneficial to all, than we’re actually doing what we’re required to do. We’re doing our job.”

Peoples-Stokes also reminded attendees of where they stood, just a couple of blocks away from heavily traveled Route 33 and the fumes that have been poured into nearby neighborhoods for decades.

That means Eddy has a lot of work to do, and a lot of people to reach.

That’s why Johnson believes Roswell and its new mobile unit have an opportunity to “change the trajectory of lung cancer in our communities” and hopefully save lives.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “We’d like to see lots of Eddys driving around all of New York State, because believe me, there are very few Eddys in the whole country that are doing this.”

A new program by Heartland Fire-Rescue and supported by the City of El Cajon would employ nurses to handle non-serious medical calls.

Firehouse.com News

The City of El Cajon is looking to improve it medical services by diverting low priority medical calls to nurses instead of sending EMS crews.

On average El Cajon handles around 16,000 emergency calls per year, approximately a third are not considered true emergencies requiring a typical ambulance and fire apparatus response.

Steve Swaney, Heartland Fire-Rescue chief, told Newsradio 600 KOGO, “We’ve done the same thing for 40 years: Someone calls 911 and we send everybody. It’s not sustainable.”

With the current EMS system, dispatchers code call severity and send EMS crews where the call is critical or not. The new program gives dispatchers the option of transferring callers to a 24/7 nurse call center.

The nurses would triage calls and provide resources to the callers including assisting them in finding non-emergency care and transportation if immediate care is not needed.

The new program has a few additional steps that require approval before it would go into operation this summer. City leaders estimate the program could reduce responses by approximately 5,000 calls.

Christina Micheletti and Anna Curtis bring pies to Syracuse firefighters each year since 1998 when they two were rescued from an apartment fire.

November 26, 2021 – By Rylee Kirk – Source syracuse.com

Syracuse, N.Y.— Twenty-three years ago, Christina Micheletti and her family almost died in a fire that ripped through her home on Syracuse’s West Side.

Christina, 21, escaped on to the roof of their apartment on Avery Avenue. Anna Curtis, 14, grabbed Christina’s 9-month-old daughter Jordan out of her crib. Anna collapsed in the baby’s room due to smoke inhalation.

Syracuse firefighters Mark Hatch and Rob Brown found the two girls in the burning home. Hatch handed the baby out the window to another firefighter and he and Brown took Anna down the stairs.

Anna and Jordan were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but they survived the fire.

Every Thanksgiving since, the family has delivered pies to the Syracuse firefighters. Today, they are delivering more than 20 pies to the 11 fire stations in the city.

“I’m obviously very thankful everything worked out the way it did,” Christina said. “Things could’ve gone a little different.”

 The fire started around 11 p.m. Sept. 16, 1998 – a Wednesday night – in the home at 606 Avery Ave., just a few houses from West Genesee Street.

On the second floor, Brown and Hatch found their way into a bedroom where the smoke forced them onto their knees, according to an article in The Post-Standard. Hatch spotted the baby on the floor with his flashlight but didn’t know if the infant was dead or alive.

Brown seconds later called out that he found what he thought was an adult. It was Anna. He and other firefighters carried her down the stairs and out the front door.

Hatch took the baby, Jordan, to another room and handed her to a firefighter on a ladder who carried her to safety.

After they were rescued, Anna spent 33 days in the hospital and had burns to 25% of her body and a breathing tube. Jordan, who suffered smoke inhalation, got out of the hospital in a couple days.

Anna was hailed as a hero at the time for getting the baby out of the fire. Anna was staying at the house at the time of the fire.

Jordan, who graduated from Solvay High School and is now 23, doesn’t remember the day of the fire, but said she knows the firefighters are the reason she is alive today.

“I’m very grateful they were there to save me,” she said.

Jordan said she has been dropping off pies as long as she can remember and enjoys it.

Hatch is now district fire chief at Station 8 on South Salina Street. (Brown has retired)

 “Every time I go by that house I think about it,” Hatch said this week.

With the family coming each year, Hatch said he has been able to watch Jordan and Anna grow up.

“It kind of makes you smile inside,” he said. “It’s something we hope for.”

Hatch said that most families helped by the fire department come by and express their appreciation, but the annual pie giveaway is a huge gesture.

“They always say the fire department goes above and beyond but they (the family) go above and beyond,” he said.

Anna, now 38, has three children and Christina, now 44, has had two other children since the fire. They still live in Central New York.

“If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have the family that we have,” said Anna’s mother, Lisa Curtis, who also helps deliver the pies each year. “We’re just forever grateful to the Syracuse Fire Department.”

Staff writer Rylee Kirk covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? Reach her at 315-396-5961 or [email protected].

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