Hose Load Training

Today our training was to learn about the hose loads on all the rigs. We are standardizing the loads so we can deploy them and reload them no matter what rig you’re on. It was a good training as we have new people on the department and some of them have never seen some of our loads before.

I was there for about an hour when a call came in for someone who fell. We stayed at training and only the ambulance went. The ambulance crew called for us to help the patient get to the ambulance.

After the call we went to station one. Chuck spent time talking to Gollnick about a car that Chuck is looking for. Tyson, VanNess and I spent time talking about PARD and WalMart. We were waiting for Chuck for a while. Finally when he was done we did some drive time with Tyson, but because it was so late we only drove for a half-hour. On the way back Chuck and I got into a discussion about issues with the union and the reserves. I talked to him about the fact that there are certain things the union does in the name of job protection that I think is not in the best interest of the city.

My biggest issue is that there are EMT’s on the department who could respond on an ambulance when things go sour, but instead they would rather ask for an ambulance in another state to come help. They absolutely refuse to allow reserves to work an ambulance. At what point do the needs of the city and people who need help outweigh the needs of the union?

I am not sure how the citizens would feel about the whole situation, but I know if any of the reserves ever tried to make this a big issue, they could pretty much say goodbye to their career as a reserve firefighter.

I personally don’t have any big issues with the union. I just wish we could be more of one team rather than two teams. Afterall I believe we are here to serve the community and help people who need help. Chuck tried to explain that the reserves are not held to a high standard like the career firefighters are. He said that reserves are not professional like the career guys. It is a huge difference that he know because he has worked on both sides.

So granting him the point and assuming that he correct about that we can do two things, we can make the reserves held to a higher standard or we can continue to allow them to be substandard in the view of the career staff.

It was interesting I was talking with the new paramedic who was a volunteer for many years. He claimed that he doesn’t have a problem with the volunteers and/or reserves. He said he does not forget where he came from. I told him that I would like to ask him that in a year to see if he has changed his mind on that.

I have seen reserve after reserve become career and they all seem to forget what it meant to be a reserve. They would all love to see the reserve program go away. I question how they can feel that way. Chuck I would argue is the same way. He is a self-hating reserve. He has been career and even since coming back to being a reserve he doesn’t seem to identify with us as much. There have been a few times, but more often than not I feel like he would rather not be one of us.

When I am with Colfax Fire I have run EMS calls from start to finish. I have done the reports, and worked with patients. I am not incompetent, but it seems that while I am a reserve I am not good enough to be an EMT. But I don’t think it is necessarily that I am not good enough. The argument is that if the city feels that they can hire someone at ten bucks an hour to do the work of a career firefighter then the city will opt to hire more reserves and not hire career guys.

I would argue that the city will hire the number of career guys necessary to run the fire department and account for the public safety of the people within the city, and then augment those number with reserves who work part-time and can help with things get busy. Who can be extra manpower who can run the third ambulance when we already have two running calls. I don’t think that would be too far fetched.

When the time comes and the city grows enough that we really need to staff three ambulances full time, then hire more career firefighters and the reserves can be the ones who man the fourth ambulance, etc. But the career firefighters believe that once you allow a reserve to run an ambulance that they city will never hire another career guy.