Sandy Bartlett
I don’t know if you have seen any of my writings about eliminating our EMT’s in favor of hiring 2 more firemen—high pay, benefits, will they drive the EMT’s truck or will you have to buy something new for them? etc. etc.)I just wrote a new one in Facebook, but I, and many others, can’t see why you would want to take away our wonderful EMT’s—Bill and I have had MUCH experience with them the last few years—for more firemen. The whole crew always arrives at our house—and the EMT’s are THE FIRST RESPONDERS. the firemen sit in their truck, the policemen wander around (they do come in our house occasionally because they know us but they DO NOT interfere with the EMT’s).
In addition to helping Ridgewood residents directly, there are many more of them being trained during the years to be able to assist with ANY kind of disaster that presents itself when they are out in the public or at their jobs than the limited number of firefighters. And the EMT’s are ALWAYS available while the fireman’s first priority is to be ready for fires, car and truck accidents, etc. And NOT all the firefighters are EMT’s and are certainly not Paramedics, which is 2 additional years of schooling and Internship in medical emergencies. They are actually more qualified than any doctor—except for Emergency Room—as doctors train in their specialties while EMT’s and Paramedics are always freshly prepared. the only doctor in our daughter’s room in the hospital was not an emergency doctor and when she went into cardiac arrest he panicked and had to remove himself from the room so the ‘experts” could take over. So you are basically hiring firefighters to stand by while the paramedics from the hospital—if our volunteers are gone—take over and even the Paramedics don’t get the pay and benefits the firemen do!
In addition, the FIRST RESPONDERS have more experience with medical emergencies than all our firemen put together. they also go on to become doctors and paramedics because of the love for the job they have developed as a volunteer. Our grandson is finishing with his paramedic class work—all of whose classes were taken directly with the medical students.
PLEASE PLEASE TAKE ANOTHER THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY PLANNING TO DO—AT MUCH MORE MONEY AND MUCH LESS MEDICAL EMERGENCY TRAINING THAN YOU HAVE TODAY!!
Who wrote that, Mrs Potatohead…?