ninemm wrote:unhappycamper wrote:Then the message came across right. The city intentionally cut emergency services instead of fluff and corruption.
Perhaps you misunderstood. What I was trying to say was that he implied that fire personnel would purposely slow down their response.
No, they always and I mean always go above and beyond. These are firefighters and paramedics that are behind a radio now. But it WILL slow down, there is no way to avoid it. At any given time there is at least ten firefighters on duty and at least eight answering and dispatching runs. When the system crashes which it has done 16 times in the last 12 months, every run is now done old school, that is to say the call must be entered by hand and printed off to a runner who distributes the copies to fire channel 1 and 2. The third copy goes to a station radio operator who with another firefighter figure who is the closest, who is available and then manually assign them to the run. It takes eleven people to do it, more often than not it is done with ten.
When a storm rolls through, all ten or eleven are needed for the increased call volume load plus coordinating with power and utilities. A 2000 run day can overwhelm 10 people without much else going wrong. But the city manager wants no more than eight on duty at any time. There are furloughs (unpaid leave) that must be satisfied so for 10% of the year there will be only seven on duty. This last weekend when a BRIEF storm came through, 911 hold time approached a minute to a minute and a half. That was with eleven people. Bow let's say the same hits with eight or even seven (BTW 1-2 may be on break and not immediately reachable) now your hold times are climbing, three -four- five minutes? Oh yeah, there is a 1 in 30 chance the station right up the road no longer has a truck or engine since they will be out of service as part of the "savings". So momma calls 911 holding her choking baby and she is on hold for untold critical minutes before she even talks to anyone, now she gets someone they do there best to tell her what to do WHILE dispatching a run (thousands more are on hold) only to learn the truck or engine that was 2 minutes away isn't there any more.
All communicators are veteran firefighter/paramedics. When you call with an unconscious grandma, house fire or whatever, they KNOW what that looks like; they can see it. They know what to do to tell you how to save that life as they are dispatching and while the ambulance or engine is coming your way.
Firefighters don't become firefighters to get rich and
all would rather die than purposely delay or not give all they have to save you or your property. It is not a veiled threat they will delay response (that is insulting) it is a statement born up by history. It WILL happen.
Added in Edit:
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/09/19/fire ... positions/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/09/21/dall ... city-hall/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
