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Minutes of Rescue Squad Captains Meeting - 04-04-07

Activity: Rescue Squad Captains’ Meeting

Date: April 4, 2007

Organizations Represented:
Public Safety Administration

Squad 1/Career
Squad 2/Franklin County Rescue
Squad 3/Ferrum Rescue

Squad 5/Callaway Rescue
Squad 8/Fork Mountain Rescue
Squad 9/Red Valley Rescue
Squad 10/Scruggs Rescue
Squad 11/Dive Team
Squad 12/Hardy Rescue

Organizations Not Represented:
Squad 4/Glade Hill Rescue
Squad 6/Snow Creek Rescue
Company 7/Boones Mill EMS
Squad 13/Cool Branch Rescue

TOPICS OF DISCUSSION: Please find below a summary of the topics that were discussed and relevant information regarding these topics. If you have any questions, please contact your Rescue Captain or Fire Chief for details.

The meeting was moderated by Public Safety Director, Daryl Hatcher. Mr. Hatcher opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and thanking them for their attendance.

Director Hatcher advised that effective April 15, 2007, calls for assistance in the Cool Branch area will not be simulcast with Glade Hill Rescue Squad. Over the past few months Cool Branch Rescue has answered their calls satisfactorily therefore simulcast for this area is not necessary at this time.

Director Hatcher also indicated that in the past few months he had responded on several rescue calls throughout the county. Mr. Hatcher advised that he was very concerned with some basic BLS procedures that he had witnessed being improperly done. He encouraged all agencies to conduct in-house training on basic skills. If your agency would like specific training contact Mike Pruitt at Public Safety and he will arrange for classes to be conducted.

Director Hatcher also advised that federal mandates have been issued regarding diesel fuel tanks. The mandated October 1 deadline and suggested July 1 deadline indicated that no longer can off road diesel be used in automobiles. The mandates say that all tanks must be cleaned prior to the new fuel being delivered. Please let the administrative office know when your agency is ready to have the diesel fuel tank cleaned. It would be best to wait until the tank is low of the fuel so that the process is quicker and easier. Also, once the tank is cleaned, make sure that no one adds the old off road fuel into the tank or it will have to be cleaned again. Any questions regarding this topic should be directed to Daryl Hatcher.

Billy Ferguson advised that the administrative office has set up a web site and that any volunteer fire or rescue agency that would like could set up a link from this site to an individual department site at no fee to the department. This site also has commonly used forms and the SOGs for Public Safety are listed. Contact Billy to get your department set up or for more information to access the site.

Billy advised that Public Safety would be upgrading their Firehouse software on April 24 at the administrative offices and hopefully up and running for agencies by mid to late summer.. The new software will be a web based program. To connect to the wireless system that the County is installing the Information Technology (IT) Department has set the requirement that they own any and all computers using this technology. To most departments this will be to their advantage because the IT department in exchange for ownership assumes responsibility for maintenance and replacement of your department’s computer. Billy has all the particulars about how to opt into this program.

Billy also presented the following points of interest:

The County will begin work on the Toms Knob Radio tower very shortly. This will improve communications in the Snow Creek area of the County.
The administrative offices have had a new telephone system installed. This new system is a computer based phone which has many capabilities which the previous system did not. The Public Safety office is the pilot department for the phones.
Billy also reminded everyone that the County has a SOG regarding stand-by fees for different events needing an ambulance or fire truck. A copy of the SOG is on the website or you can contact the administrative office for a copy of the SOG.
In association with NIMS, everyone is asked not to use 10 codes on the radio. The dispatchers are also doing away with the use of 10 codes.
Some agencies are not marking up their units at night. Make sure that your agency marks up their unit the dispatchers will be using the marked up information to determine who can respond to calls for assistance. Also, if there are multiple trucks en route to a call, no truck should be disregarded until the first truck gets on the scene.
There will be an organizational meeting for a newly formed Swift Water Rescue team on May 9.
The administrative office has started a program for people who want to volunteer but do not necessarily want to join an agency. This program would have these “volunteers” performing such roles as filling in for career staff that needed to be off from work or taking emergency transports from CFMH to Roanoke if a Carilion truck was not available. This is an example of some of their responsibilities but they are not limited to this.
Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital under the direction of Dr. Charles Lane, OMD, has started a program to allow specially trained field medics to call a Heart Alert. This means that if one of these medics using specialized equipment sees certain patient indications that the field medic can call a Heart Alert which means that the patient would go straight to the Cath Lab in Roanoke. The ultimate goal of this program is to have a patient that needs a cath be picked up from the place of the call, ie, home, work, etc. by a rescue squad, and be in and out of the cath lab in 90 minutes. Contact Billy Ferguson for more information on this cutting edge medical treatment.

Mike Pruitt, Training and Retention/Recruitment Coordinator, presented the following information:

He passed out a copy of the Skills Evaluation guidelines to everyone present. A copy is attached for your information and for posting.
He advised that agencies that needed training to contact him and he would try to schedule the necessary training.
He also advised that an EMS recognition night has tentatively been scheduled for Monday, May 21 from 5:00 PM until 8:00 PM at Waid Park. More information will be sent out on this in the near future.
He advised that we were working with WDBJ 7 to shoot a retention and recruitment video. More about this later.

Any questions regarding any of this information should be directed to Mike.

Questions and Comments were called for.

The meeting was adjourned.