Author: Kathryn Morales

September 11 Responder Addresses Sussex Police

Sussex Police

Christopher Suprun, a Pentagon 9-11 responder, spent the morning of March 17, 2022, with members of the Sussex Police Department discussing September 11, the impact of coronavirus on public safety, and how public safety responders must be prepared for the next event whether war in Europe, another pandemic, or some other disaster and maintain their own mental wellbeing if they are going to be successful.

Christopher Suprun is an experience speaker and spent time with the Sussex Police while in the UK.

“I always enjoy building bridges with responders in other jurisdictions be they across the road or across an ocean,” said Suprun who has lectured to tens of thousands of responders over the past decade.

“COVID-19 has created a terrible burden on us all – which was predictable – and it is time we came together to support our fellow responders whether they are fire, EMS, police, or other disaster responders.”

Sussex Police: One of Many Stops

Suprun was in Brighton and Sussex along with other stops in the United Kingdom speaking to responders from each discipline and organizing humanitarian relief for the people of Ukraine on behalf of The September 11 Foundation.

Christopher Suprun is one of The September 11 Foundation’s founding board members. His past résumé has spanned more than twenty years as a paramedic and firefighter. He has served on numerous career incidents. These include responding to the September 11 attack on the Pentagon.

Suprun’s three decades in community service and public safety has been recognized by many. He has been honored by four states and numerous organizations for his work on September 11 and with pediatric prehospital response.

Suprun still works as a street paramedic. While his initial EMT training and paramedic school was in Virginia, he is a Texas Department of State Health Services certified paramedic and Advanced Coordinator. He also has recently served as a flight paramedic. He is the former Chairman of the EMS for Children National Resource Center Advisory Council.

Suprun is Adjunct Faculty for EMS at Dallas College and previously was an Adjunct Instructor in Emergency Medicine for The George Washington University. He has taught on a wide variety of subjects for public safety agencies across the spectrum. Agencies include regional hospitals, federal law enforcement, Fortune 500 firms, and foreign governments including organizations with similar missions as the Sussex Police.
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Categories: 9-11 Remembrance

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Renovo Fire Department Chief Charged

The Renovo Fire Department Fire Chief was charged with DUI.

Jimmy Ray Risley, 64, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated. Local law enforcement say he was driving a department ambulance at the time.

Renovo Fire Department

Renovo Fire Department DUI Incident

Law enforcement says Risley was driving the department ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital, with a patient in the rig at the time, at approximately 6:40 PM on January 26.

When law endorcement attempted to pull over the ambulance in Gibson Township, police said they observed it cross over the center line twenty-seven times, the white lane ten times, and was in the other lane three times.

The chief, when they pulled him over, is reported to have had bloodshot eyes and look nervous. The report also says the ambulance smelled like alcohol.

In 2020, a Mississippi EMT, Kerstii Groce, claimed she was having seizures and not drunk during a similar incident.

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Dallas Fire Rescue: Kicking Patients Standard of Care?

Kicking Patients Standard of Care

The Dallas Fire Rescue Department appears to have new treatments at its disposal. Kicking patients standard of care now after former firefighter/paramedic Brad Cox was not charged after an internal public integrity investigation.

Kicking Patients Standard of Care

Cox was filmed on police body camera kicking a homeless man repeatedly in the head.

Dallas Fire has terminated Brad Cox, but the Texas Department of State Health Services still shows him with an active paramedic license.

One attorney in the area called the situation “tragic.”

“This situation should have been prosecuted, but instead the thin blue line returns to protect the fire service. This is why people take the law into their own hands,” she continued. “By not handling the situation appropriately we are encouraging every day citizens to act out because they know those held to the highest standards have no standards.”

Kicking Patients Standard of Care Nationwide

In 2020 a Fairfax paramedic was charged with assault. In that case police officers on scene were recording the incident on body worn cameras as was the case in Dallas. It is unclear why officers on scene in Dallas did not intervene during the assault.

More recently Edward Blake was sentenced after being labeled a serial rapist by local police officials who also acted when information was presented about him using department drugs to intoxicate his victims.

 

 

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Major Accident in Blue Mountains

Icy interstate 84 was the scene of major accident in Blue Mountains with nearly one hundred cards and trucks damaged on Monday afternoon per Oregon State Police.

In at least one case, there were fifteen to twemty cars and trucks in the pileup.

The OSP was called about 12:20 p.m. to an initial pileup about 20 miles east of Pendleton and just east of the Deadman Pass summit on Interstate 84.

Major Accident in Blue Mountains

Multiple agencies were working together, including Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management; Pendeton Fire; Umatilla County Fire District 1; Pilot Rock Fire; East Umatilla County Fire and Rescue; the Consolidated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Fire and Ambulance and Emergency Management; La Grande Fire and Ambulance; the Oregon Department of Transportation and additional medic units from Union County in Oregon and Walla Walla County in Washington.

Major Accident in Blue Mountains Comes Shortly After Illinois 100 Vehicle Accident

The Blue Mountains accident comes just days after a one hunded vehicle accident on Interstate 39 in Illinois. Both incidents included issues with weather and drivers losing control of their vehicle.

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Categories: EMS Fire Police

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FDNY EMS Terminates 36 Over COVID19

FDNY EMS Terminates 36 employees over the COVID19 vaccination mandate started last year under Mayor Bill deBlasio. The move came after the employees exhausted their last legal challenge to the workplace vaccine mandate.

The last-minute effort by a group of anti-vaccine municipal workers to avoid getting fired failed Friday, February 18, 2022. Mayor Eric Adams said other vaccine-resistant employees were finally getting the jab.

A Brooklyn federal judge rejected the group’s request to temporarily bar the city from terminating employees who have not been vaccinated. Similar suits failed in court, with the latest one arguing that the rules violate workers’ “fundamental religious and constitutional rights.”

FDNY EMS Terminates 36

“Plaintiffs have not met their burden of demonstrating their entitlement to the extraordinary remedy of a temporary restraining order,” declared Judge Diane Gujarati.

The vaccine mandate was implemented per city management after the Eastern District of New York judge’s ruling. New York City then terminated 36 FDNY EMS members for failing to get vaccinated, according to the Local 2507, which represents Fire Department EMS workers.

Public employees against the vaccine mandates received more bad news Friday when they lost on another legal front. United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor turned down a request by fourteen city Department of Education employees who were terminated after their requests for religious exemptions to city vaccine requirements was denied.

FDNY EMS Terminates 36 – The Culmination Of More Than A Year

The FDNY vaccination plan started in December 2020, but immeidately faced hurdles as up to fifty percent of FDNY responders said they would decline the vaccine. This number remained steady for many until their jobs were on the line until President Trump said to “get the vaccine.”

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Categories: EMS FDNY

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FDNY Firefighter Fee Part of Attack on US Capitol

FDNY Firefighter Fee

The worst news is true as headline read for the Fire Department of New York: Retired FDNY firefighter Fee was part of attack on US Capitol.

FDNY Firefighter Fee

Thomas Fee, 53, of Freeport, Long Island, admitted in text messages to an acquaintance he was part of the riot and sent a photo of himself surrounded by rioters inside the US Capitol Rotunda, according to court papers.

FDNY Firefighter Fee

Fee who is seen in the US Capitol during the attack has a history of racist behavior.

In 2004 at his volunteer firehouse, Fee repeatedly taunted a black physician. He was suspended from his Hempstead volunteer fire department for the behavior, but no action happened at FDNY because no crimes were charged.

The announcement about FDNy Firefighter Fee follows a statement last week from the Fire Commissioner saying FDNY would cooperate with federal authorities regarding any allegations.

FDNY Firefighter Fee, FDNY, NYPD – All With Ongoing Issues

IAFF Local 22 endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election in October 2020, but since then there have been multiple reports of problems in New York’s public safety departments.

FDNY Firefighter Fee

An on duty NYPD officer used his vehicle while on duty to broadcast pro-Trump messages in violation of directives not to engage in politics on duty. Additionally, the department’s division director for equal opportunity, James Kobel, has now retired rather than face an administrative hearing over chat room posts he made which were racist in nature.

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FDNY Commissioner On January 6 Capitol Attack

January 6 Capitol Attack

The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) put out a statement on the presence of active or retired members from the FDNY ranks during the January 6 Capitol attack.

January 6 Capitol Attack

The statement says “department members, whether active or retired, must not engage in conduct that tends to bring the Department into disrespute…” Both FDNY and the New York Police Department are facing multiple issues of this nature.

Yesterday it was reported that James Kobel submitted his resignation paperwork in advance of a deaprtment administrative hearing over racist posts he had made under an alias.

January 6 Capitol Attack

Several FDNY and other fire department jackets and hats were seen during the January 6 Capitol attack.

January 6 Capitol Attack

In October 2020, IAFF Local 22 endorsed Donald Trump for re-election, despite the national union coming out strong for Vice President Biden. The same month a patrol officer was suspended for using his patrol car to broadcast pro-Trump messages.

 

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Kobel Retires From NYPD

Kobel Retires

Deputy Inspector James Kobel retires per paperwork submitted to New York Police Department (NYPD). Kobel was assigned to the Equal Employment Opportunity Division until a two month investigation found he had been making prejudiced, sexist and intolerant comments in an online chat room under a pseudonym.

Kobel Retires

NYPD officials have concluded that a high-ranking officer responsible for combating workplace harassment in the New York Police Department wrote dozens of virulently racist posts about Black, Jewish and Hispanic people under a pseudonym on an online chat board favored by police officers.

Kobel, filed his retirement papers late last week as the NYPD inquiry was zeroing in on him. Officials said Monday that they still planned to bring administrative charges against him for falsely denying that he had written the offensive messages.

“The evidence is strong,” said one senior police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. “We have no doubt that it’s him.”

Investigators considered the possibility that Inspector Kobel had been framed by someone who had purposely peppered the posts with details about his life — many, if not most, of which could be found through research on the internet. As department investigators finalized their search they concluded that Inspector Kobel lied during an interview last week in which he denied he was “Clouseau.” He had been questioned three times.

Kobel Retires

Captain Chris Monahan, who heads the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents the inspector, defended him in a statement, saying he had served the city and the Police Department for 29 years.

“Given the current political climate and anti-police sentiment, D.I. Kobel did not see it as possible to get a fair administrative trial and decided to avail himself of the opportunity to file for retirement,” the statement said.

Kobel Retires

Kobel will take a full pension with him into retirement despite a clear disagrace to the badge he held.

 

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Do Not Transport Orders

Do Not Transport Order Given

Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) has issued do not transport orders for patients requiring intensive care as area ICUs are full with COVID19 patients. EMS providers are also bring told to ration oxygen.

Do Not Transport Order Given

Southern California has one of the country’s worst outbreaks of COVID19. ICU bed availability plunged to zero in Southern California last month as more and more people were admitted to hospital seeking treatment for the novel coronavirus.

Medical facilities do not have the space or providers to take in patients who do not have a chance of survival, according to the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency. The Do Not Transport orders are not necessarily out of the norm for military style triage.

As of Monday evening, there were 7,544 people hospitalized in Los Angeles due to Covid-19 and just 17 available adult ICU beds, according to county health data. Due to the shortage of beds, the county EMS said patients whose hearts have stopped, despite efforts of resuscitation, should no longer be transported to hospitals.

Do Not Transport Order Given

If there are no signs of breathing or a pulse, EMS will continue to perform resuscitation for at least 20 minutes, the EMS memo said. If the patient is stabilized after the period of resuscitation, the patient would then be transported to a hospital. If the patient is declared dead at the scene or if no pulse can be restored, paramedics will no longer transport the patient to the hospital.

Do Not Transport Orders

There is also an acute shortage of oxygen in Los Angeles and the nearby San Joaquin Valley, due to COVID19. It is putting pressure on the entire emergency medicine system and forcing EMS responders to conserve the supply.

In order to maintain normal circulation of the blood to organs and tissue needed for the body to function, EMS said an oxygen saturation of at least 90% will be sufficient. This does follow American Heart Association standards on resuscitation training.

Do Not Transport Order Given

California Gov. Gavin Newsom formed a task force to address the issue last week. It is working with local and state partners to help refill oxygen tanks and mobilize them to hospitals and facilities most in need, but he has faced mounting criticism after telling Californians to quarantine at home and he was seen dining with health industry executives at the opulent French Laundry.

These new orders are likely to increase the toll on EMS responders which was described this summer as more dangerous than 9-11. Smaller population states and communities have not been immune to the issues faced by EMS and compounding problems are healthcare providers attacking the ongoing immunization process.

 

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Ogden Ambulance Theft

An Ogden ambulance theft occurred early Sunday. The emergency vehicle was stolen from the area of 3rd Street and Washington Boulevard around 2:50 a.m., the city said in a statement.

Ogden Ambulance Theft

An Ogden Fire Department crew was responding to a medical emergency in the area. When they exited the building to transport the patient to the hospital, the ambulance was gone.

Ogden Police shared a post Sunday morning about the theft. Around 8:30 am a tipster reported that they saw the ambulance in a neighbor’s back yard on the 500 block of 7th Street.

No Suspect Or Motive In Ogden Ambulance Theft

Authorities recovered the stolen ambulance early Sunday morning in Ogden. They found the vehicle was not damaged and no equipment was taken.

“Although the recovery was a success, the theft of the ambulance compromised patient care. The delay in patient care while waiting for a second ambulance to arrive could have had negative outcome for this patient in need,” Ogden City wrote. “Driving an emergency vehicle requires training and when driven improperly creates a dangerous situation for the unknowing citizens who share the roadway.”

Police are investigating, but there are no current suspects or motives for the ambulance joyride.

In other weekend news, an AMR ambulance erupted in flames in Washington State.

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