PSD question.....

[Gary D.]

Two words, CROSS TRAINING.

Where at?

Your not going to teach a Fireman CSI stuff or a LEO advanced medical stuff. LEO's and medical can be a legal nightmare. Been there and don't want to go back.

Gary D.

 

[Wildcard]

CHP uses flight medics, medic first so they say. Fire fighters cross to Paramedic all the time. SWAT type teams use medics on there teams, all the time. In a perfect world, we would all work together but there are too many egos and turf wars to allow that to happen.
Home, Alaska home, the state troopers are in charge of all rescues. Why? Becouse they have guns, not becouse they are trained to do tech rescues.
I have had a lot of crime scene preservation training, so if I can do it, why not everyone else?

 

[Gary D.]

CHP uses flight medics, medic first so they say. Fire fighters cross to Paramedic all the time. SWAT type teams use medics on there teams, all the time. In a perfect world, we would all work together but there are too many egos and turf wars to allow that to happen.
Home, Alaska home, the state troopers are in charge of all rescues. Why? Becouse they have guns, not becouse they are trained to do tech rescues.
I have had a lot of crime scene preservation training, so if I can do it, why not everyone else?

In Idaho the Sheriff is charged with all rescues. Some counties pass that duty onto FD's. Our county has worked on bringing all available units together to get the job done.

As far as the diving goes we have opened the team up to outside agencies. When they actually saw what we delt with we got only one taker from the largest PD in our area. Nobody wants it but we all work very close together to get what ever job we need to do done.

We must have the nations best working relationship between LEO's and FD's.

Not everyone is interested in working crime scenes. Being trained and doing it daily are two different things. Forcing someone into the training so they can be on a team would just make matters worse

Gary D.

Gary D.

 

[Wildcard]

I concure on the forcing part. When Sacramento City fire decided they needed to go to Paramedic level, 80% failed...I have no desire to work crime scenes but end up being first in way too often...So is the solution a seperate team made up of cops, FFs and medics? I still see a lot of ego problems.
Let me know if you come up with an answer, Id love to hear it. As it stands, one agency should run things and cooperate with the rest, IMHO.

 

[Gary D.]

I concure on the forcing part. When Sacramento City fire decided they needed to go to Paramedic level, 80% failed...I have no desire to work crime scenes but end up being first in way too often...So is the solution a seperate team made up of cops, FFs and medics? I still see a lot of ego problems.
Let me know if you come up with an answer, Id love to hear it. As it stands, one agency should run things and cooperate with the rest, IMHO.

People that let their ego's get in the way of the jobs we do need to seek employment elsewhere.

The way we work here is we find the victim's and hand them over to the medics, which are firefighters, and we work the case. We are on scene first 90%+ of the time anyway.

Most our fire stations are staffed with EMT's and a Paramedic plus the fire fighters. The ambulances come out of our fire stations.

Off to bed I have a working dive in the morning.

Gary D.

 

[Scubamedicjoe]

well you can do like we did our team is a mix of firemen , paramedics local rescue squad and several police agencies , who was kind enough to send me to crime science investigations also help me with my wife when I bought my digital U/W housing and strobe .
I just feel you get better working relations if we all work together and as far money it get very expensive to do this right my guess would be some wear around $10,000 per diver .

 

[6Gill]

Where at?

Your not going to teach a Fireman CSI stuff or a LEO advanced medical stuff. LEO's and medical can be a legal nightmare. Been there and don't want to go back.

Gary D.

My department at one time decided to upgrade all commishioned (field officers) from Red Cross advanced first aid to EMTs. We did this and I did enjoy the training. Of course the department has to see to re-certification and continued training for new hires, etc. This got to be very expensive for the department. As well as a scheduling nightmare.

So, they took a very close look at the program to see if it was really cost effective. What they found was that in very few instances did the extra training (Over advanced first aid.) do much for the average officer on the road. Why? The biggest reason was that in most all of the Counties service area Fire Department Aid Cars, most with both Para-Medics and EMTs responded to accidents and incidents in such a timely manor, that officers did not have any time to practice any thing that wasn't covered in advanced first aid. Most were to busy, especially on vehicle accidents protecting the scene and directing traffic, etc. to do much for victims, except for quick advanced first aid.

The only area that EMT training showed some promise was in our Search & Rescue units (King County, WA has a very large SAR unit.) So, officers in these units were encouraged to either maintain or seek this training on their own. (Not required.) Why didn't the department pay for their training? Again cost effectivness. The bulk of King Co's SAR program is done by civilian volunteers, many of whom are EMTs or Para-Medics. The officers involved, usually are sitting in the CP directing & supporting the search efforts and would not be near the victim(s).

 

[TheAvatar]

Our county's water rescue team is a 100% volunteer team that operates under the supervision of the SO. Two of our members are deputies. Sourrounding county teams are extensions of their FDs. We train with them. Our county's 100% volunteer SAR team is also under the SO.

 

[watercop]

Our team was totally volunteer made up of Police, Fire and Medic personel. Most agencies in my area do not have PSD teams. They call us. With the amount of training our team did, and the way it was structured, most agencies just use us so they dont have to spend the money for a team on their own.

We have now merged with a volunteer fire department in order to help us receive grants and other financial assistance (as of yesterday)

I dont think having two teams is a bad thing... especially if they will work together... (if that could ever happen) if one team takes a break for lunch, dive intervals, etc. the other team can go to search. This will also help in fatigue in the divers.

 

[indypddiver]

Here in Indianapolis, we have both a police dive team as well as a fire dive team (not to mention the hand-full of other teams within the city townships). Both are large departments. The idea is that the fire team responds to rescue situations (the p.d. also responds). They hold the scene for one hour, at which time it is then transfered to the police team and is deemed a recovery operation. The police team handles recoveries, evidence searches, vehicle tows, etc. Obviously, we have had more than our share of turf wars over the years and it has come up on several occassions that two teams may not be the best idea. Unfortunately, a police team is a necessary evil. There will always be bodies to recover, stolen cars to pluck out, and searches for guns. Rarely, if ever, is a person realistically "rescued" in an actual scuba capacity. Typically, the rescue is done on top of the water or its too late. Therefore, as much as I truly respect and love my fellow firefighter-diving buddies, I think it would be them that ended operations first.