BERLIN — A malfunctioning fire siren in Berlin earlier this month reignited some frustration among residents and seems to have prompted a few to question the alarm’s necessity.
This week the Berlin Fire Company (BFC) defended the need for the decades old siren, but leaders confirmed they will be conducting their own evaluation as to whether the alarms should be re-located or remain as they are.
Right around dawn on the morning of July 4, the siren that sits behind town hall experienced a malfunction, subjecting residents to roughly 30 minutes of alarm. The sound was subdued compared to normal alerts, but still produced significant noise. While inarguably disorienting, BFC President David Fitzgerald said that this was probably only the second malfunction of the siren in his 26 years with the company.
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9 comments:
with all of today's technology and each of the fireman having communication at their side we have pagers and alert systems there is absolutely no need for that siren to be in Berlin anywhere regardless if its on Town Hall the one on Franklin Avenue or any of the others in the town directly it's allowed it's obnoxious and it is very annoying
please read the article in its entirety and see the comments on the dispatch facebook page---the "technology" as you say--#1 they have been receiving their text pages at times when the call is over or had been going on 5-6 minutes--do you want that long of a delay before the volunteers know there is a call--#2 the pagers cost money--how much was not stated--I used google and it appears they could be $500 or $600 each and the article says the town has cut their budget over 1 million dollars in three years so every fireperson may not have one #3 not only does it alert them but the public to be aware emergency and civilian vehicles could be responding and for civil defense/emergency management I went to the coffee house and did not see a petition today--the owner was quoted that she supports the fire company she should support getting their one million dollars in funding restored before we lose the volunteers and have to hire EMT and fire people full time. The siren will be the least of our worries then.
BFD=BIGGOT FIRE DEPARTMENT.
I am a full time paid paramedic. I am also a volunteer FF/Paramedic. Since I work 24hr shifts and have to frequently get woken up in the middle if the night to run a call, when I'm off I don't have the pager on at night time. Well this morning my volunteer station had a non-breathing subject which since it requires a medical assist, the fire whistle also went off. This woke me up and was the only reason I went on the call. This person happened to be in cardiac arrest, I ended up being only the third person on scene. Believe it or not a cardiac arrest call requires a minimum if about 4-6 people. You need additional people to switch off doing CPR, all the while the paramedic needs to be able to focus on the airway, establishing IV/IO access, pushing meds, rhythm checks, difribrilation...not to mention you need additional people to help get the "lifeless" patient into the ambulance.
Basically if I hadn't heard that whistle then we wouldn't have had enough EMS personel on scene to efficiently run the call.
I'm not affiliated with any fire department but I did live in OC for 20 plus years. I found the fire whistles to be helpful when I was driving. When I heard them go off, I knew to look around me for any coming emergency vehicles and to move over if necessary before they were up on me as happens from time to time.
I can understand where 30 mins of it would be annoying but for heavens sake, it's really a trivial thing to get annoyed about in the scheme of things.
I have the most calm, serene, peaceful best life anyone can have and I firmly believe it is because I don't sweat the small stuff such as a fire whistle and tend to look for the benefit in things.
Anonymous said...
with all of today's technology and each of the fireman having communication at their side we have pagers and alert systems there is absolutely no need for that siren to be in Berlin anywhere regardless if its on Town Hall the one on Franklin Avenue or any of the others in the town directly it's allowed it's obnoxious and it is very annoying
July 17, 2014 at 11:55 AM
You wouldn't think it was obnoxious and annoying if your house was on fire.
Blogger None said...
I am a full time paid paramedic. I am also a volunteer FF/Paramedic. Since I work 24hr shifts and have to frequently get woken up in the middle if the night to run a call, when I'm off I don't have the pager on at night time. Well this morning my volunteer station had a non-breathing subject which since it requires a medical assist, the fire whistle also went off. This woke me up and was the only reason I went on the call. This person happened to be in cardiac arrest, I ended up being only the third person on scene. Believe it or not a cardiac arrest call requires a minimum if about 4-6 people. You need additional people to switch off doing CPR, all the while the paramedic needs to be able to focus on the airway, establishing IV/IO access, pushing meds, rhythm checks, difribrilation...not to mention you need additional people to help get the "lifeless" patient into the ambulance.
Basically if I hadn't heard that whistle then we wouldn't have had enough EMS personel on scene to efficiently run the call.
July 17, 2014 at 3:11 PM
And the patient still died.
DOH!!
A couple of people have already made comments to which I can concur. Yes every responder in Worcester County has a pager and it is there responsibility to have it on there belt or in the charger. If you want to claim you are on call 24/7/365 then you better have that pager readily available.
I think it is valuable to point out that if you hear the siren blowing expect to see volunteers responding to the station or to the scene so please move over. Also you should expect to see emergency vehicles responding so please move over.
"Believe it or not a cardiac arrest call requires a minimum if about 4-6 people."
A minimum is one number not 3 different numbers. Make up your mind. Why would one cardiac arrest require 4 people, then another one require 5 people then another one require 6 people? You don't make sense and you embarrass the true paramedics in real EMS.
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