Episode 373: The Best of The Bravest: Mitch Stern (Volume 74)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike Did You Even? Podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. You're listening to

(01:02):
the best of the Bravest interviews with the FD and YS.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
A week.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
And the streak lately of FD and Y e MS continues.
You know, we've been trying to document more of the
EMS division. You know how I feel about the EMS
division and EMS in general, So plenty of stories to
be told by those who work in an engine company,
in a truck company. In October, November, December. You'll hear
those guys too. But there's been a streak of guys
that I've been wanting to talk to, and we've been

(01:33):
talking to them lately. Bill Gross has been on this program.
Mark Peck, who's already in the chat, has been on
this program. Mike Grant was just on the program, and
tonight I'll introduce Mitch Stern momentarily. So if you haven't
checked out the previous episode, like I said, it was
Mike Grant who I had not under the Best of
the Bravest banner, but rather for the event inside the
NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. He was never in NYPD E

(01:55):
s U but he was in transits ESU Emergency Medical
Rescue Unit from eighty six to night three. That's why
I put him under that banner. And that was a
great show, and I got a lot of positive feedback
off that one might message me himself. So that was
the fun show. Go back and watch that one if
you haven't, I know tonight will be a fun show.
My guest certainly has a lot of stories of the
pictures that he set me or any indication. So hello

(02:17):
to everybody I mentioned, Mark, Christian Williams, Chris Enden, of
course he's been on the program before, John Costello, and
Joe Malika. So very much looking forward to tonight. As always,
we will do our ads and then introduce mister stone
Stern rather momentarily, and as always, with the baseball playoffs
coming up, it's timely. How about a word from the
shop seat baseball fans. If you bleed Braves, Country, red

(02:39):
and blue, this one's for you. Check out the chop
Seed podcast, hosted by Victor Mignetti's. Every week, Victor dives
deep into all things Atlanta Braves and Major League Baseball
and game recaps and trade rumors to player spotlights and
the latest league news. Rather it's breaking down the line up,
debating pitching rotations, or talking postseason chances. The chop Sea
gives you on. It takes sharp analysis and a fans

(03:02):
true passion for the game. So if you're looking for
your go to Braves MLB podcasts, pull up a chair
and join the conversation. Subscribe to chop Seat today on Spotify,
Apple podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. He
gives him Braves Country. There's always room at the chop Seat.
So in a couple of days, the New York Yankees

(03:22):
are either going to be a wildcard team or they
are going to be American League East Division champions. They're
playing Baltimore tonight, so we'll see what happens in Toronto
is playing Tampa. But this is not ESPN, Rather this
is Mike de new Haven. Then, before we get to
our guest tonight, you know the deal by now. If
you need a PI, come on, don't go to anybody else,
Go to Bill Ryan. The Mike the new Haven Podcast
is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan Investigative Group.

(03:44):
If you need an elite PI, look no further than
the Elite Ryan Investigative Group. Which is run by retired
NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty year veteran of the
department who served a majority of his career in the
Detective Bureau, most notably in the Arson Explosion squad. So,
if you need a PI to handle anything for fraud,
legal services, and anything else that you might require, contact

(04:04):
Bill at three four seven four one seven sixteen ten.
Again three four seven four one seven sixteen ten. Reach
him at his website or the email that you see here. Again,
if you need a PI, look no further than Bill
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative Group, a proud supporter and
sponsor of the Mike Den New Haven Podcast. The alternate
title to this episode, according to Mark Peck and the
Chat and now draws three Bruce's Revenge. With that said,

(04:29):
my next guest is one of the most accomplished and
experienced figures in New York City EMS history. From his
early days in the streets of Brooklyn as a paramedicist
leadership roles within the FT and WI as a special
Operations Lieutenant on the EMS side, administrative Captain and commanding
Officer of Emergency Medical Dispatch, He's seen the EMS profession
evolve in real time over the course of nearly five
decades and rather responding to multi casualty incidents, as we'll

(04:51):
talk about the night, managing dispatch systems for a city
of millions, or conducting paramilitary rescue operations overseas, touching on
his military service. His life is medicated the service in
every sense of the word, and that for this volume
seventy four of the best of the Bravest Interviews with
the FD and Wives Elite, we're taking a trip to Sternville.
Baby Mitch the Shark Stern is here tonight. Welcome, sir,

(05:11):
how are you?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh, thank you for having me, Mike, thank.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You for being here. So before we get into anything,
and he did a lot, we'll talk about where you
grew up first and how that set the stage for
things you were telling me off the air. Why don't
you fill the audience in on the air.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Well, I'm born in Brooklyn on Ocean Parkway, and I
grew up in that neighborhood. And I got a taste
of EMS by having a friend that had already worked
for EMS. And you told me about his endeavors, how
he started an IV under a car. His name was

(05:51):
already Corso most of the guys know him, and after
that I knew Mark and I knew Davin, partner was
a friend of mine off duty, and like Mark said
in his proportion, I happened to ride with them.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
I wanted it to take a taste of it.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
And we went to Coney Island on a cardiac arrest
and it was my first endeavor to see a save
and all the people around was clapping and applauding, and
that kind.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Of sealed the deal I started.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
I got my EMT license in nineteen seventy four and
I worked for three private ambulance companies, Minute Men, which
was owned by Bruce Ephis who was a dispatcher up
at three seventy seven Broadway, and then I worked for
bay Ridge Ambulance with David Lehrick, who was an also

(06:53):
and EMS provider, and I finished up working with Empire Ambulance.
My partner Donna Laurie. She was the first person that
was killed by the son of Sam. After that was over,
I applied for MS. I spoke with the Arnoldpack and

(07:19):
I badgered him to hire me, and it was May
twenty fifth and I was seventeen, and he didn't want
to do it, but he said, if I put you
in the academy. I think it was Ruth Montgomery, who
was the teacher in Massbeth. I would turn eighteen on

(07:41):
June twelfth, so he agreed to that, and I started
in this. If you want to call it an academy,
it was a classroom with pillows to do CPR, and
pieces of wood and cloth to make his splints, and
how to put ont of Thomas Halffering, and how to

(08:02):
use the polls and pads.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Not much equipment back then.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
No, no, not at all. We're talking with Mitch Stern
here on volume seventy four of the Best, the Bravest
Interviews with the Ft and Wise Elite. And at the
same time, too, not too long after this you earned
an EMT. Too long, because from seventy four right into
seventy eight is when you decided to become a medics
So I mean medics essentially, even though training was a
lot different back then. You're essentially a field doctor. There's

(08:28):
a lot that you have to do in the field
and a lot that goes into pre hospital care on
that level, and nine times out of tenants at the
ALS level. So I imagine you mentioned just getting the
bug from seeing guys around you going into that work.
I mean you were working with some medics. I imagine
it was more the same thing. You saw what they
were doing, you want to do the same thing.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
It was a calling. I just had to be a paramedic.
It was in my plans. I put in for the
first class or second class, but I was too new,
I was told, and I went into Jacoby seven, which
was the last class at Albert Einstein College of Medicine,

(09:09):
and I graduated, and they sent me to Coney Island
with Mark and Davin, and we became a training bus
and we had Jerry come with us, and Jerry Gumbo.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
We had.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Joe Friedman. Mike Granton came went with us. Great guy.
I worked with him for a while on the ambulance.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, yeah, and you wore a lot
of hats over the course of your career. To me
to take a swig of water here real quickly that
being said at that time, so what year, because you
became a Medican seventy eight, that the same year in
New York City, EMS hired you, or was that a
little bit later on?

Speaker 4 (10:03):
They hired me in seventy seven I didn't go into
the medical class till seventy nine, and I graduated in
January of nineteen eighty. And I got a sign because
I knew Chief Becka, who was a great man, and
they put me with Mark and Davin. And to tell

(10:25):
you truth, Mark Peck happens to be the best medic
I ever saw in my life, and I clamored to be.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Half as good as he was when I first met him.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, he was quite, frankly, as many people who know
from working with them have said, a wizard out in
the field. So here you are working the streets at
this time, and as I covered with some of the
other guys that have been on, it's a lot to do.
It's not just the violent crimes that are occurring, and
they're occurring quite a bit at this time in the city.
These are the wild West days. There's a lot of
medicals and generally got the guilty breathing cause you got,

(11:01):
you know, just somebody generally not feeling well, and you know,
you got to handle those in addition to all the
craziness that you put up with. So just stop dealing
with that type of call volume. I mean, again, does
it wear you out? Yeah, you get your money's worth
it a given shift. But at the same time, I
feel like that was the best education because you were
doing these things so much, seeing these things so much,
you got really good, really fastt handling these different types

(11:23):
of emergencies.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
With the two guys that I was working with, it
was great, and we were buffs, so we would take
on as many medical calls.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
We were not trauma junkies.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
I mean when I was an EMT, I was at
Cumberland Hospital in East New York bedstar and when when
you treat people good in a lower socio economic neighborhood,
you get treated back very very well. And it was
a rough ride back then. We had a lot of stabbings.
That's where my trauma came into play. But I started

(11:59):
on a break box with an MVO, and if I
went up into the buildings by myself, and if I
needed anything a chair, the stair chair at the polls
and pads, I'd have to radio him and he would
bring it up to me. So at that point in time,
in the early late mid seventies, we were doing everything

(12:20):
by ourselves and you had to call the MVO. And
I was medic three two five and I covered the
Methodist area.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
And in FOURT Green.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
I remember one day we went to the first MCI
in New York. It was a mister Softy truck that
had grown up and all the glass was coming down
on people. It was mass chaos. There was no format,
there was no reason. People just the ambulances came, picked

(12:57):
up a patient and left. And the only the reason
I knew that I was there is that I got
a picture from a Spanish newspaper and somebody circled it
my head and they put it up on the board
at Cumberland. So working those years, I got a lot
of traumas raining.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, absolutely, there were Mark and Davin.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
I used to do ivs with Davin and Davin would
do intubation. We had it all set up. Same thing
with Mark. I knew how he liked the bus.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
He was.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
He was a nut on everything being in perfect place.
I'll tell you a little story marked it and tell
you we had a father of a firefighter back then,
and back then it was really rough. We had old
time firemen that were yelling at us to get the

(13:55):
patient to the hospital. You're not doctors. Well, one of
the fathers of the firemen had what we call r
on tea where the one of the compression waves comes
early on the heart and it bounces the heart into
a ventricular rhythm.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Live podcasting, baby.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
After that, Yeah, right after that, Mark was ahead of
him and he noticed that the guy had dropped down
on the stretch.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
He was just talking to us.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
Mark cardio verted him and the guy sat up screaming.
And I guess the company knew that we had just
saved his father. And we brought him into Coney Island,
and then we were invited for dinners and for lunch,
and we had a load of medical calls out there,

(14:54):
you know, and we were good.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
In Corney Island.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
You had your trauma and at that time we were
Medic three eighty five. We were the only medic unit
in the south of Brooklyn Medic three eighty six and
then come in for at least about six to eight months.
But we had from Kanasi to Avenue h all the

(15:21):
way to Coney Island. We had our choice of calls
because the calls came in so slow back then, we
would go to the precinct s I now the PD
radio and in time we got to know all the
cops on the street and they would be calling us
right on the radio.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
They call us the tenth Division Paramedics.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
That's what Burns is staying in the jet, he's on LinkedIn,
he's watching. He says, good to see AKA tenth Division Medics.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yep, That's what we were.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
And it was good because we got to the calls
a lot faster. I mean, the EMS dispatchers did not
like it because you know, you know, they had to
do their job, which I learned when I took over communications.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
But we had a lot of backup.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
You know, we taught the BLS how to put an
IV together. I wanted them to feel like they were
part of the job, not standing around. So in the
station when you had a break, I would show them
the new equipment that we had gotten and that we
were working with.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Absolutely that's important because I mean, you can't be and
I'm learning this now as I'm beginning my MS portion
of my career, which is you can't be afraid of
the equipment because you got to know how to use it.
It's not just you using it on a BLS level
as an EMT, but nine times out of ten, you're
gonna be partnered up with the Medica doesn't matter where
you are. Very rarely it's going to be two EFTs
and the bus unless it's a BLS bus. So even

(16:53):
then you got to be a good partner. If you're
not going to use the equipment, know where it is,
know how to put it together and let the medical
do their magic. You know. Any any type of second
where you're delayed is going to delay that patient care
which you don't want, what you don't need. Now you
mentioned Fort Green, So was this before you became a lieutenant,
which I'll get to momentarily. Was this Station thirteen where

(17:13):
you were signed up off the rip or was this
a different part of it?

Speaker 2 (17:16):
No?

Speaker 3 (17:17):
I was. I was.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
I got the job and I was assigned to Cumberland
Hospital and I was signed Methodist three two five. Back
then the radios were the radio designations were different, so
I was I was EMS three two five, and we
parked in the Methodist Hospital driveway and we did a

(17:40):
lot of the calls and prospect heights and in that
area Fourth Avenue up to eighty sixth Street, then back
down we would go to Fourth Green. I stayed there
for a while till the Paramedic course test came out.
I took it. I got it here, I got a

(18:00):
hundred on it, and they assigned me to the U.
They signed me to Coney Island. They gave you a
dream sheet, and I got my stint in Coney Island.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
There you go, and there was a lot to do
back then, because people think of Coney Island, they think
of the park and listen to. Coney Island is not
the same level as Betstye or some of these other
more dangerous parts of the borough. But it's not peaches
and creep either. You're gonna do a lot, especially back then,
you're gonna see a lot and yeah, you're hands full.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, I don't know if it was granted.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
We went to an e Dpquall and there was refrigerated
that was thrown down the stairs at us.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
There was some crazy stuff that we went through.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Me and Mike Granton went to an e DP and
we heard somebody in the backyard talking, so we didn't
know if we should get wait for the cops.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
So use that with long flashlights.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
But it turned out to be a guy in his
house sitting there having a cigar. So you get all
these crazy crazy calls.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
And working the bus back then, you know again, it's
not even just the crazy calls. It's just not I
don't want to call them routine. Nothing's ever a routine,
because routine can turn upside down in a heartbeat. But
even just to diff breathers, even just the elderly patients.
Seeing that back then, I mean, if we're talking a
given to her, especially on the Knights, I feel like
the Knights were crazier. How many calls any given to her?
Give or take?

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh man, we went after everything. Mark would know more
than me about. We did about ten to twelve to
even eighteen calls a night, with about maybe half transports.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Oh wow, that's it's a long time. Even if you
got hospitals in the area, that's quite a bit. By
the way, brief hello to Garrett Linger and Garrett, we
still got to do our show on the ninety five
Saint George Hotel fire. I'm trying to see if we
can get one more guy and than you, myself and
that other guy or even just you and me can
talk about that job. Garrett was there on the set
on the second rescue unit to arrive that night. So
that is a show I need to do in the

(19:59):
future to see my friend, and Mark Peck mentions, Yes,
I think Mitch had the gift of gap and got
the six to one sergeant to allow us to sign
out a portable and we chase real jobs every night.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
He remembers, you remember, you know, sense I wanted to
be like Mark Peck.

Speaker 4 (20:17):
And as we used to go to refresher he turned
to me one day after we were taking tests and
he said, you know something, shock, You've made it. You're
You're as good as I am, some words to that effect.
And I was flabbagasted by that, and I really appreciated

(20:42):
it because I looked up to him. I looked up
to Davin, because those are the guys that I worked with,
and I trained the other guys that went up in
a rank in the job.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Absolutely, you know, they paved the way for you and
you walk through that door. And I too want to
be like Mark Peck. I grew up. So shout out
to market. It's always good to see in the audience,
my friend, Volume seventy four, The Best, the Bravest Interviews
with the Ft and Wives Leite with New York City
EMS and FD and Y EMS. Veteran Mitch Stern did
thirty five years between both more than that more than

(21:14):
that actually close to fifty years between pre merger and
post merger. So that brings us into eighty six to
where again you had a lot of command roles over
the course of your career. You became what was new
at the time. You know, New York City EMS did
not have a patrol lieutenant at that time. It was
more of an administrative position. With your promotion to lieutenant
in eighty six, you became that. So before I get

(21:37):
into what that role entail, like, I like asking guys
on either side of the coin PD or AFT that
move up in rank was being an officer, was being
a boss? Something you wanted it from the get or
did that just come to you as as you kept
going in your career.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
Abby Becka got raised to Damaspeth. He became chief Operas
and he promoted me to lieutenant, and he sent.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Me to Station thirteen, which is Bellevue, and I worked
at the station, and then Chief McCracken was working in
the Borough office with Neilman Gron. These guys are a
long time gone already.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
But except for Chief McCracken, who helped me out a lot,
he don't know it but it was his moves that
put me in the position that I finally went to.
But I worked there and then they made me Car
three one five now because they were so limited on personnel.

(22:46):
If you got a second alarm or better, and they
need a coordination of units on scene, the lieutenant had
to close the station. Nobody can get gas now, and
he's tied up at the scene, and it might be
a tour change.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Everything can go wrong at once.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
So I was Car three one five in Manhattan, and
at that time SOD was created by Chief Becker and
Chief mcmonally and John Lazarro I believe, was the first
captain that ran it, and after being out in the
field for about a year, he put me in sold and.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
That was an eye opener.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
We had citywide as our playground, and you were the
only one that would go to every MCI or any
job you wanted. I went to the Polar Bear job
where in Prospect Park, the polar Bear ate the kid
who kids jumped over to swim in the moat one

(23:55):
night and they all got out, but they threw the
other kids closing, and the polar Bear came down and
grabbed him. And I got there and the thirty eighths
didn't do.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Anything to it.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
It just stood up on its hind legs and ESU
came with shotguns and they finally put it down. I mean,
the calls you couldn't believe were calls. Guy jumped out,
Guy jumped out of the chief building and lands on
a picket fence and you know, between everything. And then

(24:34):
in eighty six, I was working under Steve Kerr at
that time because John Lazarro got promoted to communications and.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
I was doing pre planning for Steve. He had me
go to all the places that would pose a problem,
and he also sent me to the first ever incident
command class, which started off from Los Angeles from the
Orange County Chiefs Association because back in I think seventy four,

(25:14):
they had Orange County forest fires and about nine medics
are empts were killed because they didn't have the radios
that were on the same frequency.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
So that was one of the failures. Plus all these
companies that came in as help from different areas, they
got together and they put together this incident command system
which became.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
A learning point.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
So I went to that class and I was fascinated
by it, and then I went.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Back to Steve, and unless he went with me, I
don't recall, but I know Bobby Andarelli was with me.
It was a great learning experience and hearing from them
what went wrong. And one night.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
Steve made me the training officer for incident Command. And
one night I was at my friend Doug's house May
Rest in Peace, and he had the Christmas trains up
and we had some company over and they asked us
what I do for a living, and I took the
two trains and I hit him together and I said,

(26:38):
there's patients there, there's has this material there. I'm the
guy that's going to go there and set up.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
All of the sectors that we need to put this
and save as many people as we can.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
And with that I came up with this idea and
I said to J. P. Martin, who was in the unit,
why don't we make a fake city? And it was large.
It was Sternville. Well that was Ja who who named it.
But I said, let's get hl buildings. Bobby Becker gave

(27:17):
us fifteen hundred dollars. I called.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
The little car toys what hot wheels.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Yeah, they gave us like fifteen hundred vehicles and we
started training at Sternville and it worked out unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
So getting to a scene rather than looking up and
out of it, now you can look down on it
and you could see the real setting up of sectors
and the communication relay and who has to take what role.
And we designed Zach Goldfarb started it. There's JP Martin Expressway.

(27:59):
They made ambulances for us, and we made every type
of incident that could happen in the city.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
There was a water feature, there's building.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
Collapses, there's a high rise, we had little We had
a little MCI where it was a car crash and
one of the light poles fell down and it was
hazar material, So you.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Know, how are you going to handle that?

Speaker 4 (28:29):
It was great and I think I taught hundreds of
new amts, captains, chiefs.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
It turned out to be a natural thing for me.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
And out in the field you got to think on
your feet too. And I think you know, and people
think of MCIs as the building collapses and as the
major emergencies that we'll get into, but sometimes it is
the car accident where you're pulling up as the first unit,
there's five patients and there's just two of you. You know,
in some variation shape or form that's an MC as well.
So it forces you to think, Okay, what would I do?

(29:03):
What would I do? Originally as the responder, what resources
am I going to call in? And I feel like
that it goes back to preparation. It goes back to
pre planning rather like you were talking about, allows you
to work out the kinks and work out whatever mistakes.
Now that way they don't happen out in the field.
So I mean that teaching that's gold right there, because hey,
especially in a city like New York, you're gonna come

(29:24):
upon situations like that.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well you got to critique some of the calls and
bring people in incident in command. Here is my theory,
and I've seen enough mass casualty incidents to say it.
In the first few minutes, it's like a wild stampede
of horses, and then you got the cavalry that has

(29:49):
to pull them all together and put.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Them back in their corral.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
So I went to a call where they brought me
out six people that were not breathing. I in debated
six of them and made the firemen do the CPR,
and then finally the cavalry came. Now, I have to
understand one thing. In New York City before the merger,
we had tour commanders. The tour commander would be in

(30:16):
the communications center. I was a Tork commander.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I would make the decision on the unit deployment based
on what I'm hearing or for fire PD or port authority.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
We had all the phones, the hotlines to them, and
I would be the one to put out the proper
response mode if I needed to MIRV based on patient count.
You know when MCI, I mean the definition is anything

(30:53):
that overloads the care taker, that puts you at a disadvantage.
So three to seven people, one person can manage them.
That those people, but it depends on what they're doing.
If they're working in hasmat, you need a safety officer

(31:16):
if they're if they're raining, or if the.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Building is that there's either an open or a close THEMCI.
It's either active or inactive.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
There's a whole list of it, and it starts with
the initial notification which you get at the communications center.
I hear it, I make the determination on what resources
are needed, and I dictate what they need there. When
the first officer gets on the scene, they'll give me

(31:48):
a preliminary report.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
And if I have to escalate it, I will escalate it.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
If it's stabilized, they'll be stabilized if there's enough units.
And then when we start to de escalate, we terminated
and everybody goes back on, you know, on duty. So
I know those are the kind of steps involved in it.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I wanted to ask you about this well before I do.
Steve Curzon, the Chatty, says Sternville was an invaluable tool
in training new officers and medical incidant command. Mitch and
JP made all that happen, so he definitely gives you
a lot of credit for that. But one thing I noticed,
and I talked about this with Steve. I talked about
this with Zach Goldfarm when they both came out a
little while ago, is you had these special which I
think were very cool pre merger, these special Operations rips,

(32:36):
which look I believe these are the old NYPD emergency
service raps. So you were using these and again special
operations with citywide. So there was no job in the
city that this division, if necessary, couldn't hop on. What
were you guys carrying in these normally, Well.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
In those trucks, if I'm correct. Let Steve correct me,
because he was the boss of the unit that was
our emergency response crew, and they would carry a hazard's
material equipment, showers, portable showers.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
I don't remember when we got the equipment.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Steve would know better than me, but those big trucks
were for hazmat jobs or.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
If we needed, you know, extra equipment.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
They carried backboards, they carried oxygen, so they were out
back up to our operation.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, all right, And in some variation those states. There's
another picture even after the merger, which we'll touch on later,
where I think here it is, I have it right
here and I'll share the screen. Momentarily they were painted
over into FD and Y decals and they kind of
kept the concept. And I wish this concept stayed along,
stayed around longer rather because you had these too, I
guess same thing, right.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, I don't know where they got them. Steve would know,
you know.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
All I can say is that my incident command career
climbed up the ladder because of Steve, and I'll give
him all the kudos for that. They sent me, McCracken
sent me to the Emmittsburg, the National Fire Academy, where
we did a mock disaster of a Category five hurricane

(34:23):
and we stayed there for a week and it was amazing,
amazing training.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
And he made sure that you know, I had that training.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
And that that kind of placed perfectly too. I mean,
I'm not going to skip over happily and I'm going
to come back to happily and in a moment. But
think about it. He had that flooding in ninety two
that p So you were there for that, I imagine, yes, yeah,
so there you go. That trader came in and he
just I guess before I touched on happy Lands, since
he segued into it perfectly. What was that response like,
because people forget about that incident.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Well, what happened was I got reassigned for a reason
to King's County, and when.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
I heard that go go over, I made it to.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
The Bronx faster than any officer did, and I took
command of the happy Land Social Club fire. And I
was probably the only EMS person that went into the
building and observed eighty eight people on the floors just
on top of each other because you know, the smoking elation,

(35:28):
and they all looked. You know, you get cherry red
when you use carbon monoxide. So this fire produced eighty
eight deaths the fire, the battalion chief came to me, says,
how you want to handle this? I said, let's get
body begs. Next door was a body shop. We couldn't
take them out the front door because there was very

(35:49):
there was no stale wall. So I said, let's put
each person in the body bed, break to the wall,
make us an entrance into the body shop, and let's
take the people down. We'll have the EMTs washed their faces.
They'll take a picture of each person and bring it
to the school down the block. And that's how we

(36:09):
organize that so the families can identify without having to
see them in a rural you know, way right.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
It worked out perfectly.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
And that that night. And I'll get back to the
flooding of ninety two and a little bit. But you,
since you bring it up, there's test of your metal,
and then there's test of your metal, for lack of
a better way to word it, and that gets dwarfed.
It's hard to believe it's thirty five years since that
incident because of things that would happen later, but that
was one of I mean that that was probably the

(36:43):
worst fire not probably was the worst fire New York
City had had since the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of
the early nineteen jects in nineteen twelve. Yeah, so you're
going there to that and the reason why that started.
It was a classic case that you know, really spirals
always in the back yep, jilted lover syndrome. Basically, in
this case, the guy's mad at his girl, you know,

(37:03):
if he can't have or nobody can, then he likes
the club on fire and people couldn't get out a
lot of building code violations there that came out later,
but nevertheless, getting down there, I mean you just touched
on it. You had to think on the fly because
there's so many bodies. Unfortunately, there's not really anything you
could do for them, but there's I didn't.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Know there was that many bodies. Nobody told me.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
They just got there and saw it.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
I got there and I just made my way into
the building because the fire was out and all you saw,
I mean, I sprained it like like it was like carpeting.
People were just on top of each other. You cannot
put your foot on the floor. You had to walk
on top of people to get to the back room.

(37:45):
Where I guess the other forty people were. It was
a real shame. It hit me hard afterwards because I
remember Walter Kowhalzik we were on the MIRV together, and
you know, I kept talking about it, and I guess
that that was my way of, I guess getting it
off my mind.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Right, Walter says to me, you are right. I said, no,
I'm fine, I'm fine.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
But for Walter to pick up on that was really good,
so you know, and Walter was a great boss too, so.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Absolutely, you know. And that part about that, to your
point is, and I'll word this delicately in case anybody
who may have known somebody who's killed that night is watching.
But they were at the back door, all trying to
get out at once, and in a panic, what do
people do. They crowd the door. It's just, you know,
it's basic instant because we're in our right frame of

(38:37):
mind talking now, we're not in a dangerous situation to say, yeah,
you shouldn't crowd the door, but wore you're panicking, you
forget everything, which is why it's so important, especially for
those going in the emergency response field in any form.
They teach that in fire academy and Police Academy and
the MS Academy staying calm under pressure. If you're a civilian,
that's not a concept that is put into practice in
a situation like this. There's so many of the victims

(38:59):
that lost their lives in this sense. The strategy that night,
to your point, were by the door doing everything they
can to push through the door to get out, but
they just couldn't get out in time.

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Well, Sternville helped me out also, I mean just watching
the way the officers or the well we restarted with
the grassroots e mts and they were overwhelmed by it
all by just a simple second alarm fire that we
made them. You know, read the book. We had a book,

(39:30):
and then you come in and you take over command
and you decide what you're going to do there. And
then we critiqued it in as a classroom, and I
know Steve came up sometimes to overview everything, and I
had videos of mistakes that were made that I would
play for them and they would be taken aback by

(39:51):
what they saw, and I used different components to teach.
We also taught hasmac, you know, the diamond shaped and
the numbers and what they meant you know, we did
a lot with them to prepare them for the field,

(40:12):
and we even taught lieutenants. A lot of lieutenants had
no idea on what I'm supposed to do. I mean
they would get on the radio and you would hear
that they were flapping around, you know, like they couldn't
get their words out, and they were in a mess

(40:36):
right there. So on those calls, I would try to
get to as fast as I could, you know, and
help them start setting everything up as it should be,
because it's very overwhelming when you get to some of
these jobs. I went to the met where somebody threw
out a tear gas. I had an onslaughter of people

(40:57):
coming out. I needed two merds.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
I had a thirty two car collision on the.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
Cross Island. Uh in Queens that there's a parkway there.
It was raining and Chief Hannigan was my staging officer.
He was in SLD with me and uh A Hannafie.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
I'm sorry, my old mind is going.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
You know, we all worked together, we all talked about it.
It was Steve's idea with pre planning went beautiful. The
pre plan that that we put into it was how
many people are here during the day.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
How many you here at night? Do you work like
with gold or jewelry where you're using chemicals to dip
the cold or whatever? You know, all of these things,
you know, And we had a high rise like just
like nine to eleven. But you know, we know, we
didn't ever think that two planes would hit them. Even

(42:03):
when we did a.

Speaker 4 (42:04):
Fire, we had a little window with a fire, and
you know, you guys had to make groups of people
that would go up and take care of the patients,
decide to stay a couple floors down. Let fire bring
you to patients. I mean, I was all over the city.

(42:25):
I had the Union Square train derailment.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I was gonna ask you about that. You read my
mind perfectly because this is literally happy land happens. And
then not too long after that, Rob Ray I did
a show on that with Patty Pogan, like Kenna from
FD and Y Rescue. And forget who the eder gentleman
I had on for that show is Rick Martinez from
Truck three Emergency Service. And we covered that the train
conductor rob Ray was drunk, so he's going well over

(42:50):
the speed limit. You know, the train jumps and you
got how many casualties there so I never got the
EMS side of that. I got the PD and the
ft side of that, So go ahead.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
That night, I think I got downstairs and we had
a problem a little bit with the radios, but I
called in for more resources and for the merv I
don't remember which bosses were with me, but I have
to say the bosses really treated me great. They looked

(43:19):
up to me.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
They knew that that I was common enough to take
care of what needed to be taken care of. But
when we merged, because fire had a talk commander, they
abolished our thing. Now on a fire talk command that
gets to the scene of a mass casualty incident, I

(43:41):
know they know incident command, but within the parameters of
a firefight, you know there's different incident command structures in
a fire or in patient care. So how is a
talk command or a battalion chief gonna get the information
he needs to call on the resources they need.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
And I bought that tooth and nail. But you know
which leads me to the merger.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well before I get to that, because there's a couple
of things I want to cover in that time frame.
You mentioned something earlier in regards to commands in regards
to you, of course, making sure you lieutenants aren't flopping around.
You're lieutenants, and really the first officers on seeing more
times often than not, they're your middleman before all the
bigger bosses, the captains, the chiefs, get to something like that.

(44:33):
Talking about the ems it really applies to police and
fire as well. I mean police is a little different
because your first boss is off to the sergeant. But nevertheless,
you get what I'm saying. So you know, in line
with these plans, you were already before and we'll get
to the merger momentarily, but you were already crafting these
plans for your side of things in regards to something like,
for example, the ninety three trades that are bombing. You

(44:56):
know you had it applied to the trained ram the
two and in square ninety one, but fast to ninety
three and something like that. How do you think those
plans worked on the ems N if you ad it's
greater in retrospect.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Well, unfortunately I had operation on my knee, so I
was stuck at that time. I got reassigned to Woodhull
because woodhol didn't have a lieutenant, they had a chief,
so I was the administrative lieutenant. So basically I ran
the station in Woodhull and I didn't get a chance

(45:30):
to go to ninety three. But I'm sure all the
bosses that went there, I would hope that they would
sit down and discuss, you know, who handled what. You know,
I believe in body cameras on all ems personnel. I mean,
we could learn a lot from that, but you know,

(45:51):
it's up to the budgetary constraints.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
And stuff like that. But Steve would know.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
Better about ninety three, I think than I would because
I wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
I had Zach on for that show too a while
ago when I covered the thirtieth anniversary of that with
a few other guys. So Zach did a good job
diving into it. And these plans, well, I'm pretty sure
they were helpful. As Zach described them, I want to
get your perspective on it too, so you know, I'll
set the stage and then we talked about this off
the year. Well now we can get into it on
the air, so as Commissioner Safer and there's different perspectives

(46:25):
on it. I got Billy Gross's a couple of weeks ago.
I got Mark Pex as well. Commissioner Safer a year
before he died, and I miss him a lot. He
was very good to me. He came on the show
and one of the last things he did before he
left to go be the police commissioner, of which he
was a fantastic police commissioner, was he wanted to see
that merger through. He was one of the parties that
wanted to see it through. As he told me, he says,

(46:47):
and you know an FDNY firefighter, well he's still fire
Commissioner says to him one day, you know, boss, we
have one of the worst mortality rates in the city.
And he kind of stunned. He's like why, and he
mentions the fact that you know, a bus has to
come from the other side of the borough essentially, when
so many times, more often than not, there's an engine
right there that could have responded on the run. So, okay,

(47:07):
the wheels get put in motion. Naturally, some people are
proponents opponents, and that brings you in there. So you
were on the inside, You were in the eye of
the store to go through it all.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Here, here's the real story, okay about the merger and
then what happened with this CFR program after the merger
The merger was for two reasons, from what I'm told.
The first one, Giuliani came across a woman with a
broken leg or a child up and up in Harlem.

(47:38):
They wanted to go to Jacoby because everyone tells you
my medical records, my medical records, it has nothing to
do with the present injury that you're teaching. You know,
you don't need all the records of a car when
you're fixing the carburetor. I mean, that's the problem.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
So Giuliani insisted they went to Jacoby.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Now, we had a ten minute rule.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
If it takes you two minutes to go to a hospital,
we can air on ten minutes and that would suffice,
giving enough time for the crew to get back into
their call area or go to the station to resupply
and get back out.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
So his last there is this forty second rule.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
I heard that anybody that's going to get chopped at
a high level, they get forty seconds or forty minutes.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
To chop whoever they want.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
And Julianni turned around and said, well, I'm going to
merge them because why one, he had a diversity problem
with the fight apartment. We all know that women African
American there was a whole big thing about that, and
every congressman wrote about that. So they figured, well, if

(48:53):
we combine them, hey, that takes care of that problem,
you know.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
And that's the thought. Then.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
Now, when I was in communications, and I don't want
to lose that thought I was.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Talking about when the merger happened, they didn't want they
didn't want us in communications to really do anything. They
thought it was going to be like their communications. They
wanted a battalion based model.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
And what happened was they had this big meeting with
all the big shots and they called me in. I
was dead set against it, and I told everybody, and
when I was there, they came to me around the
table and I stood up and I said, a battalion

(49:48):
based model is not going to work in New York City.
You have too many variables. The unit has to go
to the call, then it has to eat the guess up,
or it's got to restock, or it's got to go
to a hospital ten minutes away, and then they got
to go back to their area. In a battalion based model,

(50:10):
they go to the fire, they go back to their house,
and they clean up and get ready for the next one.
While maybe there's the redeployment of another engine or a
truck up, we need to cover for them.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
We didn't have that luxury. We did not have enough
ambulances to do that. That's why it was better for
us for the tour command to decide. I got a
picture of the whole city. I know what's going on.
We had maps.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
Communications Chief Digs was assigned as the chief of communications.
They never came to Metro Tech where I worked. He
made me the commanding officer. And like I said, it
just Italian.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Based model wasn't gonna work.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
It will never work. The only reason it will work
is if you had six hundred ambulances. I think we
only have four hundred and something in the street and
it just won't work. And they got mad at me.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I had.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
There was a guy there I don't know his name,
Steve knows his name. He was in a suit. He said,
why at the eleventh hour does this guy come in
here and tell us that it's not gonna work.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Now I'm the craken turned around and.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
Told at the time it was a chief of communications,
why didn't you tell Captain Stern about it?

Speaker 3 (51:42):
And he said, because it was marked you know, for
your eyes only, and they got into a little argument.
But then everybody hated me, which you know, I'm not
gonna lie. I always I always told him.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
What I thought on my mind, and it never happened.
And the battalion based model. There's so much that I
could spill out on this show. But you know, John
Perusia a great guy. He knew the computer very well.
He hooked up with Nigro and he got his promotion.

(52:22):
And then when Massbeth fell apart, the whole building collapsed Massbreath.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Matter of fact, I looked it up. It says place
of bad water.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
It was the liquor store and it had rubble holes underneath,
and the whole four hundred square foot floor collapsed seven inches.
They called me at home and they said we lost everything.
I drove from Staten Island and I stayed there for
two months. They had to bring in a conetism generator.

(52:56):
We had to get telephone lines, but yet we didn't
lose a call. And any time our system would crash,
we go to paper. There was a backup for that too,
and we would get the calls on the phone instead
of getting them too the CAD system, you know, I

(53:17):
know fIF came on in eighty one. Yeah, but EMS
EMS was so far ahead of the Fight Department and
it's dispatching, and I would say their incident command was
different than ours.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
They had no idea.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
Maybe if they had come to one of ours, they
would get the idea of how many ambulances and specialty
units they're gonna need.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Now, a little bit.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
More, a little bit more context here from Mark Peck.
Mark Pek mentions the followings, just for a little more detail.
The battalion based trial essentially took two or three bls
and an ALSU didn't have them sit at a street
corner as if they built a new station there at
the imaginary station. And that's the thing that you know,
that was on my mind as you were explaining this.
And thanks for the input, Mark, where I get the concept.

(54:05):
I'm not critiquing because but then again, and I don't
think they were coming at it from a bad place,
but they're thinking the fire mode. They're thinking what they're
used to do, which is I'm not saying the engines
in New York City don't run. Of course they do.
But you can put an engine in the station. You
can have guys half quarters in between runs where they
know they can come back, stock the engine, put it away,
you know, go upstairs, decompress from the run until the

(54:26):
next one comes in. Whatever it may be, Ems A
box and MVA or otherwise. You don't have that luxury
at ems. You park them on a corner, they're just
gonna go. They run way too much, especially in New
York City to ever have a chance with docking quarters.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
That's why they went to diesel.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
You know, I knew the mechanics because I was in
masspithel all the time and the shop was in the back,
and you.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Know, of course, and it makes total sense to where
you're not. If you take an ambulance out in the morning,
after an equipment check, after roll call and whatnot, you're
not gonna see that bus until the end of the tour.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
There's just too high have a call, I guess you know,
you know, it's astronomical and what made me a good paramedic,
which they should look to change.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
And you should bring this up to Tucker. I was
at King's County and there was no HIPPA. I was
allowed to go into every autopsy and.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
The books don't do justice. Ever.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
I saw at least one hundred to two hundred autopsies
and that's what made me good, great, whatever you want
to rate me as a medic. And now with HIPPA,
they should get us some type of clearance from the
state that paramedics can go into autopsies and learn from that,

(55:52):
because I learned that everything you know, Mark will tell you.
I mean, I had a great ear for a newmal
door ax.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
I was on my game absolutely.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
And Mark Beck also mentions in light of what you
mentioned earlier, but what caused it to totally fail was an FD.
They go from station to seeing what I was just
talking about, then seeing back to station and ems there's
this third leg that often takes them out of their
response area the hospital, he says, the hospital. And as
you said as well, so response times actually increase rather

(56:28):
than decrease in a little and it's a little bit
different where I'm that in Connecticut, but take not just
useless departments and example, since I'm a volunteer there West Haven,
right my district. As a policy or not a policy,
but an agreement rather with AMR to where we got
we run four man engines. So if the medica on
the engine has to ride a call in the engine
for the time being until the medic gets back. He's

(56:49):
a three man BLS. But it goes back to the station.
The medic rides it in with AMR to the hospital.
AMR brings the medic back to the fire station later on,
wants to cause clear to the patient and to care.
The patient has been transferred over to emergency room staff again,
they are able to go back to the station. If
you're on the bus, you're going again. And Mark brings
it up every call. You don't have the luxury saying okay,

(57:10):
we're going to hand the care off. You're gonna transport
every call. So and even that's even with the hospitals
that run their own ambulance course in the city, you're
still going to transport. Nine times out of ten.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
We didn't get food breaks.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
I mean, you know, it was on the run and
the next call was right waiting for you. And the dispatches, now,
since I was the commanding officer in their mind, they
got to get the call off the screen because then
I'm looking from my desk, and because I could dispatch
right from where I was in my office, so I'm

(57:43):
looking at the screen constantly to make sure response times
stay down. So when I see a.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Call turned red, it's been lying in the in line
too long, so I'm gonna walk out to the dispatcher.
And a lot of times, you know, guys are talking
amongst each other, ladies and whatever goes on in the
dispatching the cro and I got to say, come on, guys,
you got to get these calls out. And here's one

(58:10):
other thing I wanted to tell you early about the
CFL program. My first year on my children, I got
hundreds of hundreds of calls where the CFI truck parked
on the corner, waited for the ambulance and then the
fire truck said the MS eighty four were taken up.

(58:33):
And that happened in the first year, Like you have no.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
Idea, and nobody, nobody in a high level is going
to say nothing because they'll get chopped at the neck.
I mean, so so people stay quiet. You know, nobody
wants to say anything.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
And it's terrible.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
And that's why I say get the money for cameras
on on on these new employees that are coming out
that they said, I've spoken to them, they just wanted
to wait those four years. They're they're really pissed off about.
You know, not being firefighters.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Is hard, hard, Chris. Primarily the pay is not that
good either. You gotta and that's something you know all
too well. The pays.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
I started nine four hundred thousand a year.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
It's not enough now.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
I know everything was cheaper back then, but then, and
this is why, this is how I feel. We're in
the back of a square box.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
People will not tell us they got AIDS or they
got a communicable disease. They will not say anything to us.
We've got needlesticks. We even had Tray c Allen that died.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yet she got stuck. Yeah, you know, it happens.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
You know, you got rough patience. They don't understand what's
going on. We try to communicate, but maybe they're a
little hypoxic, or you know, they.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Don't know where they are. You know, being a medic
is really a tough job, and I don't think the
firemen get it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
I like the idea that the firemen go to EMT,
but I don't like the idea that they're taking them
off the fires because unless you put cameras on them.
And everybody in police. My son in law is a cop.
The lieutenant on the datour reviews all the tapes, and

(01:00:38):
if he sees anything, he takes action, whether the guy's
going to get you know, take a hit, or have
to write a report, an incident report so you know,
and also in communications with the officers that will call
lieutenant and say I need an unusual currency report on

(01:01:00):
this call, which they might not know why, but I
do because I got the phone call from from upstairs
because that was where headquarters was.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Right, you're the one that often has to deal with it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
But the best training I ever had was at Emmitsburg, Maryland,
and Bobby Brown couldn't make it, so they sent me
and I owed that all to Chief McCracken because it
was a tremendous building. They had actual TV station and

(01:01:33):
every day our mailbox would get notifications on where geographically
this Category five is coming. Con Ed was there also,
we had everybody at their stations. And the best guy
that I've ever met was Donald Burns. After the class,
we went for a beer and they had a place

(01:01:55):
there and he said, in twenty five years you'll see
the Prince, Mitch.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
But I think nobody wanted this. You can't run a
bagel store in a pizzeria and I had both at
different times. You just can't do that. And this is
what it's like, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
And there's been even talk recently, and I don't want
this to come and listen for any of you that's
listening in the audience active retired from the Ft and Y.
This is not either Mitch or myself bashing the Ft
and WY where That's.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Not the department in the world exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
It's coming from a place of love. But there's even
been talk now this I don't necessarily and you would
have a better perspective mark than I would. You've lived
and I didn't. Uh, but I don't necessarily agree with it.
Or in Barzilay has written about we're coming up on
thirty years since the merger, maybe like demerging. But if
New York City EMS was having the problems it was having,
you remember those problems very well. This is my point

(01:02:56):
of the matter, pre merger, where they were being treated
like essentiallyst step children. You know. I think for as
much as there's been, you know, this kind of clashing
of policy and clashing of the head since the AFT,
you and I merger, I think you go right back
to the battle days. If you took it away from
the ft and why there's something in there. I'm still
convinced that could make the model work. I just think
it's a matter of getting guys to understand it well,

(01:03:17):
essentially not thinking fire but which is not their fault.
That's how they've been trained to think. But if you're
coming into the EMS side of things, it's its own division,
it's its own world.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
It should be a third emergency service. You know that
sanitation is ahead of us in the curve. Yeah, we forget.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
We should get poverty what they're getting. We deal with
people inside an ambulance. Now we have rescue medics that
that you know they are. They're giving us trinkets. You
know what I tell people. They said, what'd you get
in the merger? I said, they gave us some brand
new uniforms and some nice turnout.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Painted over the ambulance and they painted.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Over the ambulances.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
Now, I have to tell you one thing I've seen
when I was a paramedic, the firemen were old timers.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
They were nasty with us.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
They you know, I had a battle with one that
I don't and his and his his brother or son
that I don't want to mention.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Their name, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
But we had a fight outside on a call and
it sparked a thirty five million dollar lawsuit, and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
We need to get parody.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
And I see a chief can't go in front of
the city council. Now I've got every booklet that we got.
Welcome to the Fire Department. I got Richie McCallan's report
to the city council why the merger is not going
to work. He wrote down, May rest in Peace, A

(01:04:53):
beautiful piece.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
I have it. I alway said, welcome to the Fight Apartment.
I got their their writing, and then I got another
book from them that they put together, you know, welcome joining,
you know this and that and the other. You know,
I respect them.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
I think what happened was now that it's twenty years
later and a lot of guys had to do the
EMT work before they stepped on the fire, they do
now understand how rough our job is and how it
could drive you nuts.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yeah, back then, don't stop.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
You don't you said it earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
You don't stop.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
It's like, I'm not trying to be funny here, but
it's like that episode of Seinfeld where you know, they
asked Newman about the Post Office. He says, the mail
never stops. I'll flip that out of his head. The
EMS never stops. And before you continue, Chris Empton and
Mark Peck bring up a couple of points. To Chris
Empton's point, he lived it too, as did Marc, he says,
instead of being Health and hospital step step children, the
third service from making the police department and the fire

(01:05:53):
department stepschild, and Mark as personally, I favor a third
service that is adequately funded staff with true pay parody
to the Fire Department and police department. What existed when
we were New York City EMS was not an independent agency.
We were a stepchild of Health and Hospital's core. Health
and Hospital's core controlled us as if we were just
another hospital. He goes on to add another comment, So

(01:06:13):
there's a lot of red tape there that it almost
feels and I don't think it's impossible and neither of
you to cut through that red tape, especially with the
resources of knowledge we have available to us now. It
just seems more of an unwillingness.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
There is an unwillingness, and that's why a guy like
me that's retired, I can go in funnest city Council.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
And I could yat my mouth off and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Tell you gonna hurt, you lose.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
That's why none of not, That's why none of these
chiefs or anybody is going to really say what they feel,
because I know deep inside which chief feels what. And
I heard one of your reports that fee Hand Love
DMS I my children was in his office on Livingston
Street when an ambulance was coming down the street. His

(01:07:02):
remarks were, I wish I had a shoulder fired missile
so I could slam it right into the fire tra
to the ambulance.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
So help me. God.

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
V Hand hated this merger. I don't care what anyone says,
but you know Nigro did his best. You know, he
dumped it on his desk. What is he gonna do?

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Argue? And then you get the wrath all these chiefs.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
That Donald Burns was the only one that that I
sat and he really respected me and said they should
have never merged you just the same way I say.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
You know, well there and Mike Grandnad's too. We're still
in the same civilian union twenty five oh seven. We
need to be the fourth Uniform Service PDFD Sanitation ems
now and It's interesting too, because I won't I mentioned
this before. I'm not gonna name the individual that told
me this. On the NYPD side, I believe him anonymous,

(01:08:03):
but he did. I talked to this individual every now
and then. He was pretty let's just say he was
pretty high up with the food chain in the New
York City Police Department for a very long time. And
he said to me, and I'll never forget this conversation.
I mentioned this before, like I said, Mike, you know,
we almost had a EMS in ninety six, And I said,
really so, and so why didn't PD take it then?
Because that's what everybody thought was gonna happen. PD was

(01:08:23):
gonna take I remember Chief Goldfart told me that when
he came on a while ago, because they were, you know,
they were closer in uniform, were just closer in camaraderie
and rank structure with the police department. In the fire department,
he says, we I kid you, And I says higher
up to the time, he said, we did not want
to foot the medical bill. The cost and the medical
bills was going to be astronomical. The police Department didn't
feel like they wanted to take that on.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
So that was that budget.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yeah, yeah, Garrett Langering, sorry, before you continue, he says,
I did both jobs. He says, yeah, he was EMS
nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty one, FDN YE was
to two thousand and two, which is negative experiences with
firefighters sound like some of the negative experiences I had
with the messages of firefighter. Yeah, it was a bad

(01:09:07):
relationship back then, just because you know, again lack of
an understanding and you got you got a point, Garrett,
you know you got a point. So just before we
continue too, ya all time is yeah, and then I
think that was the big problem to on both sides
of the aisle, So that's fair, you know, before we continue, though,
did you make captain before the merger or post merger?

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
I made captain in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Six, okay, so around that time, right before.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
They put me in communications, and then Diggs made me
the commanding officer, and I stayed there and told the
mass bet and then then I brought They put trailers
in the backyard. They had tested the soil and everything,
and they put the trailers back there, which was terrible

(01:09:56):
for these people, the dispatch and cro But then they
found one metro Tech, and I brought them over.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
You got to realize.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
I brought EMS dispatch to the fire CEO in Central Park.
We did New Year's e from there. We did the
marathon from another fire CEO because I wrote I wrote
the book on Y two K for at least the EMS,
and that's what they use as a template. And I

(01:10:29):
was in the MIRV when the ball came down on
why two K and nothing relief?

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
We all did, but.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
I was in the in the Central Park CEO. So
in the event something did happen, we had set up
an auxiliary communications sector and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
I got to give a lot of credit to Tony Napoli.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
Tony Napoli made good friends with all of the ancillary
people that we needed, Dick the phone, the IT people,
and all of that background stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
You know, yes, no, one hundred and ten percent. And
it worked because I mean, listen to now in hindsight,
you know, Hindsight's twenty twenty. It doesn't seem like a
big deal. But I didn't live it, but talking with
people who did, Garrett you being one of them, and
Steve Kerr and Zach Golfarb and many others too have
been on the program. Who lived through that that's summer
of nineteen ninety nine prepping for it. There is a

(01:11:31):
lot of concern because I mean, listen, nobody had ever
at that point, unless you know you're some sort of
super someone from a science fiction movie or something. Nobody
had ever lived through a millennium before, and we won't
live through our generation at least will not live through
a millennium again. So I k.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
I knew Garrett's name, but my question is did he
join AMS because he wanted to be an EMS person
and then went to fire or did was the four
year program that he and I And I want to
make it very clear, I think that our fire department
beats out anybody in this country or around the world

(01:12:10):
for that matter. I have spoken with the Tokyo Fire
Department the EMS provision.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
I have a letter where I was asked.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
When I was in Communications, I got a visit from
Sigrit Reinhold, he was on the parliamentary in England. He
asked me in a letter to come to England and
be the ambulance commissioner.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
But I didn't want to.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
Pledge my allegiance to another country, and my wife said
that she had the kids packed already, but I wanted
to do so, you know, I said, thank you very much.
I think I sent you a copy.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
Of the letter.

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
Yeah, but you know, I think I don't know, you know,
I just don't know, you know, I mean, I want
to go up and see commission A Tucker.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
You know, he can't do anything with me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:09):
He can only say I don't like your ideas, and uh,
you know we're gonna go it this way.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
You know, his comments in recent years or not recent years,
recent months rather have been interesting where he did say
because I have to read the article in full, but
the chief publication came out with it and they said
based you know, and the headline of it was Tucker
and I'm paraphrasing the future of the f and Y

(01:13:35):
is e MS. So he is he gets at least
you know, it comes across as if he is a
proponent of the MS. Your thoughts on that, my thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:13:45):
Honestly, I think it's BS and I'll tell you why. Okay,
because we bailed out the fire Department in diversity an inclusion.
That's what he's banking on that he don't lose his
job because he has to keep it that way. And
satisfy all the politicians, because everybody has a thought on

(01:14:08):
how it should be. But those of us that lived
to be a paramedic and be I had a saying,
and Mark knows it, I'm second to no one.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
That was my saying all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
If you're going to be an empt, be second to nobody,
and you'll go a long way. And in my day,
guys wanted to be on the job. We love going
to those calls. You know, you were considered a great
medic if you had a call where you had to
do a chesty compression or you know. When I was

(01:14:45):
in the military, which leads me to.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
That, we didn't talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
Go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
I took a year off from AMS in seventy four
and I joined the Air Force and I went to
PJ school, And PJ is the power rescue jumpers. We
come out of the helicopters and we take we go
in with two black Hawks and an ach gunship and

(01:15:11):
we'll take the friendly or one of our own and
take them back to either Kandahar or in Kuwait to
another hospital's that was made using bags with sand to
protect them from incoming ordinance or anything like that. But
you know, My point is is that these guys love

(01:15:34):
being medics. I mean, you know, medical care in the
field is way different. Me and Mark used to put
on triple rotating tornicuets. The idea of it was in
a pullmander Readeena patient, you were trapped the fluid and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
The legs in the hand.

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
And now everybody has a tornicit and it was so
set against by the doctors. What he adopted at runs
CMS has their own agenda, what's right, what's wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
I hear that the rescue medics finally got a portable ultrasound.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Which is great.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
Yeah, that's a helpful tool. It's a very helpful tool,
you know. And I think to your point in regards
to stepping stones versus it not being a stepping stone,
ems was not a segue back then, per se It
is more so now. But you got guys, you got
gals that get their EMT, they get their medic and

(01:16:33):
they don't necessarily want to go into fire. It's not
where their heart's desires, which is fine. I just want
to go exactly, which is fine. But I think, and
this is across the board. This is not just a
New York City problem. It should be to where if
that's not what your heart's desire is, like me got
I'll be honest, the main reason I got my EMT
is because I want to get on the job. I'm

(01:16:54):
honest about That doesn't mean I don't care about the patience.
I certainly do, but that's my intent. My intent is
to become a firefighter.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I hope eighty two of them have that intent also.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Exactly So with that being said, you know, if that's
not something that you want and you just want to
stay doing ems, they should make it so to where
it's easier for you to stay and make a career
out of it. You can't make it's hard to make
a career out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
It's a shame because it is very for as tough
as it can be, and you know this, and it
is very rewarding work at the end of the day.

Speaker 4 (01:17:24):
You know how much of the time I had to work.
I have a family of three kids and my wife.
When I was married for twenty two years, and I
worked secondary jobs, tertiary jobs, we all did second imagine
rays rely on nine thousand, Well, no, by that time

(01:17:44):
I was up to thirty thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
I can't even take care of yourself with that body
can barely get by on your own if it's just
you've had solo. Yeah, so that's that's a tough thing.
I did want to get back to the communications aspect
of it, because it's you know, communications, as we know,
from dispatch to units on the ground is key. Throughout
the nineties, we're seeing big incidents. We talked about the
Union Square derailment, even though you weren't there obviously, the

(01:18:08):
Trade Center bombing at ninety three, and then that was
the Seguay into nine to eleven. Now, before I get
to that morning itself, and I gotta find the picture
you sent me in the ambulance because I know you
sent it earlier. I just got to find the email
if you sent it it. But were you in terms
of when, especially as a captain going when you were
going over game plans for communications for MCIs, was terrorism

(01:18:31):
something you would try to focus on in those shrills?

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
Oh yeah, Well, first of all, they the crews that
dispatched in the CROs they really didn't have no.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
Part in it. It was at that time it was
my decision. If I got a phone call from Port
to doarity telling me they got a plane coming.

Speaker 4 (01:18:50):
And now, of course we fought with port to tarity
all the time. ESU went right to the offence one day,
so we can get into the top. Yeah, that was
an incident. Port authority wants to run their own airway,
their own airstrips.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
E wr all of them.

Speaker 4 (01:19:11):
Kennedy, Kennedy's the worst box two six'. Nine i'll never forget.
It when that phone, rang you knew you had a.
Problem SO i ask. Him my questions are how many
people are on the, man how many souls are on?
Board my question is what type of craft is? It
how many how much fuel you got? Left and Then
i'm going to start formulating an, incident planning my head

(01:19:34):
on about how many units he's gonna and what type
of units he's going to, require you. Know and then
of course what comes about is a multi jurisdictional command.
Post and the purpose to add is that each agency
has their own obligations that they have to, complete so

(01:20:00):
all talk to get what you need to get. Done
SO i might need to put out these tops or the,
red the, green the, yellow and the black had a plane,
incident and have all the walking go to the, green
have the medium go to the, yellow the red has
to be transported and the, black of course are the.

(01:20:22):
Oas i've been involved in writing up a theoretical plane
crash several.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
TIMES i have it on. Video, yep you, know AND
ems always came.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Through these guys read that we put the tags on,
them or when we had, money we moutlaged. Them and
you know that we had a couple of what they call.
Preceptors they walked around and watch what the crews were.
Doing is everybody being triaged?

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Properly and you, know that was something that it's a
fortunate to have to plan for something like. That but,
again in the city Like New, york you don't have a.
Choice you have to if you're, NOT i, mean there's
no other way to, say you're being. Silly and, now
to round out what we discussed, Earlier garrett did mention
this AND i allude to it. Again to your point
about when you asked him why he joined THE, ms he,

(01:21:15):
SAYS i became AN emt in nineteen seventy, six got
hired By health And Hospital COURT. Ems in nineteen seventy.
Eight he started At Throup outpost three three Seven, CUMBERLAND
cih with three SIXTEEN ems was not a. Segue and
he's not saying this in a negative. Way he's just
saying his pathway ems was not a segue into the
ft and live back. Then it's, just you, know ultimately
the chips landed. Form so thank you for that, Post. Garrett,

(01:21:38):
again no argument, there but, no he needed, Money yes
he needed. Money you, know a lot of EMTs working
back then did again with salary like. That it's hard
to support yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Well born with the silver spoon in our.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
Mouths you, know you gotta grind for, it you.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
Know but having five people on a fire truck also
kind of helps you, out you, know because you're carrying
this load of. STUFF i, mean now they put everything
on the stretcher and they carry the stretcher.

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
In we didn't do that that. Day we used to have,
crazy you, know equipment that we had to, carry you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:18):
Know and now with the fire, department especially now after
twenty five, years the guys that were, empties they understand
a lot about the job and they look to help
out the guys that get on the. Scene i've seen,
that and that's. Good that's great that it's growing that.
Way but you, know we want, hours we want.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
A piece of the, party.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
You, know and you've been outside the kitchen for how?
Long oh my, god, yeah smelling the. Food but you,
know not able to be a part of the. Banquet
so back to. Communications you prep for. It we know
what's going on around the world. Too And i'll never
Forget Hank, malay who worked And rescue one and also
later On squad two eighty eight and THE fd AND,

(01:23:05):
y very good. Man he's been on the show a
number of, times mentioned that there is some sort of
a training THE fd AND y was doing in the
late nineties where this is like ninety eight ninety nine
in about. Terrorism we're on the flyer for the training
was a, bullseye and in the background of that bulls
eye was The World Trade. CENTER i think a lot
of people felt after ninety three they weren't, done they

(01:23:28):
were coming. BACK i don't think anybody could have pictured
what they would have done in two thousand and, one
but a lot of people thought that they were going
to come. Back so that, morning you're a, Captain you've
been involved in communications for a, while AND i don't
think for as much prep as you could have. Done
nothing could have prepared communications in THE Ems division and
obviously the Fire department as a whole for what would
come that. Morning So i'll let you take it from

(01:23:50):
here where were, you and just take me through that
morning for.

Speaker 4 (01:23:52):
You that's the wild horses that everybody has to get
together to make a multi jurisdictional command, post and everybody's.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
Contingency has to be somehow.

Speaker 4 (01:24:05):
Met and once you got that, Started but this is
something that is Like sandy is a once in a lifetime.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
Event AND i had been. Retired they called us back.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
IN i had my uniform And Commissioner gregory was nice
to give me a parting radio to take, home AND i,
said ninety eight thirty eight was my captain's.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
Number i'm en route to the ten.

Speaker 4 (01:24:33):
SIXTY i got there fifteen minutes after the first plane
hit and the.

Speaker 3 (01:24:40):
Ambulance there was a staging and a triage area right
On Vesey. Street it was A west, street, yeah it
Was West street And vesse about ninety meters away from
The North. Tower and they brought a woman in a
brown dress that she had inhalation.

Speaker 4 (01:24:58):
Burns so WHEN i, went the guys were, like excuse,
me but they were pulling in their, Pants SO i,
said bring her on a stretcher AND i went In.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
Debata she was all closed up from the fumes and.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
Stuff the next thing we, know you hear rumbling and
things hitting the top of the ambulance and we felt
it and the front of the ambulance got hit more
than the.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
Back SO i was on the captain's, seat then two
on the side, seat and we just as it's full,
motion the ceiling started coming, down so we all laid.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
Down we took the, oxygen all three of. Us it
was vehicle two seventeen to, THIRTEEN i, think and about
we were passing the oxygen and the ambulance got full
of that. Soot and about two hours later a fireman
came banging the door and he opened it up and

(01:25:57):
we went to THE r AND r which was behind
The American express. Building and then after, that AFTER i cleaned,
UP i went With Chief Ulysses grant may he rest
in peace on.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
The pile AND i stayed.

Speaker 4 (01:26:11):
There but this was the, problem and here where an
incident in command needs to bring in other jurisdictions and.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
Training we had so.

Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
Many people come from all over the country that were
not trained in incident in, command and every time we
were on the, pile me And Chief, grant and every
time you heard a creak or a, crack there was
a stampede of people that ran down that they thought
another building was coming.

Speaker 3 (01:26:40):
Down SO i ran with. THEM i, TRIPPED i rolled
down the, pile lost my, GLASSES i fractured my, ankle
and THEN i at that point in, time it was
almost a third, day AND i decided that was enough
AND i went. Home AND.

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
I had decided at this point in my, LIFE i
had goblin of, cancer prostate. CANCER i fractured my neck
with a linear, fracture So i've got, metal But i'm still.

Speaker 3 (01:27:10):
Here they can't take the chalk. OUT i like.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
That that's the line of the show right. There that's
the quote of the. Show they can't take the shark.
Out they certainly. Can't and you know it's.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
Missed so badly now Because Mike fields is a great,
guy AND i KNOW i would have had that, position
SHOULD i.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
Stay and you were there for a very long, time
and this was And i'll ask you just on that
particular time period one to oh, two it's personal for.
You you had a lot of, Friends i'm sure in
the police, department in the fire department that you knew
who got killed that, day and even if you didn't
know them that, WELL i don't know if you did
or you. Didn't two of yours in THE ems division

(01:27:50):
were among three forty three they got.

Speaker 3 (01:27:52):
Killed worked for me and so Did.

Speaker 4 (01:27:56):
Quinn it both worked for me At woodhull And quinn
was hysterical And Carlos lilo came. THERE i played softball against.
THEM dms had their interleague. There great, guy two great.
GUYS i went to a lot of, funerals and to
this Day i'm on more mental health meds than ever

(01:28:19):
BECAUSE i constantly dream about something chasing. Me and my
team of therapists say it's because of the building coming
down chasing.

Speaker 3 (01:28:31):
You so you've in touched interpolated that as some type
of monster coming at you when you. Sleep So i've got,
NOW i just got certified for respiratory. Issues But i'll be.
AROUND i always have a saying on the, radio swim

(01:28:56):
silent and swim deep when you're out on the.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
Street that's the best thing to. Do don't get, noticed
don't be asleep on the. Ambulance because WHEN i was
in S O. D you, know, guys come, on go
find the back of a funeral, home go to sleep.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
There you, know the guys. LIKELY i was very fair with,
them AND i never looked to hurt. Anybody, RIGHT i could,
too BUT i. WAS i kept the ship. Rolling you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
Did AND i was gonna, say so a couple of
years did you age? Out then a couple of years
ago when you left in two? Down, okay Because i'm gonna,
say if not for that age you probably. Not probably
you would still be. There if, NOT i KNOW i
would be CHIEF.

Speaker 3 (01:29:47):
Vms and And i'm trying to get up to See,
TUCKER i, WROTE i, WROTE i gave my resume to the.
MAYOR i wrote a letter to the. MAYOR i gave
my resume To. TUCKER i, wrote let it To, tucka asking,
them you, know for a. Meeting and ALL i get
back is the political you, know Refere.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah, YEAH i. Hope, SO i, mean, listen it's it's
a good it's a that's not a good. Department it's
a great. Department, rather it's a great. Department there's a
lot of great moving parts to. It and there's a
lot of, directions especially now with the resources that we
have available that weren't available in your. Day that can
really help the. Department it's just a matter of figure
out how to move the department. Forward so it's a big,

(01:30:30):
job AND ems is certainly a part of that. Job
Uh so you, KNOW i do hope certainly THAT ems
can get its its fair share and get that seat
at the, table so to. Speak you said it, earlier
you said it best piece of the. Pie you're not
asking for the whole, world just a piece the pie is.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
FINAL i would like to see the fire tool commanders
come in for incient in training FOR. Ems they probably
don't even know About sternville or you, know any of.
That i'm sure we can open up their eyes to a.
Lot you, know when you get to that level and
a fire chief can, say, okay this is might generate

(01:31:08):
this many. Patients we did a pre plan on, it you,
know let me get the right resources FOR ms down.
Here but if you ask any of.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
Them donald told, me IF i went to a place
where there's a lot of, PATIENTS i wouldn't know what to.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Do Chief bird said, that yeh to.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Me you, know training was really great that chief For
krak and sent me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
TO i can, IMAGINE i can imagine thanks for mentioning
chief Birds. Man he had The South tower on nine to,
eleven and he.

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):
Did to the, end, right Nig all those guys were
good guys to.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Me, Yeah, yeah he's he's got an interesting place IN
fdn Y ems history talking post merger because that first
year ninety six to ninety, seven before of course he
moved up the. Ladder Eventually Chief, Viberation chief of, department
came back his, gimson that was his baby for a little,
while ninety six ninety, seven that first year helping integrate the. Baby,

(01:32:03):
yeah it was.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
Exactly, yeah talk about, that they're gonna put this in
your lap and they want you to make it run
like a.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
T AND i think that was a test to see
if if he had what it took for greater, things
and he did a good enough job in ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:32:20):
Ninety, No dan did a good.

Speaker 1 (01:32:22):
Job yeah he. Did he certainly did the tide because.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
The Minute dan would say something that he NEEDED vms
or he wanted to, do they would chop him. Down
that's that's the that's the bureau product in any type
of city, Agency.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
Yeah especially one as large As New. York there's a
question From patrick thom he worked If i'm mispronouncing that last, Name,
Pat i'm. Sorry but to your point of the rescue,
medics which THE f AND Y i introduced not too long,
ago he, says is it true that the rescue medics
would be responding with the rescue companies together or is
that not the?

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Case, no that's not the.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
Case, Okay so thank you for clearing that BECAUSE i.
DIDN'T i, mean it's heavy training that those guys are,
getting are seeing the, vehicles to those. Vehicles it's kind
of the same model that The Special Operations division back
in the old.

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
DAYS i was talking about the ultrasound before they got.
It and CAN i tell you something even peer. Pressure
WHEN i was IN, SOOD i had a kid that
was new on the.

Speaker 3 (01:33:22):
Job he was on THE.

Speaker 4 (01:33:23):
Bqe people got into an. Accident the car was on,
fire they were burning. Alive he was holding the. Door
he burnt his.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
Hands the kid was a. Wreck SO i took him
To Bravo.

Speaker 4 (01:33:36):
Ambulance we never had a peer group or helpful people
that broke. DOWN i took him in, THERE i sat him,
DOWN i got him something to. Drink we talked for a.
WHILE i made him call his mother AND i think
that's maybe the first time that we ever had a
peer pressure group to help. People because What i've seen

(01:33:58):
in my LIFE i don't need want to say on the.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
AIR i, mean it's absolutely mind boggling What i've seen
in these in my.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
YEARS i can, imagine and we've certainly hit on some
of that tonight and time has flown.

Speaker 4 (01:34:13):
By when when we're, Over i'll send you some of,
those you, know pictures THAT i won't want to talk
about on the.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
Job that's.

Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
Fine and by the, way BEFORE i get to the rapid,
FIRE i guess we can go through some of.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Them.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Now we got some pictures. Here we brought Up sternville.
Earlier we'll just go through some some of the photos
that you did send over And victory you can pull
up whichever one that's you and from you, KNOW.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
I was a practice day in my. Life being, THERE
i can.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
IMAGINE i can imagine and see what else we got.
There you go leap cost her legs the, headline all.

Speaker 3 (01:34:46):
Right this, helmet this white helmet was one of the
first field tested helmets before they went to the. Yellow
and this is a funny. STORY i. Climbed if you
look at my shirt it's all dirty BECAUSE i climbed
under the train and she had had a wig on
and the wig was off to the. Side so AS

(01:35:07):
i got to her mid, TRAIN i, said, ah, MAN
i got a Decap so all of a sudden she
was in a fetal position and she turned around to talk.

Speaker 4 (01:35:17):
To, me AND i, said, Oh AND i banged my
head up against the railing and we got her. Out
we couldn't save the. Leg but my partner in this,
Job Mark, michaels his back is to. You he had
killed himself on the job AND i drove him in
the ambulance to the. Morgue that Was becka's, orders because

(01:35:40):
he was a great. Guy Mark, MICHAELS i.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
Remember he told me that story off. There, yeah very
sad what happened to.

Speaker 3 (01:35:45):
Him that's What michael was right. There and there Is Billy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
GROSS i was gonna, say It's Billy gross in the.
Helicopters that's When billy came out a few weeks. Ago
that's a picture THAT i got. Sent there's he was
the for Foreground there always patient.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
Care in this, Picture i'm a little wet BECAUSE i
dove into The Prospect Park lake to get the kid
out and unfortunately we couldn't revive.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
Him it's that story there reading it. Too, yeah there
was kind of. Despair separate. Accounts the art said she wasn't.
Screaming the guys there there in the heart was in
the right. Place unfortunately they ended up getting. Hurt so
this is the trance the police rescue you THAT i
think that's with you guys here THE, emu we were.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
Great with, them you.

Speaker 4 (01:36:29):
KNOW i have to say with the police, department they
would walk on their hands in the head for us
if they needed.

Speaker 3 (01:36:36):
To like this Is.

Speaker 4 (01:36:38):
Mark he's holding up BECAUSE i told HIM i needed
a piece of tape this. Big so he he was
telling one of THE EMTs up, there that's what we.

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Needed there's THE. Emr you guys in the. Background now
this the agonies that this IS i put a book.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
Together you could see medic three eighty. Five that's pee.
Wee that's pee. Wee gross and.

Speaker 4 (01:37:03):
Uh this guy was held up in his. Store the
bullet went through his cheek and it came out the left.
Side but Doctor sultani told, us BECAUSE i didn't know
why we couldn't get this guy to get a, Heartbeat
he bled out into the supraclavicular, area which is where

(01:37:24):
your clavicle is right under. It so he lacerated his
carotid artery on the left side because the bullet transacted
across his.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Jaw he. Died, yeah that guy, died lost the.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
Blood, yeah it's an injury like. That that's you With.
Sternville those are all.

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
Lieutenants is That Patty pogan in the? Back? Umm, no
but this Is Mark, Stone mike Mustow. UM a lot
of the GUYS i, knew but they enjoyed. It they really.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Did looks like. IT i mean it's a great model
set up very. Well more patient care. Here this is.

Speaker 3 (01:38:10):
Me we don't use these. Anymore they called A vendi.

Speaker 4 (01:38:14):
Mask the people WITH copd if you give them too much,
oxygen they'll stop. Breathing it's the barrel receptors in the.
Neck AND i was checking HIS iv to make sure
it didn't. Infiltrate but if you look how old everything,
is it's it's like that paneling when you buy that
house and you find it in the.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
Basement, yeah but it's pretty neat. THOUGH i like.

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):
It this is this was my great. Part this Was davin.
Mcgoin we called him Head mo because he had the THE.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Mobi it looks it looks Like Chuck.

Speaker 3 (01:38:50):
Ladell, yeah this kid climbed down the radio. Shack he
made a.

Speaker 4 (01:38:57):
Mistake he thought he was going down on some other,
pipe but he went down the fluid to. Chimney he
got stuck down there and the fire. Came they broke
through the. Wall we took him, out but his fingers
were like the tails of the. Crypt he had only
bones showing because the heat kept going on and.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
Off we saved.

Speaker 4 (01:39:19):
Him we gave him some, electrolytes dextros and fluids and
we saved that.

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
Kid then he got locked.

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
Up.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Bennett, yes people the p the.

Speaker 4 (01:39:34):
Aviation one guy was my friend and he would take
us up anytime he. Wanted Bill gross got a lot
of rides and took some great. Pictures and that's Almost
medina with. Me and this is another one of the train.

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):
Yep that one that we just had is that probably
the same. Job colleagues plan helped FOR ems workers to.

Speaker 4 (01:39:54):
HEADLINE i owned a bagels store In brooklyn and this
is U Don. Bowen he had a tumor in his
brain and he was gonna. Die and on the top
of my babel store was The democratic The Democratic, Quarters
so we asked them if we could use the, place

(01:40:16):
AND i catered a whole thing to raise money for.

Speaker 1 (01:40:21):
Him very, nice very nice hero save three from.

Speaker 4 (01:40:26):
FIRE i was coming home one night and it was
the fourth Of, july and it was on the Seventh
street and turn of, place and the whole roof there
was fireworks that went in and the whole roof was on.

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
Fire SO i got out of my, CAR i ran.

Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
UP i started banging on the doors and windows and
they came out and that house went up.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
Quick i'm not laughing at. That i'm laughing BECAUSE i
see here and thankfully it worked out. Well Dave birds
who's our. Friend he's been on the show that photo.

Speaker 4 (01:41:01):
Chief becka Allowed Dave burns And Charlie, wenzelberg who were into,
photography to ride with. Us that's HOW i got.

Speaker 3 (01:41:09):
So many of these. Articles i've got. IT i got hundreds, more.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
And dave's still doing it. Too now this IS i
know it's tilted see, You but then, again this is
is this your medic? License, no this is When.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
Mark got it mixed.

Speaker 4 (01:41:25):
Up WHEN i used to, WORK i had a black
daytimer in my pocket that gave me phone numbers for
drug addicts or geriatrix people that would need. Help one,
night we had a shooting in Bay ridge on bay Eighth, street.

Speaker 1 (01:41:40):
And let's put it this.

Speaker 4 (01:41:43):
Way he was the brother of the head of The
bonamo fran family and he was shot three times in
a head, tree in a. Chest the family was all
outside and we had to do what they call a cosmetic.

Speaker 3 (01:41:57):
Job we knew he was dead, already so we worked them.
Up we put him In baybridge's ambulance and we took
him to the hospital AND i took my jacket off
to start AN.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Iv they and we cut his suit jacket and his
book fell. Out they thought it was. Mine they put
it in my jacket.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
Pocket WHEN i went back to the medical room to,
RESTOCK i PULL i, felt put my jacket back, ON
i feel the. WEIGHT i pull it out And i'm
looking through. It it ain't. Mine it's the. Guys And
i'm not going to say his. Name but there's something
that looked like diploma AND i opened it up and

(01:42:38):
it Said.

Speaker 4 (01:42:38):
Peter they are on demand one million. Dollars, now back,
then ALL i had to do was walk into the,
treasury no, name no, id and just collect a million.

Speaker 3 (01:42:48):
Dollars but AS i was going, out there are two
homicide detectives and the coordinator of the emergency room had
two guys, inside and we heard them, say you want
to be a big, shot will make you a big.
Shot we want all his. Property so at that POINT
i gave it to the homicide detectives and said you

(01:43:09):
got to deal with, this AND i Got employee of
The year or. THEY i had lunch With Mayor koch.

Speaker 6 (01:43:19):
And here we.

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
Go this Is Steve kerr right, here said right. Here
this Is. Bill, no It's JOE. F, Friedman bryan O'Malley
and that's me WHEN i had long.

Speaker 1 (01:43:34):
HAIR i can see you there in the. Background.

Speaker 3 (01:43:37):
Steve he got shot in the head because he was
stealing rims off. Cars shot him in the.

Speaker 1 (01:43:46):
Head that will do.

Speaker 3 (01:43:47):
It this Is Chief, becker he He he really looked
up to, me AND i looked up to. Him he's
on the left side with the white. Shirt. Gotcha the
older gentleman Is. Neilman.

Speaker 4 (01:44:03):
Grown WHEN i first became a, LIEUTENANT i worked under
him At bellevue And lowe is me kidding around With.

Speaker 3 (01:44:12):
MARK i was going to shock, him, Boy and this
is a good one that's me WHEN i was In.
Cumberland that was that was a long time. Ago that
was back in nineteen seventy, eight.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Just starting, out not even knowing what would be coming
down the. Pike and THEN i love. This this is
old school right. Here you got the trade THAT.

Speaker 3 (01:44:36):
I have the booklet from.

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):
It that's, cool that is very. Cool and, yep this
one that's.

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Me cary and the grandma down the ladder and we
worked her. Up but you, know you. Can't you can't
save everybody once you, want you and green that in.

Speaker 4 (01:44:53):
People you, know we always kid around that we fight
the reaper and sometimes you win and sometimes you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
Lose, yeah, unfortunately great, pictures great, pictures great, conversation and it's.
Funny i'm looking at the rabbit fire here AND i
can only ask you three questions from the rapid fire
because the answered two of them are. Ready the most
MEMORABLE mci we. Covered hardest day you ever had in.
UNIFORM i don't think anything is gonna get. Harder In september,
eleventh two thousand and.

Speaker 4 (01:45:20):
One the, hardest the hardest day THAT i still. Remember
we had a. CALL i don't know if it was With.
Mark we had a call for a child in cardiac.
Arrest and she was a little blonde. Kid her mother
had her in the, sink pouring water on. Her, unfortunately
she had a septal, defect which is a hole in

(01:45:43):
the septim of the hard and she shunted her blood over.

Speaker 3 (01:45:47):
And she went to cardiac arrest in my. ARMS i
will never ever forget carrying her to the. Ambulance that's
a hard.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
One it's very. Hard it's a lot of. It it's
a lot to deal, with THE ms, side, fireside ampolice.
Side but, yeah you, know we definitely send our best
to those that day in and day out on either
side of the. Coin, yeah do, it do, it and do.
It you, did my, friend do. It you, Did so
we'll do the rest of the rapid fire. Here and you,
answered LIKE i, said you just answered that. One so

(01:46:16):
these are really just a few hit and run. Questions
BUT i can't even say five. Tonight it's more so
like two or. Three we'll queue it up. Here, so
in light of everything you, did what's one lesson from
special operations that you feel could be implemented from your
era into today's ems.

Speaker 3 (01:46:35):
Be second to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
None as you said, earlier. Okay advice, well besides being
second to, none advice to young EMTs and paramedics coming up.

Speaker 4 (01:46:45):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:46:47):
Don't do the job if your heart's not in.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
It simple to the. Point and, lastly what does it
mean to have served nearly fifty years In New York?
City EMS i would do it all over again with the.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
Money Now i'm still trying to do.

Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
It i'm gonna try to make a meeting with Mister,
tucker And i'm going to try to make the new
mayor or if Mister adams gets, IN i Want i'd
like to seems as a third, service.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
All, right and that is a very quick rabbit. Fire
thank You victor for the music is, always and thank
you Mister sturner for your very very good answers tonight
and the great conversation over. All stick. Around we'll talk
off air BEFORE i bit a do to the audience.
Tonight if you have any shout outs to, you my
friend would like to give the floor is? Yours go right?
Ahead anybody want to shut?

Speaker 3 (01:47:41):
Out, OH i would shout.

Speaker 4 (01:47:43):
Out there's so many things you could shout. Out BUT
i love that job more than anything in the, world
just like the firefighter loves his.

Speaker 3 (01:47:56):
Job it was everything to. Me there is no thing
BET i had to saying all the. Time the police
will protect your, life the fight department will rescue your,
life BUT ems is the only one that will really
save your.

Speaker 4 (01:48:13):
Life, Now i'm not talking about pulling a guy out
of a. Fire i'm talking about medical versus trauma versus.
Anything we have those tools and they should make us
the third.

Speaker 1 (01:48:27):
Service and we'll see what the future, brings especially with
the changers that are coming up in a few months
In New York. CITY a lot a timely conversation because
a lot is on the live these. Days so this
has been a, great great. Conversation LIKE i, said my
thanks to everyone tonight who is in the. Audience great
participation and give and take with all of you guys.
Tonight you guys are always very good with, that SO

(01:48:49):
i appreciate. It coming up next on The mike The
New Aven, podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:48:52):
We'll see if we have Show.

Speaker 1 (01:48:53):
MONDAY i had to Reschedule monday's. Guest he's coming out
Of november. Instead that was Show Battle La, Monte so
we'll be On november twenty four worth barring anything, Unforeseen
i'm working on getting somebody For. Monday IF i don't get,
anybody we won't have a. Show but Next, friday which
would be our first show Of, october should be a
Former Deputy commissioner on THE nypd, Side Rob, bartinez who

(01:49:14):
was involved in the NYPD's fleet, services so we can
talk about that when he is on Next friday, again
that should be six pm And i'll let you guys
know on social media IF i find anybody for This.
Monday so, again thanks to everyone who tuned. In rather
you tuned in on, YouTube rather you tuned in On,
LinkedIn facebook Or. Twitter for those of you of course
listening on the audio side from their two thousand and

(01:49:36):
one Album, Nice it's The rollins band with up for.
It in the meantime on behalf of Producer victor And Mitchell,
STERN i Am mike. Alone this has been volume seventy,
four the best of The bravest interviews with The ft
And Wise. Elite we'll see you next. Time have a great,
night have a great. Weekend and it can't take the shark.
Out take care.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
The, drive, yeah m.

Speaker 7 (01:50:00):
H i take time to think about the Move i'm
gonna have to. MAKE i take time thinking about the
Roof i'm.

Speaker 2 (01:50:18):
Gonna have to.

Speaker 8 (01:50:18):
Break it's always vision shove and.

Speaker 7 (01:50:23):
Sometimes it comes to. Nothing sometimes it's more than a
mere more romantic.

Speaker 3 (01:50:27):
Change arm up for. It i'm up for, it armor for.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
It i'm on for.

Speaker 7 (01:50:46):
The day to day can become such a.

Speaker 8 (01:50:48):
Trip the mediocre can make you use your. Breath it's
all on you when what you've got you been playing
to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:58):
High AND i paid.

Speaker 8 (01:50:59):
THEM i said, TEA, myshf say up for.

Speaker 3 (01:51:02):
It i'm up for, it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):
Up for, It i'm up for. It money we. Can
can't believe the shame your hand there or somebody who's
gonna try to make it, worse that's one gonna understand.

(01:51:28):
It as long In i'm still. STANDING i Believe i'm
gonna make other. Plants stay up for, it stay up for,
it stay up for, it end for. End.

Speaker 9 (01:52:01):
Time, time stop wasting mine. Mine don't say that trying.
Time just make up your. Mind time and time stop
wasting mine. Mine don't stand they're. Trying, Try just make
up your, mind stay, up, goring stay up all, right

(01:52:21):
stay up for, me.

Speaker 2 (01:52:23):
Stay up FOR.

Speaker 6 (01:52:30):
I take time and think about What i'm gonna have to.

Speaker 8 (01:52:32):
Do what it, takes how it.

Speaker 7 (01:52:36):
Is and What i'm gonna like refuse all this pussions
show up in in the and no one else said,
nothing And i'll never get to say a. Chance look
at me in the.

Speaker 3 (01:52:45):
Face i'm a, forridon.

Speaker 2 (01:52:51):
Say your forridden.

Speaker 7 (01:53:04):
The thin you can leave you such a bride.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
The.

Speaker 1 (01:53:08):
Medio it can then make you lose your. Mind it's
all on you when what you've.

Speaker 2 (01:53:14):
Got to pay.

Speaker 3 (01:53:15):
Into i'm make it.

Speaker 6 (01:53:16):
Hot pity the price and take my.

Speaker 2 (01:53:18):
Son stay ye for, It alo for a a for it,
now now him do the. Shop Now i'm going to.

Speaker 9 (01:53:39):
Stop they're knowing somebody who's gonna come to take your.

Speaker 10 (01:53:42):
Bread looking up sign, Something i'll be spanished. Something i've
seen him come and go so many. Times i'm Up,
ford stay up FOR i stay up for, Reason stay
up for.

Speaker 2 (01:53:59):
It what are you gonna?

Speaker 6 (01:54:01):
DO i beg you will, Lead you'll be, quick great

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
Sh

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 373: The Best of The Bravest: Mitch Stern (Volume 74)

Episode Transcript

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Episode 373: The Best of The Bravest: Mitch Stern (Volume 74)

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