REPORTS FROM AROUND THE U. S. OF DIMWITS calling 9-1-1 to report being locked inside your own car, or getting a short order in a drive-thru window at a fast food restuarant, are not unique to this country after all.
The Daily Mirror is reporting from England:
A distraught music fan from Swindon has been accused of wasting police time after dialling 999 to report Michael Jackson’s death.
Great Western Ambulance Service took the call during the early hours of Friday morning as news reports of the King of Pop’s death began to appear across the world’s news media.
“You would think the word ‘emergency’ in emergency services would help people understand what calls we will and will not deal with,” emergency care practitioner Ben Jones told the Swindon Advertiser.
The news comes as police forces across the country have called on the public to use the 999 service only for genuine crisis situations.
LONDON, ENGLAND, FIREFIGHTERS ARE STILL ON THE SCENE of a high-rise apartment building where fire was reported about 4:25 this afternoon, local time (11:25 am Eastern).
The fire started on the fourth floor and moved via the “communal areas” (elevator lobbies?…Ed.) up to the 11th floor of the 12-story building.
BBC News photo
More than 100 FF’s are involved in both firefighting and an intensive search and rescue effort directed toward an estimated 30 people who remain trapped in the building. Officials have confirmed that 2 children have perished and 10 people have been transported to the hospital with 3 of them in serious condition.
The BBC reports that an LFB spokesman said, “A number of rescues have been carried out in extremely difficult circumstances and fire crews equipped with extended duration breathing apparatus are working very hard to reach those still affected and carry out an exhaustive search of the building.”
This incident is still ongoing and we’ll be updating as information is released.
Sky News has an early report from the scene:
Update: The Metropolitan Police have disclosed that the two fatals were ages 3 weeks and 7 years.
It has also been reported at 9:07 local time by the London Fire Brigade that the fire is out.
Update #2:
The Press Association has released two photos of the exterior just after the fire was out:
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, FIREFIGHTERS WERE CALLED TO THE HOME of an elderly woman who reported her TV was burning. Zurich authorities said the woman, who was not named, called about flames inside her television, but when they responded, no signs of fire or smoke were found.
Instead, they discovered that the channel was set to a German station that in the early morning hours aired the constant image of a fireplace.
The fire was extinguished by changing the channel. No damages were reported.
JANET REDMOND-MERCEREAU, WHO WAS CONVICTED on May 21 of shooting her husband FDNY Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau while he slept, was sentenced yesterday. Justice Robert Collini listened to Janet’s lawyer give one final plea for mercy and gave her two opportunities to speak in her own behalf. She declined both times. Justice Collini then gave her the maximum sentence of 25 years-to-life for her conviction of 2nd-degree murder.
The New York Times reported:
Ms. Redmond-Mercereau, 40, betrayed no emotion after the sentence was pronounced in State Supreme Court in Staten Island. She averted her gaze from the crowd when being led in and out of the courtroom and stared straight ahead throughout the hearing.
Yolanda L. Rudich, an assistant district attorney, argued that Ms. Redmond-Mercereau deserved the maximum sentence and recounted the events of the killing: Douglas Mercereau was shot three times in the head at the couple’s home in the Oakwood neighborhood, and evidence indicated that he was still alive after the first shot.
“But she didn’t care,” Ms. Rudich said, “and she didn’t stop there.” The second shot, she said, was fired only four inches from his head.
Just before the sentencing, the judge read a presentence report by the Department of Probation that described the crime as “cold, calculated and callous.”
Justice Collini said the department had recommended the maximum punishment, “and this court agrees.”
The Staten Island Advance had a video reporter in the courtroom recording the judge’s excoriation of Janet Mercereau and his pronouncement of sentence:
Janet Redmond-Mercereau sentencing
The Staten Island Advance has the REPORT.
The New York Times has MORE.
You can follow Firegeezer’s reports on the murder, arrest and the daily reports from the trial by clicking HERE on the verdict report and then following the links given at the end of the posting.
THE FINE CITIZENS OF MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, HAVE taken a liking to those mobile GPS receivers that show you how to get places. They’ve taken such a liking that they’ve also started taking the GPS receivers right out of the city’s ambulances.
Fire department officials admit that they’ve had “7 or 8″ of the expensive units stolen from ambulances in just the past few months. Now they’re going to attach them to the ambulance, making it harder to walk off with them.
THE PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, GRAND JURY handed down some indictments yesterday including two arson prosecutions.
Gary Gaudreau was charged with setting his own business on fire back in March. The Physique Company, a fitness gymnasium, was burned out and police became suspicious because Gaudreau’s own physique came with a pair of burned legs. WPRI-TV reports:
In another bill handed down they indicted Herbert Byrd on charges he killed the mother of his two children, then set her home on fire. Police said Byrd killed Linda Encarnacoe back in May, then set fire to her Yarmouth Street home. Investigators said Encarnacoe had been stabbed, strangled, and beaten. They believe jealousy may have been a motive.
Let’s start off the long weekend by setting a stack of good postings on the end table:
* Prince George’s County, Maryland, is bungling up its attempt to play “firehouse roulette” and after only two days they’ve got a PR nightmare on their hands. Dave Statter at STATter911 is camped out right in the middle of it and showing the world what’s going on HERE.
* FireRescue1 has an interesting story about a state hospital in New Jersey that is creating a strange upheaval in its fire protection by moving the firefighters from the old firehouse into a hospital building and abandoning the firetrucks that will be left parked outside unused. Bureaucrats never stop screwing things up. Read about it HERE.
* Firefighter Nation has a story about some Ohio politicians “feeling the heat” HERE.
* VA Fire News has an exclusive report on a honey-dipper rollover HERE. We’ll let you supply the punch lines.
* What do you suppose would happen if you went out jogging around midnight wearing all-black clothing and clapped a set of iPod speakers over your ears? Do you think you’d hear the firefighter coming? Do you think he’d see you? Well, one dimwit in Texas learned the answer the hard way and Texas-Fire has the results of the survey HERE.
* Wildfire Today is talking about the move toward re-populating the old fire lookout towers HERE. Now they’re relying on volunteers to do the looking out.
* There have been some truly major incidents over the past few days in North Carolina. Just go to FireNews.net’s homepage HERE and click on the various story links.
This is day-1 of the summer’s major holiday weekend with excessive snacking and outdoors cooking taking up a major block of time segments. I hope you’ve mixed up your batch of Firegeezer Stadium Mustard for the weekend wieners. Speaking of snacks, do you ever watch the continuing tv series on Food Network called Unwrapped? It’s that mental chewing gum show that takes you around to hundreds of food processing places and shows you how they make things like Twinkies and candy bars and spaghetti sauce.
The other night I saw a segment where they visited one of the Doritos plants, a Frito-Lay snack that I’m sure you’re familiar with. One fact about Doritos that impressed me the most was that they manufacture 8 million bags of Doritos every day. I imagine a lot of them are those little serving-size baglets that you drop in the lunchbox or stock in vending machines. But still …. Can you imagine just how much corn that one firm alone buys each year? It’s hard to comprehend.
Back to the topic of “Survival tactics” during the current economic downturn, if you’re young and still looking for that career somewhere, don’t let all those headline stories about fire departments laying off firefighters steer you away from seeking a fire/rescue/ems position. Remember that no matter what kind of work you’re looking for, to get a job, you have to go to where the jobs are. If unemployment is high in your town because there is no work, then get off your duff and go to a place where there is still economic activity and job openings.
That’s true for firefighter jobs, too. Despite the doom-and-gloom news stories, there are still plenty of municipalities that are maintaining their public service agencies and filling vacancies, especially in the ambulance sector. If you really want your choice of where to work, get your paramedic certification and don’t be afraid to start out at a lower pay rate when you go job seeking. The private ambulance companies are especially short-handed all the time (partly due to the lower pay scales I just mentioned), and there are constant “help wanted” postings by them. The work and dedication needed to get your paramedic license automatically eliminates a lot of people who are looking for work. So if you get one of those certs., you can go anyplace you want and find an opening.
Firefighter jobs are a little different because of the necessarily lengthy hiring process, often lasting as long as a year to complete all the testing phases and waiting for recruit classes to be formed. But if you want the job badly enough, then you’ll get out there and start “dropping paper” in as many personnel departments as you can and hope one goes through for you. Believe it or not, most FD’s are not laying off personnel and closing firehouses. The ones that are doing that are largely in communities that have been ill-served by their elected officials and have not followed good budgetary practices for many years.
But look around and you’ll find plenty of places, especially in states with a constant population growth, that will be hiring over the next couple of years. And if you’ve already gotten your paramedic cert. too, then a lot of places will move you up to the top of the list as more and more FD’s expand their EMS services by putting paramedics on the trucks and engines. As an example, my own FRD that I’m retired from has never laid off a uniformed firefighter. And even with these current tough times, they’re hiring 150+ firefighters every year to fill openings created by retirements. But for any place that’s hiring, you have to compete to be chosen. So get yourself ready, whether it’s by completing paramedic school or getting yourself physically fit to pass some stringent physical requirements. Just don’t give up.
By the way, this morning’s Lineup is Firegeezer posting #6,000. That is six thousand messages covering a variety of topics that we’ve sent along to you during the past 27 months that we’ve been at it. Thank you ever so much for coming back again and again to see what we’re up to. One thing that we’re up to now is an upgrading of our website. Over the next few weeks you will be seeing some improvements and additional features showing up on our pages. So don’t go away, ok? Thanks.
Now let’s get this equipment checked out. I’ll go get the coffee started. (How many millions of cans of coffee are sold each day? How many coffee trees does it take?)
