SA Firefighter

sitrep I heard that cracked me up one day for a MFS crew that was attending a cat in a tree.........



....."cat in a tree - 1 High Pressure Line in use".....

Quote from: rescue5271 on November 26, 2007, 05:51:17 AM
Time for a very big overhaul of call taking/paging/contacting other services,someone is going to get hurt or killed if they keep playing this silly game.Time delays in paging other services is taking too long,we had a MVA Sunday I did not go but when I looked on the pager site from the time SAAS paged  and from the time we where paged was a 9 min delay......There are a lot of issues with the dispatching and only one person can fix it....

hear hear!

the new coroner isn't afraid to get his teeth stuck into anything, and while I'd like to say it'd be one of the various service's managers or CEO/commissioners, the cynic in me backs it being Mr Johns hammering it home with a dirty big nail!

of late- being despatched to VA's in metro - It's usually a repetitive call for MFS attendance - because it doesn't happen initially.  Granted, a majority of the VA's we attend in metro are so minor that not even a clean-up is neededand SAMFS aren't required, but the one we do go to that fire cover is really needed will be the one that lands on the coroners desk first.

Now the perfect solution would be a commcen that was merely a large floor area, with SAMFS comms, SACFS comms, SES SCC all working from the same databases, yet with their own separate areas so that they all deal with their own service. Yet they would be close enough to be able to communicate without ringing each other or needing liaison officers to drive around town to another building.

not a pipedream - isn't that what SACAD is supposed to do?  if you believe the spin-doctors!! :evil:



Dare I suggest a purpose built building, housing SAPol and SAAS comms as well. Then we could have all emergency services working off the same page and would cut out 99% of the crap that goes on

that would have to be one HUGE building!  SAPOL comms is massive, and SAAS comms has just undergone a massive renovation - it now occupies the entire top floor of greenhill rd.

the other issue with them all being housed in the same location is security.....all it takes is one well positioned explosive, and all critical ES infrastructure gone in an instant - would never happen....would it??

Quote from: rusty on December 10, 2007, 08:28:11 AM
cutting down verbose S/Os who waffle their sitreps and stop messages with unnecessary detail, cutting down radio traffic. This should also allow the radio operator to respond quicker to CFS radio traffic on other talkgroups, so we benefit too.

now if only you could try and extend this to every other agency - life with GRN would be much more palatable!!

the merc's are no fun - the back axles don't fall off them like the Inter's!   :evil:

Quote from: chook on November 22, 2007, 06:07:19 PM
ok thanks - still SAAS comcen still playing by a different set of rules?

given the relative anonymity this forum provides (for me and you lot anyway - I'm just a lowly paramedic working in the city) - I'm thinking that it could be a fair assumption on my part to think that the average firey considers SAAS comms a bit of a joke?

please be honest - it's always interesting to know what other services think!

Quote from: mack on November 21, 2007, 06:09:41 AM

Quote from: StopCallKing on November 20, 2007, 08:41:56 PM

Quote from: mack on November 20, 2007, 06:32:20 AM
aaah but surely 'civvys' as you call them... are the way to go.

that way they dont let personal experience or knowledge get in the way of enforcing procedures...

Nothing to do with procedures.  It's about price. 
People who actually know their stuff cost more than people who don't. 
And they are a lot harder to bully into cooperation with management
targets vs. core business.

Sad thing is that it more-or-less works for a while. Just long enough
fpor the manglers who introduce the system to collect their bonusses
& bolt. Then the wheels fall off.  Who here can spell "Intergraph"?

not entirely sure whether youve missed my point or not...

boredmatrix - whether thats from a managerial point of view of not, im not sure. im simply saying that perhaps to get things done properly per procedures, that it is better to have people who dont have that little nagging voice in the back of there head saying "ahhh just a motorbike they cant possibly be trapped, wont bother with F&R".... i know it is important to have people with experience in positions, no doubt about that, however it is also important to have people who will enforce the service SOPs.

I can absolutely see your point Mack - there does need to be process in order to ensure that all bases are covered and everything is achieved.

I guess from the perspective of those of us who like to see things resolved practically and with the most positive outcomes - there seems to be no medium between the old and the new. Process makes it easy to set goals and achieve outcomes, but completely removes any recognition that people are human, and hence still have physical, emotional and psychological constraints.

Some of the best managers I've ever worked for have maintained the human element while keeping the achievability of goals in focus.  typically -these are the types of managers who never get far up the food chain because they are seen as "failing" in achieving outcomes!

Quote from: StopCallKing on November 20, 2007, 08:41:56 PM

Quote from: mack on November 20, 2007, 06:32:20 AM
aaah but surely 'civvys' as you call them... are the way to go.

that way they dont let personal experience or knowledge get in the way of enforcing procedures...

Nothing to do with procedures.  It's about price. 
People who actually know their stuff cost more than people who don't. 
And they are a lot harder to bully into cooperation with management
targets vs. core business.

Sad thing is that it more-or-less works for a while. Just long enough
for the manglers who introduce the system to collect their bonusses
& bolt. Then the wheels fall off.  Who here can spell "Intergraph"?

spoken like a true veteran SCK - and Mack like a true manager!!

why do you think banks have sent their call-centres off-shore? 

true andrew - Tis what we in SAAS thought as well - call-takers=no problems. 

....until some hare-brained idiot decided that these same call-takers could become despatchers as well!!

now, unless the person who is the despatcher has a bit of nouse - and LOTS of local knowledge - it's just a mess!! 

Quote from: chook on November 08, 2007, 04:04:24 PM
Saw one on another forum from QLD I think similar yellow stripping on the side.

the yellow stuff is the current flavour everywhere.  mines are using lots of the yellow reflective - and latest research shows that by having the vehicle outlined in colour and reflective- it is much more visible.

as for the EMERGENCY AMBULANCE bit - the non-emergency transport ambulances will just have AMBULANCE on them - just the bit of minor differentiation!  Will come in handy when trying to explain to some time-waster with their stubbed toe that they're "wasting EMERGENCY ambulance resources - and to go see their GP"

Quote from: Robert34 on November 18, 2007, 06:40:59 PM
Maybe Adelaide Fire needs to start placing Positions Vacant ads in the local papers to cover the staff shortage thats a great way to boost the number of AF Comm Centre staff by hiring more people  :-)

be careful what you wish for- putting Civvies in operational ComCens without appropriate operational exposure (ie:a full year or 10 of it!!) can only lead to lots of trouble!!

your reliable source is still off!!

try LW3!

you're right, there is the RCR MOU - but cyncically, I don't think it get's used a whole lot in SAAS comms.

pipster - you'll have to trust me that there are not a lot of AO's up in the SAAS comms room anymore!  I think we're up to about the 3rd or 4th "generation" of civvy's now. the guys who co-ordinate regional SA are the "old hands" and haven't worked on the road in years, but at least they have...and know what happens out there.  these new bods wouldn't have a clue!! They have about 10000 work instructions to try and follow, while the managers breathe down their necks, pushing them to meet targets such as response times, call recieved to despatch times etc. 

call me intuitive, but I'm detecting a lot of concern in relation to discrepancies between incident occurance times and how long it takes to dispatch other agencies.

many years ago, SAAS used to manage dispatch of it's crews locally.  Then it became a regional thing - and a regional comcen used to manage crews in a geographical area.  As of 4 years ago, the whole of SA's ambulance resources are all managed/dispatched from Eastwood - from calltaking right through to major incident management.

also at around the same time, SAAS management was having trouble getting road staff to work in the ComCen - so started employing civillians to undertake call-taking duties.  Slowly but surely this leached into civillians co-ordinating all ambulance resources state wide.  The guys who deal with regional ambulance co-ordination are generally on the ball and smart, but the one's who deal with metro and fringe metro ambulance co-ordination are civvy's who wouldn't know that their proverbial was on fire if they had the most expensive alarm fitted to their backsides! 

now - you can't blame them entirely (they've never worked on an ambulance......)- management are focussed on meeting targets and ensuring that their own proverbials are covered and that they won't be smacked by the coroner.

so where does this leave the practical bits of ambulance resource management?

.......not even your average paramedic or VAO seems to know any more...and the usual reply is "just do what and go where you are told!"

now I know that there are some VAO's and even a reasonably senior SAAS manager that read this forum - and guess that they probably won't have the same perspective or entirely agree with me - but at the end of the day - these monkeys in Eastwood simply sit in front of a computer, and feed the cases on one PC screen an Ambulance from the other PC screen - and tell the crews where to go on a radio.

as for specific agreements on when should fire services be involved in VA's?  I don't believe there is one - but I know that in Metro Adelaide - if we routinely called SAMFS for every single VA we attend - there would be appliances belting around the city almost as aimlessly as the ambulances which attend minor VA's more routinely than you have hot dinners.  SAAS don't carry patients from a fair majority of these, and there is generally no requirement for SAMFS to attend....and given that these monkeys in Eastwood sit in front of a screen and "co-ordinate" (sic) - it's little wonder that the same rationale is starting to emerge in country SA!

sorry this took so long......enough of a rant...I think I need to go on a holiday!!

btw - for the record - I enjoy and appreciate the work all firey's do! have some very good mates in both SAMFC and CFS!!

not a silly idea.  The UK have massive trucks that responds to incidents on motorways for just that reason. they carry about 10 000 cones and flares, and have more colour than the bottom of the dunny bowl on a sunday morning....plus they're huge, so anyone not paying attention hits that instead of anyone working!

or..in the case of the recent Myer centre fire in Adel - the water damage far outstrips the dollar value caused by the fire! 

mmm....while a well involved big one like that would be fun - I'd prefer water damage anyday!

...and no..I'm not a pyro! :mrgreen:

I'm not disputing that one little bit!

The biggest problem with Health Care services in this state is that everything has been, or is in the process of being centralised!  Having spent the majority of my life living in Rural SA, but now in metro - I can see the massive indiscrepancies between health care delivery.  Sure - it may be more cost effective to follow the Europe/UK models of centralised services, but they seem to forget that out here in CONVICT LAND (sic) we can live up to 2000km from the nearest major hospital!

Ambo's are doing more and more miles on the open road, and the RFDS at the Adelaide Base don't tend to do much more than ferry people round the state, like an expensive flying taxi!

my rant over....wasn't this thread about SAAS station codes?   :evil:

Quote from: sesroadcrashrescue on August 23, 2007, 11:06:54 PM
but if some one is detained we are ment to wait for psyc to get there and take over the job unless they have a medical emergency and need urgent medical aid

the Psych truck (MH cars) are Mental Health Nurses who work closely with ACIS in order to take the workload off of SAAS crews in the Metro Area.(let's face it - most psych patients don't need to lie on a bed to be taken to hospital!!)  ACIS also has a MH nurse in the comms room who will spend time talking to the psych patient on the phone rather than just routinely send an ambulance out and take the patient taken to hosp.

as for the newest addition to the mental health transfer - ATS staff are now providing the "escort" (including flying with the RFDS) because SAPOL simply don't have the staff to send an escort every time a patient has been detained.  Only down side is that this person is not a paramedic - hence cannot sedate the patient if required - a paramedic is still needed in these instances.

nope..guess again!

yes - it's all true.  As someone who will be driving one of those monstrosoties - that particular car you all saw at the show is the lasest and greatest invention since the wheel (According to the Spin-Master SAAS Managers)

they are bigger than the current fleet, obviously stand out a lot more, and have been reconfigured internally as well.

....unsure as to exactly when they are to be rolled out, but there is more than 20 of them ready to go into action just as soon as they are marked up.

The current fleet of station wagons and sedans (Fords an Holdens) are all to be replaced with Ford Territories, which are marked up in something just as bright and similar.....

...and on the uniform topic - they are being completely redesigned as well - so will be a completely new look all round!! Watch this space!