In a ploy that could save the company millions of dollars and potentially protect it from ongoing lawsuits, a private ambulance outfit has poured $21,900,786 to date into the statewide campaign to pass Proposition 11, a measure on the November ballot that regulates lunch and rest breaks for people who work in ambulances.
- PUB DATE: 10/11/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mission Local

Officials in Lake County have been seeing a rise of accidental 911 calls from residents' smart watches. When Apple released its new watch about one year ago, it came with a new feature that lets users press and hold a button on the side of the device to call 911 for help. Since then, 911 call centers across the country, and in the Chicago area, have been experiencing a problem with accidental calls.
- PUB DATE: 10/11/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WGNTV.com

After a long legal battle, a judge ruled in favor of Homer Salinas - a Mission firefighter denied workmen's compensation after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. "When I went ahead and submitted all the paperwork, the TML, which is the insurance carrier for the city, denied me," Salinas said. The city's insurance carrier claimed that his diagnosis was unrelated to his work and refused to cover treatment costs, but Salinas appealed that decision last November and finally got the answer he'd been waiting for.
- PUB DATE: 10/11/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ValleyCentral.com

Durham has named a northern Virginia firefighter and mayor its new fire chief. Robert J. Zoldos II will start work Nov. 13, replacing interim Chief Chris Iannuzzi. Zoldos is the former three-term mayor of the small town of Lovettsville, Virginia, which is in Loudoun County in northern Virginia. He has worked for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department for 25 years and is the deputy chief of the department’s health, safety and wellness division.
- PUB DATE: 10/10/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Durham Herald-Sun & Chapel Hill Herald

VIDEO - Dashcam video from the Wilmer Police Department captured a scary moment Saturday when an SUV lost control on a wet highway and crashed into police officers and firefighters responding to a separate incident. The crash, which everyone survived, happened Saturday morning in Hutchins on the eastbound side of Interstate 20 between Interstate 45 and Dowdy Ferry Road, according to Wilmer police.
- PUB DATE: 10/10/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KXAS-TV NBC 5 Dallas - Fort Worth

Brainerd city officials committed unfair labor practices by eliminating full-time firefighter positions in 2015, moves that led to to the elimination of the firefighters union, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled. In a published opinion posted Monday, Oct. 8, the appeals court reversed part of a Crow Wing County District Court decision that had sided with the city in a lawsuit filed by the Firefighters Union Local 4725 and union President Mark Turner.
- PUB DATE: 10/10/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Brainerd Dispatch

The New Haven Fire Department has launched an internal investigation after a firefighter was found unresponsive while on duty. “Any time one of our units does not respond, it is a great concern of all of us,” Chief John Alston told NBC Connecticut. “Whether that be a firefighter in distress or even a mechanical issue, we take all of it seriously.
- PUB DATE: 10/10/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC Connecticut

VIDEO - The Yorktown Fire Department is taking a popular social media trend to an emotional, yet powerful new level. The all-volunteer department collaborated with local filmmaker Hayden Goldsworthy to produce an eight-minute video for a "Lip Sync Challenge." But instead of doing what many organizations have done — make a goofy, costume-filled parody of a song — their video is more serious and highlights a troubling trend among groups of first responders: suicides left more officers and firefighters dead last year than all line-of-duty deaths combined.
- PUB DATE: 10/10/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Muncie Star Press

Evanston city officials have proposed cutting nearly 40 jobs — including five police officers and nine firefighters — slashing the public health department budget, closing one recreation center, and closing and selling a fire station in order to deal with a $7.4 million deficit expected in the city’s fiscal year 2019 budget.
- PUB DATE: 10/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Tribune

Verizon is touting its commitment to firefighters and public safety in a new ad, released weeks after Verizon throttled the Santa Clara County fire department while it was fighting California's largest-ever wildfire. "From coast to coast and everywhere in between, people rely on us to ensure they can communicate when they need it most," Verizon said in an introduction to the new ad.
- PUB DATE: 10/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: ars Technica

Gold Ridge volunteer firefighters Tonia and Vail Bello and their son and daughter were in Hollister last year for an early October weekend and asleep when the flurry of texts and pages began. Are you coming? firefighters and friends asked. When can you be here? They woke their kids, gathered the dog, climbed into the family SUV and sped north on Highway 101.
- PUB DATE: 10/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat

You are at the training grounds, moving through some hoseline deployment evolutions. It’s a beautiful day, and everyone is enjoying the opportunity to get some hands-on training completed. The training division has created timed evolutions, and it’s become somewhat of a competition between adjacent companies.
- PUB DATE: 10/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

A six-month-old program aimed at getting help for people addicted to opioids is seeing positive results , according to leaders of the effort. The city’s heroin quick response team has contacted 65 people who have had an opioid overdose since its launch March 1. Called the Helping Overdose through Prevention and Education, or HOPE, program, a team consisting of a police officer, paramedic and a social worker has a goal of meeting with a person who overdosed within three to five days to connect them with appropriate assistance.
- PUB DATE: 10/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Journal-News

A limousine carrying several couples to a birthday party failed to stop at an intersection in upstate New York and struck a parked vehicle, killing 20 people in the deadliest transportation accident in the United States in nearly a decade, according to authorities and a family member. The 2001 Ford Excursion limo was traveling southwest on State Route 30 when it didn't stop at the intersection with State Route 30 A and collided with an SUV in the parking lot shortly before 2 p.
- PUB DATE: 10/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CNN

A federal jury this week awarded $500,000 to a former Klamath fire chief after finding Klamath County Fire District No. 1 breached his contract when it fired him in August 2013 without due process. James Wenzel served as fire chief for five and a half years. His lawyer argued that the county failed to provide Wenzel adequate notice or a hearing before his termination and never told him why he'd been under investigation.
- PUB DATE: 10/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Portland Oregonian, Hillsboro Argus, Oregon Live.com

PHOTOS - Thousands of people from across the nation gathered in Emmitsburg this weekend to pay tribute to fallen firefighters. The 37th annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend was a chance for families, friends and colleagues to grieve and honor their loved ones killed in the line of duty.
- PUB DATE: 10/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Frederick News-Post

The mayor has ended a stepped-up fire watch program that has been criticized heavily as a waste of resources by the city’s firefighters union. In a press release issued Saturday, Mayor Tony George stated: “At this time, after evaluating all of the available data and information collected over the past two months, the decision has been made to restore the prior Community Fire Watch schedule.
- PUB DATE: 10/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Times Leader

After months of trading barbs from a distance, Mayor Sylvester Turner and the head of Houston’s firefighters’ union met in a vigorous but civil debate Saturday, displaying their fundamental differences over just about everything related to the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay “parity” with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority.
- PUB DATE: 10/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Houston Chronicle

El Dorado Springs Firefighter Russ Hayes, 62, has died after a wreck in a firetruck. The El Dorado Springs firefighter lost control of a vehicle in Stockton, and was life-flighted to Springfield. El Dorado Springs City Manager Bruce Rogers tells KOLR10 that Hayes, 62, was on his way to have a pump inspected for annual certification on one of their trucks.
- PUB DATE: 10/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Ozarks First

Four central Sonoma County fire agencies aim to join forces within months as one huge fire district — a shift fast-tracked by the October fires and the most visible progress in a years-long effort to streamline the county’s outdated, uneven and financially struggling fire services network. Windsor, Rincon Valley and Bennett Valley fire districts and the Mountain Volunteer Company are on track to be one agency by this spring.
- PUB DATE: 10/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat