Roleplaying Fire Department response times

[TheSenate]

Also, can we leave factionism and faction rivalries in the past? They're stupid. I remember rather distinctly a fellow LSFD member telling me that they have an issue with ALS providers from other agencies providing care on scenes (even when they're delayed to respond) because "it makes  them feel like a taxi" but when asked "What if an ALS fire engine shows up first and does the exact same thing?". Their response to the later scenario was "Well that's fine! Because they're FD!". As someone who works in EMS in real life, this is a team sport, and that's true at -every level of EMS-. It starts with the relationship between you and your partner and it grows to your relationship between your unit and other agencies you respond with. Every single code 3 call I go to in real life, Fire responds with us (ALS or BLS, depending on what department we're responding with). They do all the same stuff we do, often they even ride in with us on more critical calls to help us provide care. 

 

Truth be told even if LSFD went full LACFD mode, stopped transporting, and devolved all that to a private EMS agency (or even multiple if we had a central governing body, as we do in every county in California, the EMSA) I think the faction would be better off 110%. They would still respond to every single medical emergency, they would ride in with EMS on the more critical calls (or if they just feel like it), and they can clear BS calls they don't like early to free themselves up to go to other calls (this is exactly what Fire does IRL here in California). And meanwhile they would actually get to focus on being /firefighters/, staffing engines and trucks, while retaining their role in EMS. Though, even if LSFD did go this route, I'd advise they at least keep some ambulances as backup so they have them if they need them. But they would gain the ability to pick and choose their scenes, retain all the high speed stuff that attracts people to the FD, and they would stop feeling like a taxi service when they're being slammed with calls and all they have time to do is load and go into a 1 man ambulance.

Edited August 23, 2021 by TheSenate

[Biscuit]

4 hours ago, KinnyWynny said:

Ambulances in the United States must be staffed with a minimum of 2 personnel. The level of crew certification varies depending on the jurisdiction the ambulance is operating in. In most areas, the bare minimum is an EMT to provide patient care and an EMR to assist and drive the unit.

 

source

Talking about in-game,

 

In the US, you are correct, it's a minimum of 2 people.

 

But again, same issue is brought up, what happens if there are an ODD amount of people?

What if there's only 1 person on duty?

Edited August 23, 2021 by Biscuit

[bartman]

29 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

 

But again, same issue is brought up, what happens if there are an ODD amount of people?

What if there's only 1 person on duty?

 

Odd number of people = one ambulance is 3 manned, or someone hops in a chase vehicle/fly car.

One person = you get the same amount of treatment as a cop driving you to the hospital on his patrol car so zero real point in waiting for a ambulance 

Edited August 23, 2021 by bartman

[Biscuit]

21 minutes ago, bartman said:

 

Odd number of people = one ambulance is 3 manned, or someone hops in a chase vehicle/fly car.

One person = you get the same amount of treatment as a cop driving you to the hospital on his patrol car so zero real point in waiting for a ambulance 

So same standards as the Fire Department apart from the fact that there'll be 1 less ambulance on the street.

 

Not the most perfect solution but hey, it works.

[bartman]

56 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

So same standards as the Fire Department apart from the fact that there'll be 1 less ambulance on the street.

 

Not the most perfect solution but hey, it works.

I would not call one guy picking up bodies a ambulance. Nothing of value is gained over throwing them in a cop car and transporting the victim with police, which is what some systems do when ambulances aren't available.

 

good video on when Detroit was in a similar LSFD style situation in 2010.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by bartman

[Florida]

16 hours ago, Biscuit said:

1 -- it happens when there's nobody else to partner with you (due to other assignments or such), you are required to partner up if you can, which I'd imagine the same standard would be applied to the EMS, otherwise you'd need an even number to be online for the faction to even function properly.

 

I have no history with the LSFD or knowledge, and I don't mean this in a provocative way, but with your well-written statistics post earlier I have a follow-up question/request.

 

How many members of the LSFD are responding to calls, and how many members are supervisors/office/non-line level positions? My main point with this question is seeing if the LSFD is too top-heavy.

[Late]

I think it's just going to have to be accepted as a fact of life living in Los Santos, a city with such high crime.

I'll share a story from when I worked in recovery IRL. We had a call from the police about a car that flipped and blocked a small single track road. We send our recovery truck to recover it but we had to wait until the ambulance came first... Well the ambulance took 4 hours to respond to a car that had flipped over. The one guy had severed fingers and the other a broken collar bone, FOUR HOURS waiting on a dark cold road with the police and our reccovery driver.

Sadly in Wales people die waiting for ambulances because of a variety of reasons through remote communities and just a general lack of ambulances. I guess Los Santos is no different. 


I read a post about extending the death timer from 2 mins to 30 mins before you can accept death? Would that help? I can see pros and cons, delaying the urgency for more mild related wounds? 

[Biscuit]

1 hour ago, Florida said:

 

I have no history with the LSFD or knowledge, and I don't mean this in a provocative way, but with your well-written statistics post earlier I have a follow-up question/request.

 

How many members of the LSFD are responding to calls, and how many members are supervisors/office/non-line level positions? My main point with this question is seeing if the LSFD is too top-heavy.

 

No worries! Here's some more numbers for you!

 

Currently the LSFD has 4 Chief Officers, which is mainly Faction Leadership / Office Positions, it doesn't particularly exclude them from responding from scenes as you do see a Chief Officer at a scene here and then, especially now since we got two Battalion Chiefs, but it isn't as common.

 

Along with the 4 Chiefs, there are 8 Captains, Captains assume Incident Command roles on scenes and organize firefighters giving each of them roles, ensuring safety of the staff and communicating / liaising with other agencies / dispatch (total of 12 command staff / administrative staff)

 

Since I had to count by hand, there's ~60 NCO staff (21 of them are part of the EMT division) [not counting Lifeguards nor Civilian Staff]

 

During peak times, on a good day, we typically have about 8-12 firefighters/EMTs on duty and even with that amount, it's still really hard to keep on-top of all the 911 calls that come in.

 

Whilst EMT staff are only restricted to Medical Duties, Firefighters have both Medical and Firefighting duties, so it's often off-peak that you see firefighters online (about say 3 of them) and an MVA call goes in, now, most people tend to roleplay that a door is jammed or an engine isn't turned off or a car is leaking, a Rescue Ambulance alone isn't gonna be able to solve that and you'd need to also staff an Engine for that, which in this case, also has to be accounted for and is typically when we have people single-staff a Rescue Ambulance. Whilst it isn't practical IRL, sadly, this isn't IRL, you have to work with what you have, hence the reason we also allow people, in certain circumstances, to single-staff RA's.

[Vash Baldeus]

1 hour ago, Biscuit said:

 

No worries! Here's some more numbers for you!

 

Currently the LSFD has 4 Chief Officers, which is mainly Faction Leadership / Office Positions, it doesn't particularly exclude them from responding from scenes as you do see a Chief Officer at a scene here and then, especially now since we got two Battalion Chiefs, but it isn't as common.

 

Along with the 4 Chiefs, there are 8 Captains, Captains assume Incident Command roles on scenes and organize firefighters giving each of them roles, ensuring safety of the staff and communicating / liaising with other agencies / dispatch (total of 12 command staff / administrative staff)

 

Since I had to count by hand, there's ~60 NCO staff (21 of them are part of the EMT division) [not counting Lifeguards nor Civilian Staff]

 

During peak times, on a good day, we typically have about 8-12 firefighters/EMTs on duty and even with that amount, it's still really hard to keep on-top of all the 911 calls that come in.

 

Whilst EMT staff are only restricted to Medical Duties, Firefighters have both Medical and Firefighting duties, so it's often off-peak that you see firefighters online (about say 3 of them) and an MVA call goes in, now, most people tend to roleplay that a door is jammed or an engine isn't turned off or a car is leaking, a Rescue Ambulance alone isn't gonna be able to solve that and you'd need to also staff an Engine for that, which in this case, also has to be accounted for and is typically when we have people single-staff a Rescue Ambulance. Whilst it isn't practical IRL, sadly, this isn't IRL, you have to work with what you have, hence the reason we also allow people, in certain circumstances, to single-staff RA's.

If am honest, there's the problem, there's barely any staff compared to PD/SD at peak hence the issue of roleplaying with FD/EMT

[Biscuit]

7 minutes ago, Vash Baldeus said:

If am honest, there's the problem, there's barely any staff compared to PD/SD at peak hence the issue of roleplaying with FD/EMT

The question is; why?

The answer in my opinion is bad roleplaying experience. Cause as soon as there's a pager call for something like a hazmat call, or a building fire or anything similar, the numbers spike.

 

Just read my prior replies.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Biscuit