About Time

It's good to hear that New York City EMTs will begin undergoing training for dealing with hazardous materials incidents. These are first responders that everyone relies upon for immediate care should an incident occur and it does no one any good if they're incapacitated by the very incident to which they were responding.

Medics with the city's Emergency Medical Services will soon be closer to the FDNY and NYPD's level of training when it comes to handling hazardous materials, The Post has learned.
EMTs and paramedics are being fitted for bunker gear in preparation for 16 hours of training this summer involving chemical spills and terrorism.

"In the past, EMTs and paramedics were trained to 'the awareness level,' in essence . . . to recognize a situation and run away from it," said Patrick Bahnken, president of the Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics.

"This [new] training will enable us to save more lives should a large-scale hazardous-material or terrorist incident involving chemical weapons occur."

One has to wonder why it took so long for this training regime to be implemented, given that the threat posed has been known for quite some time.

This program only applies to the NYC EMTs, not the private ambulance services that also operate throughout the city. Hopefully some of the federal aid programs for counter terrorism and emergency response will go towards training of these volunteer groups as well.

UPDATE:
Along with the EMT program, the NYC OEM is looking at developing community emergency response teams.

OEM wants Community Emergency Response Teams - or CERTs - operating in each of the city's 59 community-board districts by year's end, officials said.

The city program, which now has 33 teams, is part of President Bush's initiative to harness the power of neighborhoods to help fight the war on terror.

CERTs assist first responders with first aid, crowd control and evacuations, and by identifying neighbors with special needs.

This isn't exactly fighting the war on terror, but a crucial part of disaster management and preparation. Putting these CERTS into operation frees up emergency response teams from the NYPD and FDNY to handle more critical tasks and gives the communities a stake in their futures. It also means that the communities have to be aware of special needs within their communities so that if a nursing home needs evacuation during a hurricane or terrorist attack, all the necessary groups and officials are not only aware of the situation, but that action is taken to get those individuals out of harms' way.