34th Avenue Open street lies dangerously come to life

We are PLEADING for your help! Residents of 34th Ave & First Responders are in danger. A fire truck can’t navigate through the cement bricks & planters! @GovKathyHochul @communityboard3 @votejgr @jessicaramos @voteshekar @NYCMayor @RPachecoJH @DOEChancellor pic.twitter.com/yj1R2nxvc8

— Gloria (@Gloria69NY) September 17, 2022

 

 

Once again from Jim Burke's letter to Donovan Richards about his scurrilous accusatory lies about homophobia directed towards him and his group. This may have been the biggest and most dangerous lie of all. Time to remove that crappy version of stonehenge on the road and abolish these open streets now.

First responders on bikes at FMCP

London EMT bike

From DNA Info:

The EMTs from the Corona Community Ambulance Corps know Flushing Meadows-Corona Park like the back of their hands.

Starting this summer, his group will begin patrolling with the help of "ambulance bikes" — a supercharged vehicle he's dreamed of since taking over the volunteer group in 2014.

Perna said the bikes — which were made possible thanks to $8,000 in funds he received from Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland — will make his staff more mobile and able to reach more people quickly, especially in the busy summer.

Starting this summer his team will have four bikes out in the park. The bikes will be equipped with oxygen, a defibrillator and other medical items to help teams of EMS workers assist patients wherever they are in the park, Perna said.

Two bikes will go out at a time, and will have an ambulance nearby as backup.

A look inside a the Woodhaven Volunteer Ambulance Corps building

"Take a look inside the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corp, at 78-15 Jamaica Avenue, nearly two years after the collapse of the building next door (which had many open violations at the time of collapse).

The conditions of 78-19 have caused damage to the Ambulance Corp every day since it collapsed on Friday, April 12th 2013. The city finally acted after the community rallied and said they were going to tear down the rest of the collapsed building - but the building's owner George Kochabe and lawyer Elio Forcina too the city to court and struck gold when they were assigned Justice Diccia Pineda-Kirwan, who has granted the owner extension after extension.

Most people don't realize the ongoing catastrophic damage that is being done to the Corp's building - maybe this video will open some eyes and help some people realize that after 2 years, the owner of the collapsed building deserves no more extensions or breaks.

The Volunteer Ambulance Corps, a mainstay in our community for 50 years, lost their only sources of income due to this collapse - yet they are still forced to pay insurance for a building in shambles, and pay taxes to a city that failed completely to protect them.

Many thanks for all that you do,

Ed Wendell
Woodhaven"

Collapse causes ambulance corps to close

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps is planning to shut down its operations almost two years after its nextdoor neighbor's building collapsed, according to an area civic leader.

Martin Colberg, president of the Woodhaven Residents' Block Association, announced the news on Saturday at the civic's monthly meeting.

"We're going to stay on top of this," Colberg said referring to the collapsed building at 78-19 Jamaica Avenue. "[But] we've run out of time for the ambulance corps, it seems."

The vacant building at 78-19 Jamaica Ave. collapsed after a downpour on April 12, 2013, causing damage to the ambulance corps building next door. The corps, after being allowed back into the building shortly after the collapse, had to leave again last year when a wall between its building and the collapsed one became damaged in a snowstorm last year.

The collapse forced the corps' main tenant, the Woodhaven Senior Center, to relocate. The senior center had been the primary source of income for the volunteer group, causing the corps to have financial difficulty in the months following the collapse.

It takes almost 10 minutes to get an ambulance

From the NY Post:

Fire Department ambulances take 9 minutes and 22 seconds on average to arrive at medical emergencies from the time a call is first placed to 911, new city data shows.

It’s the first time that the city has been able to measure response times from the time a call is placed rather than from the time a call is assigned to the FDNY or NYPD dispatcher.

The previous measurement put ambulance response times to life-threatening medical emergencies at 6 minutes and 45 seconds — a nearly 3-minute difference that alarmed City Council members.

“I’m troubled by the new numbers I’ve seen,” Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee Chair Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) said Thursday morning at a budget hearing at City Hall. “Nine minutes and 22 seconds for life-threatening emergencies is too high.”

It's time to fix it up or tear it down

From the Forum South:

The head officer of the company that owns the Woodhaven building that partially collapsed last April appeared in Queens Criminal Court Friday and was ordered to immediately hire an architect and file for a work permit for the site at 78-19 Jamaica Ave. that residents, civic leaders and legislators have said poses considerable danger to the community, according to a source with inside knowledge of the situation.

George Kochabe, the head officer of 78-19 Jamaica LLC, appeared in court following a warrant being issued for his arrest and was told he must retain the architect and file for the work permit before his next court date on April 10, according to information from the source.

The news of Kochabe’s court appearance comes just before exasperated Woodhaven residents plan to rally this Sunday at 1 p.m. in an effort to pressure the city to act on what they said is an increasingly worrisome situation: A building that, 10 months ago, partially collapsed during the busy rush hour on the evening of April 12, sending a waterfall of bricks cascading onto the sidewalk and street. A car was crushed by no one was hurt in the accident. Since last April, the site has remained virtually untouched.

Concerns about safety and structural damage prompted the ambulance corps to shut down and the Catholic Charities Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center, which rented space from the volunteer ambulance corps, to relocate to the nearby American Legion Post 118 in Woodhaven. Both the ambulance corps and senior center were operating out the of the same building located next to the collapsed structure.

Because the owner of the building has not fixed the site, the senior center has not been able to return – leaving the ambulance corps in a precarious financial situation because it is not receiving rent from Catholic Charities. And, to make matters worse, melted snow from the collapsed structure caused water to flood into the ambulance corps headquarters last Saturday and may have compromised its structural integrity, according to the WRBA.

Sadik-Khan admits big mistake

From CBS:

It was a rare mea culpa from the New York City Department of Transportation.

On Tuesday it began jack-hammering traffic islands in Borough Park that, as CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer first reported some 10 months ago, blocked ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

Not that New Yorkers should gloat, but they won.

In a first for the city, construction trucks were actually digging out and getting rid of DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s cherished traffic island projects — a dangerous project Kramer reported on last November.

A night out in Woodside

From the NY Post:

A heated argument over a woman turned bloody when a man was shot after leaving a Queens strip joint, police sources said.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim left Club Perfection NY on 30th Avenue in Woodside after getting into a dispute, police sources said.

An unidentified gunman opened fire and blasted the victim one time in the stomach at 4:30 a.m. on the westbound service road of the BQE and Bulova Avenue, police said. He was critically wounded, police sources said.

An ambulance rushing to transport the victim to a local hospital later slammed into a vehicle on 82nd Street and 34th Avenue, sending two paramedics and two other victims to Elmhurst Hospital with serious injuries, police said.

Baby brain dead after ambulance gets stuck in snow

From the NY Post:

A 3-month-old Queens boy was left brain dead last night after snow-clogged routes prevented medics from reaching him quickly -- and unplowed streets later forced the EMS workers to ditch their ambulance and sprint with the ailing baby to the hospital.

As little Addison Reynoso hovered at death's door, a priest performed last rites, and his family considered pulling him off life support.

The baby's heartbroken father fumed at the city's lax clean-up response to last weekend's monster blizzard.

"Clean the streets," Luis Reynoso said, "because that's why the ambulance came too late."

On top of the half-hour it took rescuers to get Addison to the emergency room, family members and friends said they were forced to call 911 several times before they could even reach a dispatcher.

"The weather hampered our efforts," an FDNY source said, hours after Addison -- apparently suffering from a respiratory infection -- was declared brain dead. "The snow did impact this."

Addison was being watched by a family friend in Corona Wednesday afternoon when he suddenly lost consciousness.

The frantic baby-sitter knocked on a neighbor's door after failing to reach a 911 dispatcher at around 1 p.m. and told the neighbors to call for help. A few minutes later, the boy's parents arrived, and his father lay the child on the floor and started performing CPR.

Addison's mom, Rocio Xoyatla, meanwhile, made several 911 calls, but only got a tone. She finally reached a dispatcher at 1:12 p.m., a family friend said.

It took at least 12 agonizing minutes longer for EMS crews to reach the home on 39th Avenue, near 108th Street in Corona.

When they arrived, medics found Luis Reynoso hovering over his dying child, desperately trying to blow life into the tiny lungs of the baby.

Reynoso and his wife sprinted down three flights of stairs with their child and climbed into the ambulance, which slogged two miles through the snowy streets with a police escort.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The ambulance got stuck in the snow on an unplowed stretch at Baxter and Layton streets, just 30 yards short of the emergency room door at Elmhurst Hospital.

EMS workers had to sprint the rest of the way cradling the baby, arriving at 1:42 p.m

"The City is going fine." - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

Bloomberg plans to send accident victims a bill

From NBC:

First there's the shock of crumpled metal and airbags. Now add MasterCard or Visa to injury because Mayor Michael Bloomberg is sending a bill for the ambulance that shows up to help you after a car accident.

The FDNY is considering a plan to charge drivers who require the services of the fire department after a crash.

Car fires with injuries will bill out at nearly $500. A crash with no injuries gets a discount, ringing it at $415. If there's no fire or injuries the cost would come to a "mere" $365.

If you need help, you'll pay regardless of who's to blame for the crash. And insurance companies warn that policies may not cover the new charges.

Crippled by the city's budget constraints, the fire department said in a statement it "can no longer afford to provide" emergency services to drivers at no cost to those who require them."

The Cash for Crash plan is scheduled to start next summer. The city expects it will generate about $1 million a year in revenue.

This plan is not going over very well with the public or elected officials.

Didn't this guy run for a third term based on the premise that at this time of budget crisis, we needed him because no one else could handle it? And this is the shit he comes up with?

FDNY farming out EMT duties?

From the NY Post:

Some city emergency medical technicians are "turfing out" low-priority 911 calls to nonprofit volunteer ambulance units in Queens, several sources told The Post.

That allows the nonprofits to pick up patients and receive payment -- money that otherwise would have gone to the city.

"Yeah, it happens. Some of the guys are turfing out calls to other guys who work for the community crews," said a longtime volunteer with a Queens community-ambulance team.

"It's only low-priority calls they don't want to take, or if they're really jammed up," the volunteer said. "They'll text or call a 'vollie' and say 'there's a pick-up on this street, you want it?'"

One longtime worker at the FDNY's Emergency Medical Service said: "It's a bit deceptive to the patient. When people call 911, they expect to see an FDNY crew roll up, not a volunteer unit."

The FDNY units still respond to the calls, said several volunteer EMTs.

"But maybe they'll just go a little slower to let the volunteer crew get a head start so the vollies do the transport if a patient needs to go to the hospital," said one of the volunteers.

Instead of worrying who's picking the patients up, maybe the press and politicians should concern themselves with where they're taking them to, since we're down a bunch of hospitals.

Other Van Wyck ramps on hold

From the Queens Chronicle:

A plan to close two exit ramps on the Van Wyck Expressway that was opposed by local community boards and the Queens Borough President’s Office has been suspended indefinitely.

The proposal was crafted by the city’s Economic Development Corp. and Department of Transportation and was designed to speed traffic flow into Kennedy International Airport, according to both agencies. The EDC confirmed this week that the proposal would be put on hiatus for now.

The plan would have closed the Jamaica Avenue off-ramp on the northbound side along with the Liberty Avenue off-ramp on the southbound side.

However, since it was announced earlier this summer, the proposed closures drew the ire of business and civic groups, and community boards 9, 10 and 12, who said it would negatively impact emergency vehicle traffic into Jamaica Hospital and hurt businesses in the area.

City officials had argued the closings would reduce car accidents on the Van Wyck while cutting travel time to the airport.

Mary Ann Carey, chairwoman of Community Board 9, said she would continue to oppose the plan if the city attempts to revive it.

“I am very pleased the they are not going to pursue this ridiculous idea,” she said. “I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.”

Carey said she had discussed what effect the closures would have with officials from Jamaica Hospital, and they had raised concerns about making it harder for ambulances and hospital staff to get to the facility.

She said the EDC had floated an idea where the exits would be closed for regular traffic but open to emergency hospital traffic, but Carey expressed doubt at the logistics of that plan.

“How is that going to happen?” she asked. “Are they going to have a cop sit at the exit ramp all day? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Also, Carey said closing the two exits would further congest traffic on roads like Liberty Avenue.

Another eyesore ambulance

Parked behind an abandoned newsstand, opposite the entrance to an abandoned LIRR station, sits this former Mary Immaculate ambulance, minus a few parts. Just another friendly reminder that the borough's health care system is going to hell in a hand basket in case you haven't been to a local emergency room lately.

Mary Immaculate and St. John's Queens Hospitals closed 1 year ago today.

The eyesore ambulance

Apparently, we are not only selling off ambulances, but we are selling them to out-of-state drivers who park them here. This was at Catalpa and Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood. Might I suggest a paint job?