The New York City Fire Department unveiled their EMS Week 2011 posters yesterday during a press event at Department Headquarters. The posters have become an annual event for the department, one of the few things it does to draw attention to its EMS activities. The posters are placed around the city on 350 public phone booths.
Here’s a video featuring Chief of EMS Abdo Nahmod talking about the posters and the stories behind them:
There is however a slight problem with one of the posters, most notably the one pictured here. The problem is that in 1991 FDNY EMS did not exist and therefore did not respond to Bryan Lindsay’s accident. For that matter, the fire engines were not even staffed with CFR-Ds yet so its unlikely a fire engine was even dispatched to the scene.
In 1991 it would have been NYC EMS operated by the Health and Hospitals Corporation and dressed in green that would have responded to the call for help. FDNY did not perform the hostile takeover of NYC EMS until March 17, 1996.
While this attempt to rewrite history may be the least controversial aspect of the posters, it goes to show the completely egotistical nature of the department and their tendency to create fiction instead of acknowledging and communicating fact.
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They didn’t include the Mayor-elect Guiliani fly car intervention that absolutely, definitely didn’t happen. Even if this did happen, it had absolutely nothing to do with a child struck by a car going to the family’s hospital of choice in violation of NYC EMS policy.
No surprises here. Did you know in 1776 they signed the Declaration of Independence too?
No surprises here. Did you know in 1776 they signed the Declaration of Independence too?
Why does this crap not surprise me? Given the recent spate of bad publicity for the suppression side, it’s not unexpected. Of course the real prize of taking over EMS was the inclusiveness factor. FDNY can point to all of the minority employees and say that they’ve integrated FDNY.