Disclaimer.
We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast.
Hello in a world.
We go, Welcome back to the Insalty Experience podcast. This is the only one that brings the fire house, kitchen table and everything that comes with the fire service to you. All right, we're including ems because that's an important job.
Earn money, sleeping.
That's the way it goes. Old school ms, old screen money, not you know, like rubber gloves. Not the rubber gloves, uh, you know, wear your mask type of ms. We're talking old school.
We're talking about down and there. Maybe when they were even given mouth to mouth. I don't know what.
Mouth blind fingers, sweet blind.
That's old school. I think that's old school.
I don't know the blood what his old lady did to him last night? Blind fingers sweep out of nowhere? Bro, what's that sweet?
Was helping it?
You forget?
I'm not that it's not that quick. He had that written down.
You know you're a paramedic. Yes, really, you can.
Push hard, push fast, pressure up.
Yeah right.
What was that guy's name, Jim Bondello Love Dub Love Dub, Yeah, Jim.
Yeah.
Let's see. Somebody's lighting me up right where we got somebody's like yeah, no, no, no, okay.
Well listen, I'm gonna swallow my pride now and tay. Congratulations to the Yankees, all right, making it to the World Series. Yes, yes, I want to be the bigger man, even in my mets. That is a great season make. But sorry, I just had to try to humble.
He appreciate it, man, I appreciate I love you. I love you.
Yeah.
Let's play some commercials quick, let's play, you know, play first, Let's play our new Salty White commercial. I'm gonna beat you over the head with that.
Here we go.
I'm neither amuse you or.
Something with clown.
I'm running the fun out of.
A burning building. Just your apartment is underneath.
I'm in the two minute Morning ordered a couple of firemen into a flat above a fire.
I smell the smoke, catchy music, Get over there. Nine to ninety five a month. W w W dot salty wire dot com. We just did a you know, we're gonna give you a little teasing next week because we're not having a show on Halloween. We're gonna play one. A hash hagg history with hashegging episodes about uh doctor Archie started in the eighteen nineties, sixty years on the
FDNY six oh not sixteen six oh. You watch that on Thursday night and you tell me if it's not worth nine ninety five months because you get to the uh the the app too, You get the Firey app and you get our content for nine ninety five. You blow that way up probly in a seven to eleven. Man, get the coffee scotch. You know I don't Yeah, old fashioned, Yeah, get over there and do it. Www dot sulti wire dot com. Play the next one so we can get Frank.
And here we go.
Frank.
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All right, so we got an old school e F S g I, Tonight bro so we're gonna talk about the merger when it happened. He worked before Birds to the Ft and y and we're gonna share.
I might find the patch the current patch too.
You might have something.
I think I have a movie quote from him too. I think if you guys may have heard of his movie.
Quote ten grand, there's a horse called Longest Day, the number two horse running.
In the second race.
Put the ten grand on the.
Number two horse to win into second race. That actually be coo complicated you.
Where is that from?
You don't know that movie?
What is that from?
Wise guys with Danny DeVito and Frankie that whole in there?
So that's all right, don't if I remember that one? Netflix it or something?
All right? You bring your buddy in. This is the buddy of lose back from the old neighborhood. You know what I'm saying, By the old neighborhood green, what your grandmother's on? Withers? What was he on with us?
He was just a couple of a couple of houses up on the opposite side of the street.
Look at that. You had to walk a far a long way to see him, huh. I bring it, frank your fixer bro old school MS.
Guy, I love it coming to the stage. You ready, Gods, I am coming to the stage. F D N y E M S. Captain Frank Domatto, whoa, it looks good. That always had the baby face man always he looks.
I think he's like Benjamin Buttons. I don't know what.
You got the best laugh in forever.
Before we leap off, we gotta get patriotic. Yes, yes, we are that type of show.
There we go.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Excellent. Before we jump off, I did want to say something because we had on that Salty Wire commercial, we had Chief Vincent Dunn and he said that he's in the two minute warning right. So anyway, I booked him for another show he wants to do. He's looking forward to doing Q and A. So if you have questions for the Legend Vincent Dunn, send him over the Coops Podcast at gmail dot com. All right, thank you the fixer.
Let's go back. Let's go back to the old neighborhood you know all started where you and Louis became bombas you know.
Oh, thanks for having me, guys. It's a it's an honor to be which is so when did it all start? Wingers Burg, Brooklyn? Uh with the street Louis. Uh grandmother was across the streets from me, and uh him and his cousin Louis grew up together and uh a lot of good.
Times, a lot of gob of goal over there, a lot of.
Ball.
Everything everything on roller skates. We played hockey, hockey, football, football, Everything was on roller skates back in the day.
Not too many smiles though from the other little right. He didn't smile that often back then day smiling guy.
Like if he liked he liked Frankie. He liked Frankie. He would smile with frank.
We got to get him on the show and he would tells, I'm going to get a smile out of him if I got him.
There was there was like there was like six of those guys. There was uh uh Missoulo. You had Svadi, Yeah, Matone.
There was like Anthony Anthony Matone.
I didn't know that. We went to college with him.
Right rough, Yeah, we went to with Frankie too. Frankie, you went to Barok didn't you for a little bit.
About three weeks?
Yeah, I think everybody left. It was like hilarious. Everybody.
I think what's his name was the dom was the only one who finished, right, I.
Think finish right Frans Easy?
Yeah, yes, right, so everybody, no Irish guys, old Italian guys over there, no Irish old time.
High school.
He went to a knife Catholic school right LaSalle Academy. All the guys the east side.
Uh yeah it was. It was a great experience old boy high school. But uh it was tough. You know, a lot of little groups from different parts of Brooklyn. But uh, it was nice. It was a good experience.
How is that going to old boys school? Jones in high school? It's like I have to get something, you know what?
They always had sister schools, right, Like they had a sister school that they would have dances with and ship right.
I don't know, you know, we were on the lower east Side. You had what Xavier High School was another old boys school not too far on fourteenth Street or something. Yeah, we didn't we didn't do any dances or nothing like that.
Because like Malloy had what like the mint marriage, so I'll say whatever it is. Yeah, they always had a sister school that they would have dances at.
Yeah.
No, so you had dances with sisters with brothers. I'm not judging here, frank you know.
You sister brothers.
Yeah.
Yeah, So you graduated eighty six. You go from the root with us for about three weeks and then, uh, what happened? You took the test? Ye had that happen?
So I came out. I wanted to do some computer sign says, go to BARUK and they're telling me I can't take any computer classes for three years. And I'm like, forget about it. I'm out of here. So I'm out of school, don't know what to do. So I get a job down at the Fulton Fish Market. That's where Frankie the Fish was born.
Was born fish scaling.
We were unloading trucks from ten o'clock at night to six in the morning, right and the shoulders, you know, rubber galoshes pulling. We we don't load about twenty tractor trailers a night. I didn't know so much fish existed in the world.
That's I worked out there.
I mean trucks of trucks of everything. It's just unbelievable, and uh, I was down there and then Juliani wound up throwing a lot of people out down there, you know what I mean. And uh so my father at the time at the time past now, but uh my father was always into the volunteer ambulance cause. And he actually started the first e m T class instruct the class in New York State and he was giving EMT
courses at the time. I think it was green Point Hospital that's not around anymore, and he was like, oh, take the EMT class, take the MT class, see what happens. So I started taking an EMT class with him. And at the time EMS started a big hiring to get onto EMS. In the old days, you already had to be an EMT to apply for EMS. I was not an EMT. EMS was looking for a big hiring, so they started a cadet program. And what the cadet program was.
You came in off the street. EMS taught taught you how to become an e m T. I don't know if it was like eight week or a twelve week program. So you got your e m T. Once you passed your em T, then you started the EMS academy. So it was like a little segue. And I remember my father said, oh, they're starting this now. You could be in the first class, Cadet one and it was like a three to eleven shift. I said, I don't want to go up to Queen's three to eleven. I said, oh,
wait for the day shift the next one. So Cadet two started and you know, I got into the class, and you know, it was an eye opener, you know, going through the em T program. We're really good instructors. Always had good instructors up at four time and up the bayside and did the EMT session and everything worked out.
And you were like eighteen when this was going on, Frank right, I mean.
Eighteen just turning nineteen. Yeah, so yeah, I got it, got into a young you know, and my father was like, I try for a few years, see what happens. You know, what happens with that, right, twenty three years later, that's the story.
It's funny how that happened.
You get pushed into something, you know, just mention and now you know it's yeah life, you know, like right, that.
Was before the merger, so they were run by what Health and Hospital, right.
We were healthing Hospitals Corporation.
It was it a mullet.
Bounce a while while bro it definitely was eighty five.
Yeah you're looking at it. Oh yeah, so yeah that's uh that's a Woodhole hospital. That's we guess enough the truck there. But uh yeah. So we graduate and we get our assignments and they tell me you go in to Cumberland Station thirty six. I was like thirty six and everybody's looking at me like I did something wrong. Thirty six Cumberland. That was like the place where like I don't know, they made it like old. All the bad guys went over there, and I was like, oh jeez,
where am I going. I was all upset. I want to go there. I want to go to I wanted to go to Woodholls, right down great Avenue for me living in Williamsburg. And I tell you I got there and I fell in love with the people. You know, great partners. Uh you know, I'll just throw a few names out there, Eddie Petrie, Eddie Rissotto, Kevin Saclair and Gary Ridderlrii Roche Todd Fullman, Pete Angelo, just just people
that you know, you never forget. Ivan Resto, We had a captain, Christine Calucci and o'neils Neils and I got a bus right away assigned to me thirty six either Tour two. We worked nine to five and uh, you know a normal day was, you know, we get out on the road. The first thing we would do was go to our dispatch area where we were signed. My area was down on Court Street in third Place, so we'd stopped at the seventh seven seven six precinct over there,
and we'd always sign out a police portable. So we were listening to EMS radio and we're also listening to the police portable because you know, we want you know, we we we would do ten twelve jobs in an eight hour shift. I mean we were running from warning from the beginning of shift to the end of the shift. You know, we'd come out of the emergency room you have to drop them off, the patient and the dispatcher
would just be holding calls and holding calls. I mean you couldn't get a break, and you know, it was just crazy stuff. And you know, nobody wanted to do the elderly, you know, difficulty breathing calls. Everybody wanted the trauma stuff right and back then there was no GPS in the ambulance. You nobody knew where you are. You know, everybody was not the honest love it, I love it,
you know. So you know, you know, you get a call, you listen it to the police radio and the shooting comes over and cop shot, cop shot, you know whatever, stabbing, you know this and that, and you know you always jumped under on the radio, no matter where you were, no matter where you were, You're always no. I got a two minute BTA, too minute. Everybody had a too minute BTA.
And then you know it was the same as and.
The dispatcher's trying to cancel units, and you know who's keeing the radio episode he can't get through, and uh, I tell a funny story one time. I don't know where it was, what hospital was coming out of, but it came over the radio. A cop was shot on Atlantic Avenue in Buffalo. And I don't know if we had just came out of the mens shelter on uh
DECALB wherever it was. Anyway, I said, oh, we got to go to an accident thirty six sided were two minutes out and they had already assigned unit and I was driving, and you know barreling down Atlantic Avenue and we pull up to the corner. Copp A shot inside the car. He went to move his gun belt and he shot himself into Like. So we pull up. An
ambulance is already there. The back doors are open, the stretchers out, so it's an empty ambulance and I'm like, I said, I said I should get over to my pond. I said, you can get over there. I said, we're taking this patient. And he looks at me. How are we taking this patient? I saidn't worry about it. I got it. I pulled the ambulance up alongside the other, the other ambulance that had the open door. They had their stretcher out at the pop car ready, So I
take my stretcher out. I put it in the back of their ambulance. Now they come running out with a stretcher over and the door was shut and here's my door wide open with no stretcher. And I said, come on, let's go right in, right in, right in, and we steal patients from each other. And uh, you know, cop shot, you know that was always the best because uh uh you know, we get escorts h Trauma Center. Right, So we're going from Brooklyn to UH to Bellevue, Lower Manhattan
for trauma center. You know, us Brooklyn guys, we always want to get into Manhattan on the way back. We could always stop in Chinatown for Chinese food, right, that was always the big thing. But yeah, Cumberland was really really.
Like, yeah, it's like stealing a nozzle, bro stealing a patient.
But you think that's like that, I mean, I don't know, ems. I mean you think it's like that where guys would do that. You think guys get on the job now and they're they're kind of like like that.
When you first thought, yeah, you know, I don't you know.
I don't know, you know, because now with the GPS, you know, you really can't uh.
You know, freelance freelance and they don't forget back.
Then you know, we had one lieutenant on duty and they stood in the the ambulance station, so there was no supervisors out. When we were out on patrol. UH we had a flat tire or something, they would have to close close the station down and that and that station bulls would come out and bring you to spare tire and a jack and everything. If we had to wait for roadside to come you know, we'd be out
of service all day. So you know, when the supervisor would leave the station, that's when everybody would go out of service. Essentially, I got to go back to the station when I need a long board, I got no long buds, and everybody standing at the lock station because they can't take any jobs.
So that was I know that Frank when he's telling these stories like this because when I was a kid, he knows what he's already laughing. He used to bring like on Sunday, Saturday Sunday when get my cousin and I and you know, everybody was getting together. He would he had a book that you know again, now you have your phone, you could take a picture, you could do all this stuff. But Frank, you know he'd be on the trains. He'd be doing all this stuff.
You had the pictures.
I mean, they want to show an you that stuff tonight. But he had a picture you know, like the head going around or whatever. But that was like that was like the real Uh. But you guys would loving like guys would loving to go to that stuff, right.
Well, yeah, the tromber was where it was at. You know, it was just the gunshots, you know, you go wing into projects. You know, you got you got five hundred people outside, and you know, you look at it. This guy, he's definitely deceased. But you know you can't pronounce him dead on the scene because they'll kill you. So you know, you throwing him on the stretch of throwing the back of the bus.
Call those we call those show codes.
Show comes right right, just what you gotta do to get out of it.
Alive.
Very different for you, but how it was.
Right, you know. So, but yeah, it was a great bunch of great bunch of people there, and so that's where I started getting my love for radio. On a hand radio operator. K B two m x V is my call sign. Yeah, so I went to get my hand radio license because I was playing with the radios
and computers. And I got my hand radio license. And you know, back then, you know, internet really wasn't wasn't a thing yet, and uh like nowadays, if you talk to somebody, you know, another state or another country, now everything's in a log book. And uh, you know, so I log that I talked to this amateur radio station, and hilllog on his end that he talked to that amateur radio station. And then we uploaded to a service and a servant matches us up and it goes, oh,
that's a confirmed QSL. Well, back in the day, we had these little post calls that we would send to people. Uh you know, we would get their address. They had compact discs at the time that had you know, like it was like a big phone book. So as soon as I got my license, the first person I ever spoke to it was a hand radio operator, uh November two, Michael ex Michael Eddie Ida And to MBI, his name
was Kevin Kane. And normally, when you talk to somebody you know, again you don't know them, so you give your name where you're from. And I said, oh, Frank, I'm from Brooklyn, New York. And he said, oh yeah, he goes, I worked down in Brooklyn. I'm a firefighter down there. I said, I said where we're in Brooklyn and he said a lot of one ten down on and I said wow, I said, I worked for EMS
right down the block. And he was like, oh, stop by the firehouse, say hello, you know when you're when you're in the area, and uh, you know, so right away I filled down my little postcard addressed to him. I got his address and I and I sent that out to him. A week or two later, I got the postcard from him, and uh went down to the firehouse. I met him. Nice guy. Just remember him being a nice tall fella.
Is that the card right there, Frank, that's.
The card right there. Yeah, so that that's him. Send me the thing. And you know, we would exchange our names where we were from. We would say what radio we were using. So he had I think a YAYSU radio I think he wrote down there, and you just you know, exchange.
What you say, interrupt it, say, Frank, glad to be your first, to be your first.
Glad to be your first New York contact enjoying radio radio here, I have a yeah, Sue seventh seven forty seven? Uh tenor is a ten met to dipole God bless seventy three? Seventy three meets? You know, a good day Kevin Wow and crazy Man and Kevin three months died in the line of duty fire. Uh, you know, and that was probably my first time ever in the firehouse.
You know, I was never a fire buff you know, uh, you know fire you know the fire guys, you know, we've seen it some jobs, but we didn't do too much mingling. You know, we worked side by side with the police. You know, they came on probably about seventy five percent of our jobs, you know, because they always had to notify the next of kin. You know, hey, you know your mother fella. They took it a Long Island College hospital. Uh, you know, so we dealt with the police a lot.
And uh.
After three years, like you know, older running, I was getting tired. I was getting married for the first time back then, and uh and I said, you know what, I said, I'm loving this radio, loving talking on the radio. I was a big computer buff. I said, you know, why don't I go become a dispatcher down in EMS, down a massfit. So I put it for a transfer and I got transferred to to MASBIT fifty five days, thirty fifty eighth Street. I'm sure a lot of old
timers never forget that address. And that was actually EMS headquarters. So on the first floor we had the dispatch center with the nine one one call takers. We had Office of Public Information on the first floor some of the chiefs, and on the second floor was all like administration like operations, the deputy director chief like like like the chief of VMS Operations, Chief of Field Services. Well, you know, all the big wigs were up on the second floor there.
And when I got to communications, everybody had a start as a call taker, take answering nine one one calls, and I hated that. I wanted to be a dispatcher so bad. So as soon as the first dispatch.
Yeah two minutes out, negative remain in service.
So here was the best. So now I become a dispatcher. And now I'm dispatching Brooklyn North. So Brooklyn North covers green Point Williamsburg back down downtown Brooklyn. So I grew up in the K seven. I worked the K six. I worked the K five, so I knew it at the back of my hand. So when I asked the unit,
you know, what's your location? You know they give me a location, I would know that YT before they would say it, or I know if they were bullshitting me, you know what their ETA was because I knew it like the back of my hand. And I had a partner, well, I had two good partners. One was Al Garris, we called the jelly Roll funny funny guy, and then we had Acidic Drew Moisture Schwartz with a thick accent. But
he was such a good dispatcher. He just knew the area so well and had a love hate relationship with him. But again, just just somebody that stuck in my mind, you know, all these years. So I was doing dispatching for a little while, and then the position opened up on the Chief of Communityation's staff and I applied for that and I got taken in because I was pretty.
Good with the computers. How much time do you have now, Frank, this is only about.
Five years now. This is about ninety three, ninety three. So I started working for John Mazarro. He was a chief of VMS Communications and the deputy chief at the time was Chief Thomas Ryan, who I adored. I kind of modeled myself after him.
You know.
He was a fun guy, very fair, but he could be a bulldog when he needed to be a bulldog. But just a great guy. And he passed many years ago, but just a great guy. But so anyway, so now I'm working on staff and you know, we're doing little projects. And one of the things I started doing was programming pages. So we would give out pages to all the chiefs after numeric pages, right, and we'd have these terminals where uh inside the communications the city wide talk commanders for EMS.
When you know it was a fire or an EMS job, or a bus action or a train job. You know, they'd send these pages out and everybody would get the pages and uh so on staff. You know, we had really good uh, really good people. Uh I met uh you know some longtime friends, Ross Caronova, Lewis Copp, Pete Josey, George san Martino, uh Jev Gumbo, Dave Billy, Robert Land and these guys worked in public information and we had such a good time, you know, playing, just just doing
crazy things with them. Gus Pappus. It was just crazy. So anyway, getting back to these pages, because the pager rolls into into the fire fireside, uh so we're programming pages and so so the main thing was we would we would clone these cap codes, so when the fire went out or we set the page out, every mighty got the page at the same time. It wasn't like it went down the big list, you know, because that
list would be long. You know, it may go to forty people, and the time he gets to the first person to the last person, you know, it could take ten minutes. Because everything's on dial up. Right, we didn't have like high speeded to that, so it's dialing up.
Oh that's on a different page.
Keep going. You could have had.
Them so anyway. So now with Roman it's.
There.
You go right, every time you said the phage and you send that out, the modem noises. So about ninety five they start talking about merger.
You know, Merger was just going to ask Frank, were they talking about it before that at all? Or yeah?
So, you know, being being on staff, you know, we heard little whispers about H eight C and the city wasn't happy with the way Health and Hospitals was running a MS. There was some rumors that we may go to n y p D because we work so closely with them, and uh, you know, we were basically formatted the same way. Our responses areas overlapped the precincts. And and then it went to they talked about fire and at the time they were I think it was they
started they started closing some firehouses. I guess fires were down. They were they were trying to close some firehouses, and what they decided to do was bring ems into fire and get the fire guys trained for first responders because at the time EMS, our response times weren't good. You know, we'd have a nine twelve minute.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we were.
It was just the amount of calls you know, we were doing, you know, anywhere from three thousand to four thousand calls a day for nine one one, and then the summer months, you know, when schools were out, you know, we'd be about fifty five hundred and six thousand calls for nine on one day. It's just we we just couldn't handle it. So, you know, the merger talk with the merger, you.
Know, having was the commissioner was von Was he there at this time of v I.
Think Vonson was there, right, Yeah, he was there for the merger, Yeah, absolutely, And when the merger happened, if I'm not mistaken, I think Chief Nigro became the chief of v M s UH and he took on the you know, the E M S H ran the E M S. So. Anyway, so what happened was so here in Masspit, once we merged with fire, the whole top floor of maspit moved the fire headquarters, which at that time was down on Livingston Street, and uh Fire Communications, Uh,
the staff the commissioners. They moved over to masspit there in mess Communications was so that's where I met, uh Commissioner Gregory, Steve Gregory, and uh we hit it off right away. Uh talk, he's you know, talk to me. Hey, where you're from. Where'd you go to school? I said, I went to the Little Salle Academy. He goes, oh, I went to the Sale Academy. Oh wow, that's great. He was my son went to the sal academy. I said, who's your son? He goes, Mark Gregory and I'm like, oh,
I graduated with Mark. You know, so I went to school with his son. He was a little salad guy. So he kind of took a liking to me. So he took me under his wing and he said, uh, you know what, you're gonna work directly for me. And uh so he was Bamonte guy. You know, we go to Bamontynty and I'm walking down the block.
Now, you know, you know what Coobs.
Now it's all making sense how some of these people in that Frankie would call, you know, miraculously we get to some of these companies that they put in for you know what I mean.
They had to sit down at Bamon.
You think you can take care of my guy?
Yeah, I get to be a lampshop, you.
Know what I mean. Did we uh go to high school with the girl?
Yes, we did, Laura Lisa, Yeah, yeah so so now so now we got a new cast of characters coming up to that I'm meeting from the fireside.
Now I got I'll throw some names out there. Joe Higgins, oh my god, John Piselli, Mike Fox, Paddle Leasy, Jerry Neville, Ivan Goldberg and uh, you know, it was just a different, different environment than I was used to, you know, the funny guys, you know, and everybody got along. So I gotta tell you. You know, e MS we were far ahead of fire computer wise, you know, on the e MS side. You know, we had the EMS logos on all let ahead and everything fire sight team in uh you know,
nobody had a fire logo for any lead ahead. You know, everything that was coming out from the fireside looked like it was typed on a typewriter with call me and copy of paper behind it. It was like crazy crying out loud.
Were getting it runs off a little brown.
Box we would send out through the bag. Like most of our stuff would go through the bag.
Right, So so so I go, I said, we need to find apartment logo. So nobody had a logo. So at the time, you know, before photoshop, I used to use a program called Correll Draw. So I know, was looking at a picture of the fire logo and I'm making my own version. You know, to the naked eye, you probably couldn't tell the difference, but it was my little version. And you know, so you can see on the left it was the original and on the right is my version. You could see my flame. I couldn't
get the flames skinny. I had to start with a circle. So if you notice my flames like rounder, you know, and then the building on the far right, mine is more more skinnier. With the original fire logo was like domed, and far left you could see like they had like an extra section on that bottom left building. So I made this logo and I had it on my computer, and I'm putting it on on all these documents and everything, and you know, the logo gets passed around, you know,
not too much longer than that. In ninety eight, they opened up nine Metro Tech Center, and at that time all of us from administration for EMS for fire we all moved up to Metro Tech. So now I'm in Metro Tech and I'm working on the seventh floor with five Communications, and this is where I'm getting my first exposures. Now right where I sat, right next to me was where the city wide Tork Commander's bunk room was up
on the seventh floor. So now now you know meeting you know, Chief ncro Cassano, Don Burns, you know all these you know, you know, and if I only knew, I.
Think they got the name Frankie. I think.
They found out I was working at the fish market and that was that was it.
So to ask you a question, So when they went online, actually I think they did it by what by borrow? Right? Brooklyn was Brooklyn line?
Right?
When what do you mean online?
One?
When they went on cfr D, did you start doing cf D?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think Brooklyn was first, and uh yeah, I don't know where it went second. But but the goal was to send send you guys to the e m S the higher priorities. EMS had eight different priority levels and the goal was to send you guys on the Priority one, twos and threes. Cardiac arrest difficulty breathing, shooting, stabbings, uh, that kind of that kind of stuff. But it came with a caveat. You know, you guys, we could you guys could only go if there was the availability around
you was there. You know, if maybe the second dude to your to what your boxes was out on a run, you didn't go. So it wasn't like every Priority one, two or three called that you guys went on and this is all done in the background. The computer would know the availability. But so so that was it and it was good, you know, and I remember, you know, in the beginning, there was a lot of calling you
guys helping us assist with carrying patients. You know, you know, we have an ambulance crew with two people, right and we're carrying you know, oxygen, we're carrying our tech bag, we're carrying a stair chair, we're carrying a defibrillator, and we get up you know, four or five flights and now we got to carry somebody down. You know, there's only two of us. So a lot of times we were calling for backup and we get engine companies coming over.
You know, sometimes they were happy, sometimes they weren't, but you know, it's part of the job, you know, anything not to close the.
Firehouse, you know, Frank, you know it's funny to say that because I remember guys were pissed, right, But you know what guys felt good is if and you could tell the good ems guys is if they said, hey, listen, i'll carry the patient down.
You just take take my bags down or.
Whatever it was initially right Initially, if you did that, then the guys would do anything for you, you know what I mean, if they felt like you weren't bamboos on them. I think that was really the key, Like you just said, like if you know, you guys had
a lot of shit there to take down. But you know, sometimes you would get there and there was two girls there and they couldn't you know, lift the bag right, So it was kind of like the guys would do it, but you know then they would you know, muddle under their breath a little bit. But I think you knew the guys who were doing the job and just needed a hand, and then the guys didn't care about that.
And that's the truth. But guys, you know, like anything, fireman bitch all the time, and you know it is.
Too just to just to complete and continue with the CPR while you guys were getting them on the monitor, maybe getting some meds. I mean, I think that helped out a lot with saving patients because we would come in and leave your EMS and you guys would be out of the CPR, and you guys would be able to do something else, you know, to try to get just.
Just getting you guys to these cardiac or rest patients. You know, before we could we get there. You know, you guys are starting the CPR, you know, high concentration of oxygen, uh, you know, rescue breathing. You know, it was a it was a big thing.
When I worked in in East New York. It was never I never felt like I just felt like an ambulance ride most of the time.
Not always, But when I worked in two eighty eight, it was an old population.
There, right, it was German, and you know over there, we we really were making a difference.
The quicker we got there.
We really didn't make a difference like so, I guess it would depend on area, too, right, I didn't. I never felt like that in Brooklyn, but in Queens, I felt like I was like we were getting that quicker, and there were times you know whatever, you know, you gelt, you know, every couple of months they would put the thing in and you got the little metal or whatever you got there.
I forget what the heck?
Yeah, but my first, my very first EMS run. Of course they make the prob do it. So we get off, we go to the project. The guys says a difficulty breathing heart attack, so they go probably go you know, go up ring the bell and then it's in the project. So I go to open the door. I can't get in. There's a guy sitting there smoking a cigarette on the steps, Like, I get can you can you get me in here?
He goes, no, no, that's for me. I got a little tightness, a little shortness of breath to I'm like, well, I'm smoking, Like maybe you want to put the cigarette out.
I don't know, you know, that's funny stuff. But uh yeah, so get getting back to headquarters.
So I'm talking about the patch. Yeah, we're talking about the right.
So so I made this logo. So like we get the headquarters and now, uh, you know, everybody's like, oh wait the logo come from? Where's the logo come from? I I made it. I'll send your copy I'll send your copy. So now you know, everybody and the mother has this logo and they're putting it on. Let ahead this and that and but that, but and I'll let that go for now, and I'll get back to that a little bit. But Commissioner Gregory putting me in charge
of the technical unit and thenical unit. We were we were in charge of giving out all the cellular phones programming pages. And I talked about that a little bit and I got two quick stories with the pages. So, like I told you when e MS, we were cloning cap codes. So when we sent one page out it went to like forty people at once. When we got to the to Metro Tech, the fire Fire Operations sent the FOC they called it at the time, Uh not FDOC.
Yet they had they had somebody there doing the pages, and they had a system where it went alphabetically right. So they were sending you know, a page out it would go to individually seventy different people, seventy different people. And I remember Commissioner Gregory coming down to me one time after a meeting and he said, von Essen's hot. I said, what happened? He said, there's a there's a big fire and he's the last one to get notified, right because his last thing starts with a V. He's
at the bottom of the list. Everybody's ages going over the room. What's going on?
What's going on? The last one another? And me and I told, I told, Greg said, they won't let me change the pages. They won't let me change the page of software.
Well Gregreen went in and said, this guy's in charge of the pages, let him program the pages. So now I clone everybody's pager. So now we said out one page. You know, two hundred people get the page at once. And you know that was it?
Happy?
Happy that that was that was that was the thing, right, He's like, take that guy to mamadis, let's go.
And you know, you know when we were talking, you know, I talked about the computers stuff, and you know, I was like the first kid on the block with a computer.
And you said, what did I say, hold on before you say anything fake? What did What did I say?
When I talked to my cousin too, we were talking about this and I had mentioned this to Frank when I spoke to him the first time.
When we when we were decided we were going to have him.
On he's always been not not one step ahead, he's been like four st ups ahead and any you know, and when it comes.
To this type of stuff, he's always been way ahead. You know.
Now he's doing you know, three D printing. He's got the drone. You know, he was doing drones when they didn't even know what the hell of drone was. You know what I mean, he's always been.
Back in the day, you had the Commodore sixty four, No, I.
Had a t R S eighty color computer. I was a tandy guy.
Oh guy, how excited he got.
You see it.
Look at his family and he's just like handy guy and.
So so so. Now so now I got the flight apartment paging system going right, and everything's going good. And you know, and at that time, you know, we didn't have Facebook. We get bulletin boards. You guys, remember bulletin boards right right, everybody's posting stuff. So so I'm thinking, I'm going, okay, So you know what, so whenever whatever, it's a big fire, you know, second along, you know, here and there it's coming over the pages, right, everybody's
getting in on the pages. Everybody who's anybody's getting that information. So I'm going, how can I get this out to the public, How can I get this information out to the public. So I, Jimmy Jermy rigged the computer up that when they sent that page out, it also I put in an email address, so that page went to an email address. And I had a computer set up at headquarters that all it did was listen, looked at
this email address. When an email came in, it converted that email, and it posted it to one of the bulletin board. It's like a fire bulletin board I was on or whatever. And this was a Friday, so all the flyers that went out over the weekend again and posted to this bulletin board, and there was nothing confidential. Second on fire box, you know Manhattan Box, this, you know,
fifteen story, just the basic stuff. And I came into work Monday morning and they knew it was me right away, right because everything's showing up as my name, and they called me in and I got like, called onto the carpet. What do you think you're doing? You can't give this information out? And I mean I really was was struck by it, you know, like they were really passed, like like you know, they want to over there. I unplugged.
I unplugged that up right, you know. And then let's fast forward about ten years, right, ten years you know Facebook, Twitter is starting now the person who's sending out those pages every day on Twitter and Facebook, Champ. They wanted to burn me.
Now a FireWire guy, he does the same thing.
I say that, we know a guy, Fireway guy do the same thing, right.
So you know it was crazy. So you know, so again being up on the seventh floor, you know, I'm running.
You know I'm going to give a gazillionaire Frank Yeah, right.
So I'm running. You know, Rubert Shoulders, Peter Gancy, just Framemost, Pete Hayden. I met Yakimovich up there, funny guy man classic and on the EMS saw I so now I'm starting to work with EMS operations. And uh I met Eric frick Ado John Fred Oh yeah frek right, I think, well, I think you hunted with his brother with him and his brother, right he had a brother that.
Was like a cop.
Yeah yeah, but Eric, I knew Eric really well.
He was at another Queen's guy, right, and uh yeah, Joe Sanders, Kelly Wells, Jace Went is just a lot of a lot of good guys. So, uh, I got promoted.
To captain in August of two thousand and one. So two thousand and one we have the captain promotions and uh that was nice. And then a month later, you know, nine eleven happens, and you know, we all know the story with nine to eleven.
But uh uh you know that morning, uh you know when that first plane hit, the whole seventh floor emptied out. You know, we're all the elevated together. Steve Gregory, Sam Harris, Jace Pinkas we went down to Steve Gregory's car, we went the Liberty in West Street. Me and Steve went right over to the fire command post and man, I was there for about ten minutes and I see that there's a big ambulances of staging on on West Street
and South End Avenue by Liberty Street. So I told Commissioner Gregory said, hey, I'm going to go over and.
Help the I didn't even know that.
Yeah, helped the E m S guys out with stage. So I went west, I don't know, maybe about five hundred feet and you know that first hour came down and you know it was it was just just crazy. You know, we know that a lot of people from that command post didn't make it.
Yeah, it's crazy man.
Yeah, so you know, very very lucky. And at the time, you know, being the cellular phone guy at a fire department, uh, we had we had a bunch of cell phones you know out the chiefs at the time, but we that we just started using Next telephones also, and when the towners came down, we had no self service down there. But Next Heell was downtown doing doing some sort of demo and they had these portable cell towers there. So
people with Next telephones had landline communications. And boy, I think there must have been about twenty of us, and I was one of the guys that had a Next telephone. Everybody was scrabbing the phone, you know, calling home, making making the notifications. Hey I'm okay, Hey, I'm okay.
Uh.
You know, a little while later, the second tower comes down and I wind up at the the South street, the seaport, at the ferry terminal. We had an EMS staging uh site there, uh, you know for patients to come in for triage, and there was nobody, you know, we never got any patients, only people coming in with some firefighters with with I irritations, but there were no patients. You know, you either made it or you didn't.
You know that that's not that one.
Uh So, you know, and I remember the days after that, after nine to eleven, uh, you know, being back at headquarters. You know, every morning we had the a list of firefighters that they were trying to they were trying to confirm that you know, or missing missing, you know, missing firefighters. And I remember the first few days knew your name was on the list.
Me and him were both on the list that yeah.
And I remember calling your cousin, trying to get your cousin. And I got your cousin. I said, you talk to your cousin, Louis. Is he all right? I said, he's on this list here? And uh, you know, so you know you see names on the list, you know, I we knew a few fire guys at that time, like from the neighborhood, and you know you see names and you're like, oh my god, please please, you know, and you know, so that's how you know that went there, and you know that's when things things changed.
That'll be like a tough time for you guys, because if you were the communications, that was a whole big thing, right with motorowler and the handy talking and the repeat is and you know, all that stuff was like a big that was fall front then right like that was what they said.
Guys weren't getting the messages to get out.
Right, So so I'm trying to remember, I think right before that, so right, so they went acc P twenty five. They tried going digital for a while, and I think that you guys on you know, when you went on a fire ground with the old analog way, if somebody was transmitting and then somebody else transmitted on top of them, you would hear them.
With the digital, you weren't hear them off right, they were.
Getting cut off. And I think you guys weren't on digital too long before they moved you back to analog. And I remember the fire department had to get a release or something from the FCC because it was mandated to move everybody to this narrow banding they called it. Uh, there were radios. Normally you work on a twenty five killer hert space of transmission. They were they were trying to do narrow banded where you worked on a twelve twelve point two five slider, you know, because they wanted
to get more people on the same channel. But yeah, that never took off.
We were picking up on the digital. We were picking up transmissions from Manhattan, like we would hear the fire ground in Manhattan on our radios and queens.
Yeah, well well that was what happened, was they tried separating a lot of stuff. And I know on the e MS side, like see back in the day, like say Brooklyn North frequency, but we had we had a tag channel. All the tax channel was was the same frequency, but you weren't You weren't talking to the dispatching. You were just going out on a simplex channel. It was almost like a mixer, well not really a mixer off message, but it was the same. It was the same frequency.
What they wind up doing was reversing frequencies. So you know, you may have been on if you were in Brooklyn, your tactical channel could have been like the reverse of the BRONX frequency channel. But if you were close enough to them, you could hear some of that one side of transmissions play it all that away.
I used to hear pilots sometimes, Frank, like we'd hear like LaGuardia or something like you hit a pilot talking or something.
Once in a while.
You know, you guys were on You guys were on VHF uh for a long time before you went to UHF. The EMS and NYPD, we were always UHF frequencies. We were a little higher upper HF. So we were in the four hundred megahertz for eighties for seventies, where you guys were in the one fifty mega hurts. Uh. You know, when you guys are pushing a lot of power. You know, you've seen the big antenna towers, uh, you know at all the fire dispatch facilities in each borough. So yeah,
you guys are pushing a lot of power. I mean, I'm here in Pennsylvania now, and I remember, you know, when I met some people up here, I told him I worked for the fire department. You know, on good days, they would they were hear the New York City Fire Department transmissions up here right through the Delaware Water Gap and you know, right through the mountains, and they'd be listening to up here. But now that you're on u h F, you know that that's if I.
Think I might have found the smartest guy in green Point.
We got we.
Didn't talk about this before, but when we were kids and again I had forgot about this. There was I, my cousin and I were probably getting We were probably twenty, right. He had been in the EMS for a couple of years, right, He was doing the communications stuff. He was listening to the scanners. And he took us one day. We were getting on the FDNY and he says, I think it was fourth of July, right, Frank, Yeah, And he says, listen, come on, we're gonna drive around just we're going to
buff jobs. And he had it the scanner. And this is when fourth of July was fourth of July, right. It was like mayhem, you had to keep the windows up right, you know. He was like, it was a free for all. And we drove around Brooklyn and we were listening to the scanner and we were going to like jobs like the different fires, like buffing.
Yeah.
And that was the first time I ever realized even thought about what a scanner was.
But it was him. He was way ahead again, you know what.
I mean, right, I write the Magestrium over there.
So So once I became the captain, I was again on on administrative staff, but I would help out in the emsation center. They were short staff there. I did some tours as an em S Citi Turk Commander, which was the captain inside the EMS communications people who worked in administrative positions. To keep our certifications current, we had to go out and do so many field tours a month. So I was doing a duty captain duty in Manhattan, DC one and you know, back then we had one
captain per barb on patrol. So you know, they turned out of peck Slip down downtown, Yeah, and I would have to respond up to the tip of Manhattan, you know, up one hundred and forty hundred and fiftieth. So I'd always you know, park in Times Square, you know, stayed in midtown. This way I can go east or west, north and south, yeah, Norman South, and so that that was a good time also. But I did a lot
of special projects, planning special events for the marathon. For the marathon New York City Marathon, I did a lot of database stuff. I'd have the New York City road Runners Club. They would give me all their data of all their runners. So we had a mobile command center set up at the finish line of the marathon. When units in the field had a radio win that they had a patient. All we needed was a BIB number, and once I had the big number, I was able
to pull up all the patients information. I had the name next to kin and we were given reports to the New York City road Runners Club. So I did a lot of stuff like that. I created the EMS scheduling program that I know they used for a good fifteen years. I don't know what they're doing that a schedule, but I created this schedule link program that produced the uh, the rundowns for the month they were putting people on vacation. You know, you had your your whole, your whole rundown.
And we worked the five two five three schedule in the field, so our days rotated like you know, like you guys, uh, what do you guys do nine and.
Sixteen, fifteen? Yeah right, but you're doubling up, yeah, yeah, you do twenty four? Yeah right.
And one of my other big projects was the biopod.
You guys wonder they still do that.
I think they do, they really. Yeah. So I so I got tasked with making this database that tracked uh and we stood see and uh that tracked what units we were getting uh, you know, we were sending the doctors out in the nurses to the stations. They were giving you the flu shots, and and you know they wanted stacks. Everything was stacked, so I was able to
give them on the moment. You know, how many engine companies we did, how many a lot of companies we did, how many in the engine company accepted the shot, how many did it? You know, and like the numbers were just just crazy. But once I had it, built it and we did that for years. You know, that was a twenty four hour event, I think, right, we normally did that.
I think, yeah, yeah, a couple of days.
I think actually it was in November, right at the beginning of November. I think that it was a twenty four hour event. I can't remember how you know what it was.
But so so I was doing all that kind take you out of service, like if we have to go down to Howard Beach or something.
Sometimes we'd have to go like wherever the doctor was right.
Right right, and they were mobile, so they would be and they might be and have a beach, uh, you know, for for a few hours and then they would go somewhere else. Oh but you know, let me just back up. I gotta tell you one funny story. Right after the merger happened, uh in Masspit. That's where all the ambulances came to get preventive maintenance, you know, the oil change and everything. So after the merger h when the ambulances came in, you know, we had white buses with an
orange stripe. Some buses had an orange and boots stripe. So for the first six months, I want to say, after the merger, before the mechanics would release the ambulances back to this ambulance garages. They had a bunch of us doing overtime. And all we did was take ambulances from Massfit, took them over all the way to rock Away.
We were dropping them off at this uh this body shop and they were painting over the orange with right and they were taking the n y C E MS off and put in fd N Y. I had sent you guys a few pictures of the different versions of you know, of the ambulance and how they looked. But we did that for about six months. Every day.
Everybody needs a gig coops, you know what I mean, everybody needs.
You know what building he's talking about roof?
Yes, I do they have all the rock? Yeah, the graveyard is over there now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, So that that that was a good gig. That that went off like six months. We were just getting old the ambulances painted, just running up and down Cross Bay Boule a lot all day, all night. So that that was that.
We got those pictures guns and we didn't love them in.
Yeah, and just there was a few different versions of the the ambulance colors. How they progressed over time to what what what you know what we have now? Uh?
Yeah, sure, muted guns.
I'm sorry, No we didn't. Uh thanks, I was making noise back.
Yeah, I didn't want to put here. That was a clue.
But no, we didn't load those pictures. But I was just trying to find a couple. I found this guy here.
Right, So that was the version where so that red line going across the middle that was orange. So all they did was we painted. They painted that red. They took the n Y C E and messed off the sides and they put the fd N Y and right back into service. So after about six months, everything in the city said n Y and that was the end of the New York City e MS.
What is a new ring like that? Like the new ones in New York fire trucks.
Yeah, yeah, I got.
How much does it costs that you know those rings.
Those averyonces, they're not that much. The well, the one I'm going to show you here is not my knowledge, is probably under one hundred grand for this thing.
That's pretty cheap.
You know, don't want you outfit it with your equipment and stuff like that.
But that's an older one too yet to see.
Yeah, well then you got the the paramedic units were almost looked like a mini rescue.
Right they got the hash tech one.
Yeah, yeah, they thank Uh well, you know what E m s had a hash tacked prior to the merger, and they were they were hashtag trained.
They were city wide ambulances.
Uh.
They were like uh zeros so ten like one Old David, one Old Charlie one O zebra. Uh you know all the one units were in Manhattan. All the two units were in the Bronx, you know two O this two O that Brooklyn was three, Queen's was four, and Stanton Island was five. And you know that was another thing too. That was a big culture shock, you know, like like with ems when you said, you know, uh, thirteen Adams right away you knew it was a Manhattan unit. You
knew it was a BLS unit. You knew it was kind of south in Manhattan because the way Manhattan was broken up was broken up into nine different areas. And just take the picture of Manhattan. It sliced it nine equal ways across, so you know nothing the M nine they called it was up nor so you'd have like,
you know, nineteen at of nineteen bully nineteen Charlie. So it was real quick, you know, when we came into the fire department and I was I think I was telling Louis, you know, I we'd have these staff meetings and communications and uh, and we get letters from captains from fire companies. They were complaining about that they should be first due to this box because they're always the first do that this company is, you know, his first
do we should be first due. And I remember, and I'm just going to throw some some companies out there. So let's say, uh, you know, lad of one thirty two is complaining that they should be first due to this box, and then the room.
That's always my cousin.
That's why, yeah, right, so and then throwing and then throwing numbers out and so I'm saying, okay, so lad of one ladder one thirty two. So I'm going, well, where's lad of one thirty one? Where's a lot of one thirty three? An shot? They be right right next to them. No, and every in the Bronx there at this and I'm saying, you know, I saying they shouldn't be renumbered. I think, don't you think we should renumber it? But I don't know that history, you know.
I think, yeah, yeah, history renumber them.
You know what. Everybody's looking at me like, I like, like I got three heads, I screen number.
Of Frank you to fix it? Did you ever have any favorite fire houses? That will you guys buying into the meal? I guess when you were running on the bus.
No, No, we never don't with any fire houses. You know, back in the in the late eighties, early nineties, it wasn't like that. Yeah, no, we never spent any time with fire Really. The cops that you know, they're talking about the merger, I think when when they merged, I want to say, there was a house in Rockaway.
That actually twenty one Yeah.
Did they put ems in that house?
They're still in there? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, And I think that was the first one, and I know they had a lot of problems at first.
I think it's kind of worked out.
I think, yeah, now now it's it's it's a totally different time. But yeah, you know I could understand. You know, Uh, it's like outside is moving in, you know, like we're squatting in the place.
But you know, you know, but you.
Know, we were always running. You know, we were always running. We were always out. You know, we weren't we weren't hanging around.
So did you always have that, you guys?
We didn't talk about it, but did you guys always have like the blood thing going like back in the day, like if you had more blood on you, like under the train or like extrication the guys do that or that was kind of out when you got there.
Uh no, you know, and you know what when we got there, you know, when I started, you know, all the e mts and all the paramedics.
You know, we wore green pants and we wore white shirts. Right, so think of this, you know, here we are dealing, we're blood and guts and we got white shirts. So you know, you started your tour at six in the morning. You know, by six thirty, you were a mess a ready, you know, you.
Know when you're on the floor, you know, yeah, you just like a dirty slap, you know, all day long you couldn't couldn't be clean, you know, white white shirts, you know, and then you're trying to eat, trying to eat inside an ambulance, you know, go into a cold things.
That's crazy, you know. It was just just nuts.
Depending how much blood you had on it, that was your your soot for the fire. In comparison, kind of.
Salty guy, how much blood can you get on you?
That's how we compare.
Yeah, yeah, So so where where does my story go from here? So in two thousand and five, again, this is a Brooklyn thing. Our lady in Mount Carmel. Uh, That's where I went to school. That was my parish. We have a big jilli o feast.
And over one hundred years old.
Over one hundred years old. And yeah, from when I was so young, I remember there was a turk. The turk rides on top of his boat that carry him around. He dresses up in this big gob and I always was awed by it and I always wat, oh, I want to be the Turk. I wanted to be the Turk and Uh. In two thousand and five, I was heavily involved with the church. I was doing the website for the feast. I got the I got the feast came, I had the life camera, life cameras you know, right.
I remember watching it.
Yeah, yeah, so I was doing live streaming before live streaming it was even a thing. And it was two five. Father fond he selected me to be the Turk, and uh, you.
Got those pics right, guns, Yeah, I just wait.
I was just well, so the Turk has a beard, right, so now I want to grow a beard. So I had to get a letter from from Mike Priests and I had to take it to the fight at partment. I had to get a religious observance for three months so I could grow this big beard. You know. You know, we can't have been facially, so he did that, let.
You have it.
I was like, it was like, so that that platform, right, that's the boat that he's talking about. But that platform underneath that, there's like two hundred guys that lift that and dance.
Yeah. But I'm just saying most people don't know that that's what that is, right.
Yeah, there might be some of the pictures that you can kind of see the crowd and.
Send me the pictures of a young Uh that's the crowd. You have to sing or say anything as being the term.
I just I just jumped the road, just gotta get silly brass band.
Up in the boat with me, and they have a big procession in the morning, they come pick you up like uh you know, I was telling Lewis said, they're carrying carrying me around there like like it brought home the Stanley Cup to the city.
Let's it. Let's see the young pictures there.
Oh, look at TV uh pe. We said the same thing. I said, two living in something and somebody flew turk one eighty two. That's movie.
So we have that young picture.
First, pipes on.
Look at the pipes on him, bro.
Before we get to the other good one.
Here that we have pink lemonade, Louise fresh cut cups.
We used to sell stuff at the feast since I was probably sixteen years old.
I think.
Watermelon Italian ice is right slain.
Yeah, I got it.
The pretzels a little bit. Look at him, bro, he knows how to do it.
He was out.
After I started. That's where it started.
It started.
We would make a lot of money for fourteen days or whatever. It was twelve days.
Fourteen days, and all the chicks you can get.
Ahold of the lane hurt either a little bit.
Yeah, you have the other one, I said you, Yeah, I say yes.
Of course, louis.
There it is?
Wow?
Sure, yeah, eighty It looks like nineteen eighty four.
Eighty four, that's what it looks like. We were, what were sixteen years old?
Yeah, wow, it looks like eighty four. Frankie up on your shoulders.
Yeah, it's my cousin, Frank And who's the tenant left of my cousin?
What's his name? I forget that? Tommy Tarabino, Tommy right another time?
Looking rough with the quaff little quaff ahead he's got going on there, Bro.
Look at this guy, somebody. We'll leave us up for another couple of seconds.
Here, just look at it all right, you can take that down.
I'm uncomfortable now.
Yeah. So so now you know, I'm just uh doing more and more special projects. Uh, you know, ems communication. Uh, the staffs we had, you know, we had a few chiefs come in and out. Uh. But you know, Abno, Jace Pinkis, Mike Fitton, Blancadelgado Sam Harris people I worked at Marie La Flores just just just good people that you know, stay you know, staying in my heart, you know,
always thinking about them. You know, I still get birthday messages from from summon them and a few of them reached out to me today that to say, hey, good luck tonight. And it was nice, just good people. And then in two thousand and eight, they we started planning for Pea SAC which is the Public Safety Answering the center. Uh, you know fire dispatch from uh every borough, every borough fire had their own dispatches ems. We all dispatched out
of mass bit uh. But then that building actually started to collapse at one point and and they put us in trailers right right right outside the collapsing building.
I remember that.
And then they wind us moving us to one metro Tech. No, yeah, one metro Tech. It was in the bear Stearns building, so we weren't there for a while. An NYPD they dispatched at a one police plaza. So this peace Act that was being planned for Metro Tech, this was going to bring all the police dispatches in, all the police call takers in. We were going to bring in all the five fireburrows and all the vms. And that was
a long project. You know, we were looking at this different dispatch systems, phone systems, you know, we all had different computer systems. So we were trying to figure out how we're going to make all this work on the one roof and played a role in that for a few years. And then that that dispatch center finally opened in twenty ten. And and now they have a second dispatch center up, a Peace Act two up in the Bronx. So I think, I don't know, is it Brooklyn and Manhattan. Brooklyn and Manhattan.
We're all together now, Frank, are they?
Well? Well, well, police fire, any mess dispatches altogether, but the city dispatches is separated. So we got a Brooklyn and a Bronx. One half the city is dispatched from Brooklyn. Half the city dispatch for the Bronx. For redundancy, you know, scoff a bit. We got attacked again. Any one of those buildings could you know, could take over the full city if they need to. And then in uh and
then in twenty eleven, I packed it in. You know, I got married again in two thousand, So from two thousand to twenty eleven, I commuted back and forth to Pennsylvania. You know, I stood in I drove into Brooklyn. I stood in Brooklyn for four days. I had a good schedule at headquarters, so I worked four days and I was off off three days every week. And so for eleven years, I was going back and forth and I just just had enough of it. I just packed it in.
And it it was hard to say goodbye, I tell you, you know, you know, you know, you get I got very emotional. You know. We had a little little going away party, little retirement thing up at headquarters, and uh, you know, you think you're coming to this job eighteen years old, you know, you know when I left, Uh you know, I don't know, it was like forty three, forty four. But uh, you know, you don't realize you grow, you grow up there and and and you know for
all those years, day in and day out. You know, it's it's it's Uh, it was tough leaving. You know. I left a lot of good people behind. But still, Frank I do. I do have some friends that I keep in touch with. Uh, you know, some of them went on to some of them left well while we were still working. One of my buddies. George San Martino. He went. He became a Fairfax, UH firefighter in Fairfax County. UH.
If you guys number from nine to eleven. That the picture of the Pentagon where they drank the the American flag down, that was his. Actually his fire company from Fairfax County that did that. Yeah. So so now retirement has been good. I retired. My wife was a stay at home mother. I retired, she went back to work.
I don't know nice.
I'm still with the radios, still flying drones, you know, I love it. Spotted some three D printing.
Let's talk about this.
Before you do a quick question. Did you have the nightmare when you wake up and you couldn't find you defibrillator? You know, I wake up, they can't find the gear. But in your case, was it.
I used to have my dream that I had constantly and I don't I don't really don't know what it means. But I always had a dream that I he detailed me out to another station somewhere I parked my car. I didn't really didn't know where it was parked. My car didn't my tour. But when I came out at the end of the shift, I can never find my car, and I just remember like running around the city like I was lost.
I've had that's.
A similarity with the job.
I don't know, but well it's either that or there's one way. Guys who are at the firehouse and the run and the tonels go off and they can't find their gear.
They can't pretty similar dream you guys have on like hundreds.
Of firemen had that same dream.
Yeah, that's hey, hey, Frank, you know what I wanted to answer before we talk about the the website.
What did your dad ever buff out with you at all?
Did you ever like come on the you know, check out the ambulet or anything like that.
Did he talk about it?
No? You know, my father was it was a bus driver for the city. But you know he the time I got mems, time I got onto ems. He was kind of finishing up with the EMT training. But he wasn't a He was big with the volunteers. I mean I remember like the early seventies. I remember like nineteen seventy six, you know the Bison tenn Bison tenneal the year. You know, at that time, the volunteers were big. We
had Greek Point Volunteer Williamsburg volunteer on Green Avenue. I remember being in these ems, the volunteers all the time, you know, when I was younger. But yeah, no, I never he was never a buff.
He he was just doing the right thing.
Yeah yeah, bus driver roof. You know what they say, right, the working class man is the suckers.
The part is the tough guy.
You see, you know what you know, it's funny.
When I was younger, I remember my mother walking me up to Green Avenue. My father was driving the Green Avenue line. My mother would walk me up to Gray Avenue. My father would come. I get on the bus with him, and I'd sit on the bus with him and I go up and down Brand Avenue.
Oh ship, he did the same exact thing.
And I remember, you know, if you guys remember like we used to give you paper transfers.
Right, yes, yes, And I.
Would love my father would bring me home stacks and his book of transfers, and I'd be ripping the transfers off, like I got like it was a big ship, you know, ripping the transfers off. And you know it's a little things like that, you know, you know, that's what we did, you know, just just just like the Bronx tale. You know you're riding the bus. You know, he rode the bus on on on Meeker Revenue, that went over to Costiasco Bridge into Queens and turned around came.
Back over Webster.
Yeah you had a sister too, right, Frank, your younger sister if I remember right.
So my sister was two years Joanne. Uh she's in she's in the middle village, middle village, and my brother Ralph is in uh Marlborough, New Jersey. Okay, boy, yeah.
Let's get into the what's that I was gonna say, my sister head, this is uh fdny fish there it is?
This is it right there? Show it up, Bring a couple of those things.
Close close is like where's mine?
Uh so you know what, lou you know? Oh yeah yeah, showing that. Yeah. So so I'm making some some three D things. And I tell you the truth. The way it started was on Facebook. We have a few groups. We have a Green and White Foundation and the New York City E m S Memories group where a lot of the old time it's you know, New York City e m S personnel there. So you know, it's one of the first things I did when I got the three D printer was I turned the old D M S logo into a three.
D little model, you know.
So I did the E M S logo, I did the the E M S paramedic logo, and then uh, you know, then I did the fire versions of it. I got the uh, the fire paramedic logo, the depatch with the on it and uh and then of course my Frankie the fishes after fishes. So yeah, so we never got back to the logo.
You got to do that.
Over time, my logo started appearing on all kinds of flight apartment documents, and now that's the logo that they put on all the vehicles. So when you now, when you guys look at vehicles, when.
You see that.
Money logo, Guys, let me say I sent you two pictures with the truck, like the actual I think it was nine truck.
I don't know, we have both.
You have nine and forty three.
Yes, that's right, that's that's Frankie's uh flame, right, that.
Would make a stink paid.
Yeah, Now you're gonna stop looking at logos and you're gonna see the round flame.
You go, that's that's frank right.
Yeah, bro.
Yeah, So you know, so I be so. I was doing some E M s uh stuff.
You know.
Uh, I got some friends n y p D. I did the n y p D logo E s U logo.
Oh where is my.
I don't have that with him?
He's like, if you go to.
Uh f d N my fish dot com, Uh, that'll push you over to Etsy where I have a little store where anybody's looking for anything. If somebody wants something custom made, I can do company company stuff. Just shoot me an email at f d N my fish at gmail dot com. Uh use a coupon cold Code of Salty for fifteen, very generous man.
Christmas is coming.
That's right.
A little bit.
Yeah, you post it up tomorrow on the Instagram too. I'll post it up to the effect rank.
Yeah so and uh so so. Yeah, that's it. And I got one more story for you. Uh. I got the best license plate in Pennsylvania. Uh. And a lot of people when they see this license plate, they can't understand that how I got this plate? Uh? You know, this was like an illegal plate. You couldn't have anything like this in New York. They blocked out a lot of this stuff.
Let's see here you go. I was waiting for the delivery for you.
Well, yeah, F the N Y and you never give that one up. I would never give it up. And let me tell you something. I've gotten pulled over a few times by some state troopers here and some local cops, and they go, they pull working and they go, what, what's what kind of who are your register? Who's this registered?
That?
I said, it's mine, my personal vehicle. For some reason, when they type in f D and Y in some of the police computer systems, f D and Y by itself doesn't come up. And and they telling me that when they put in f D and Y they're getting like all kinds of other FD and Y stuff. You know, maybe somebody has you know, f D and Y two eighty eight fd and Y one FDN Y nine to one one. But for some reason, like my plate doesn't come up.
You're under the radar, baby.
Right, yeah?
And and yeah we were. We were on our way home from New York one one time, because we're always back and forth to New York and me and my wife and the kids, and the cop pulled me over and he's like, you know, I had to play over because your plate didn't come up. I guess it caught me on a plate reader and I don't know what it said that. They thought it was like fake plates something. I said, No, that's my plate.
Fish yeah, fish, yeah.
I told you about the old school tip.
Right, yeah, I have it right here, old school tip.
What could on?
Hold on?
Hold on?
We got to set you up, Frank, you just wanted to make sure that he had it. I don't remember if I told him or that.
I may have missed that, but anyway, I have it. Is it is it about that time, It is that time, It is time for here we go.
They you away.
All right, fancy taken away?
All right? My tip is never let the door close behind you. Prop it open with the stat chair. Always have a way out. And uh Steve Gregory's fame famous quote, no good deed goes unpunished. It's true.
Looks like you lived it.
You live.
You guys are making millions of dollars. The FD should know your patch. I mean, what the hell is going on here?
Have a part like Louis, they would never get away with that ship.
Bro right on him.
I get right on him, like dude, lou check this guy out. He's trying to sell our shirt. Like you know, our logo or something like this. Two minutes later, I got the guy's email.
I'm calling him. I got his number. You need a bulldog.
I have a You have a shadow of you before I get to this one, because we have a line of dud.
Go ahead, I think I have one, but go ahead.
Okay, I have Connecticut firefighter dies. The guy sent me ray nine four nine one three blows. The article of the death of five firefighter's death would be nice if you lose you for five bells?
All right?
Weathersfield five fighter die while battling of brush fire in Lamentation Mountain on Tuesday after his ut U TV. They were operating on a steep rocky incline rollover official set. So it's five fighter who died was ident fight as by Meriton police late Tuesday night at sixty six year old Robert Sharkovich, who's also retired Hartford firefighter. So dying in the lane of duty. We're gonna give my man
here the five bells rest in peace. I'm gonna reach over, all right, ruf epontamus, what do you got?
So?
Also, FDNY Engine forty two up in the Bronx is having the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary is actually coming up November eighth, and they have a website. They're trying to raise some money for their centennial. There one hundred and fifty anniversary and the website is engine forty two No truck dot com. Check it out Engine forty two. They're celebrating their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It's on
November eighth. They're just selling some merchandise. They wanted to see if you guys, if we would share it for them to make a couple of bucks for their nice not a centennial, I guess whatever it's.
Called, right, So, like I said, next week, we are going to play a tape show. We're gonna be doing the history with hash Hagen on Doctor Archer. So check that out. It's a little sample. I guarantee you watch that. You want to go over to the salty wire dot com. Oh gons, we got to play the quick commercial. I'm sorry, buddy.
Oh you're glad you said something that was all right?
We have to have two short please even before we get to the fishing coefficient. Cut it off.
Okay, here we go.
Need a new floor for your fire station. Choose an Armor Tough interlocking flooring system to cover your aging, stained crack concrete or a POxy floor. Armor Tough has been around for nearly twenty years and has proven to be the best choice and renovating your station's floors, covering nearly
six hundred floors across the country. Proudly made in America, Armor Touff comes with a lifetime warranty and are usually installed in one or two days, depending on the size of your station, with virtually no disruption in your station's operation. Our system is guaranteed from chipping, cracking, peeling, breaking, or staining. The tiles are stayed resistant and impervious to chemicals or volatiers that are used in the fire service damage one.
All Are you ready? You got a health and safety tip?
Yes? I do have one off the top of my dome.
Okay, here we go.
The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and live glihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundations.
Okay, so the old school tip. Tonight I went for my medical and one thing I talked to the doctor, uh, is that she said that nine out of ten guys come in there and they're dehydrated. You're not drinking enough water, especially if you're an active guy. But even if you're not, you should be drinking enough water because dehydration can lead to many of the wobbles. Absolutely, mister Dematto, it.
Comes another birthday present for you, Frankie, to fix some man.
Do you know what that movie is? Frank Please tell me you know what movie that is? You never heard of Wise Guys with Danny DeVito, Joe.
I don't think I've ever seen Joey.
Uh, I'm familiar, but and it was Frankie the fixer was in the movie Big Fat Guy.
Now he's gonna have to watch it. I'm gonna have to.
Hell, I'm sorry, I keep playing them and somebody will recognize it?
Is it funny?
Oh God?
Watch it now?
Coming on? Man, it was a pleasure website.
Order some Christmas gifts. It comes here quick. What's the turnaround time, frank that these guys have well it depends, you know.
Uh, normally I got a one day turnaround time. See what happens after the show if I get too many orders, Uh, just a few days, you know.
All right.
The custom thing is I think us time, you know.
Yeah, it's gonna take a little bit of time.
So basically you can do anybody's patch if they send it to you, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if they If if somebody wants to the custom, let them email me first, because you know, the three D printing, I can't do like real fine little details, you know, that's something simple. Uh, you know, I could probably, I could probably do most of the stuff. But yeah, just shoot me an email with the logo and I'll let you know right away.
Make sure you're up charge a little bit. We got to make all those logos you never got paid for.
The f d N y Fish f d n y Fish at gmail dot com.
All right, that's my email, right, Okay, very good, guys, enjoy next week. The following week, I think we have leave right in the thirty fires or something, yes, correct, correct, I don't know where we're going, somewhere in the country, all right, poppy Halloween, guys, have a great day, have a good weekend. Be safe like always Day low Ago.
All right, boys, we'll see it. The big one. Frank was a pleasure. Brother again.
Thank you, Thank you guys.
Good night everyone.
Take care,