Two New Jersey Locals Call for Acting Chief’s Resignation

December 6, 2007 – Members of two New Jersey locals – Edison Township Local 1197 and Edison Professional Fire Officers Local 2883 – are calling for Acting Fire Chief Norman Jensen’s resignation. Fire fighters say Jensen’s changes to fire service operations have put the lives of fire fighters and the citizens they serve in jeopardy.

Specific issues with Jensen include: changes to dispatch protocol, officers taken off apparatus and lack of recruit fire fighter training.

Past practice called for a dual EMS system with a volunteer rescue squad and professional EMTs responding. Now, if the volunteer ambulance claims to be available, they are dispatched. Local 1197 and Local 2883 are concerned that the volunteer squads do not always respond in a timely fashion.

In a recent incident, a volunteer squad was dispatched to respond to a stroke patient at one of Edison’s senior centers. Professional paramedics were sent to assist. But when the professional paramedics arrived 15 minutes after the volunteer squad was sent, they discovered that the volunteer squad never responded. The patient later died at the hospital.

“There is no way to know for sure if this patient would have survived had the response been faster,” says Scott Law, vice president for Edison Township Local 1197. “But the patient’s chances would have been much greater had help arrived sooner. This is just one example of how Jensen’s dispatch protocol change is putting citizens’ lives at greater risk.”

Another major concern is that there is no longer an officer assigned to one of the busiest stations. The officer at that station was reassigned to a slower station. Now the station with lower call volume has two officers.

“We were never given an official reason as to why Acting Chief Jensen made that decision, but coincidentally, all of Local 1197’s executive board work out of the slower fire station,” reports Law.

Jensen has also made questionable changes to recruit fire fighter training. As a combination department, Edison is required to provide the same basic training to professional and volunteer fire fighters. But, professional fire fighters require an addition 10 weeks of training.

“Now, our new recruits are not getting any additional training past the first three weeks of basic training,” says Law. “If our new fire fighters don’t get adequate training, a big gamble is being taken every time they respond to an emergency. The risk is too great when you are talking about potential loss of lives.”

This is the second attempt by Edison fire fighters to call attention to Jensen’s inadequacies. They issued a vote of no confidence in April 2007.