Croton Working to Improve EMS

The Village’s Emergency Management Director will present his report on the status of Croton EMS.

Croton’s Board of Trustees will receive a report on its Emergency Medical Services tonight. The report will be presented by the Village’s Emergency Management Director Dick Nagle. Slower EMS response times, compared to the same time last year are one of the reasons for the report being ordered. There has also been an increase in the Town of Ossining EMS responding to emergencies in Croton. “Mutual aid calls have risen relative to 12 months ago. That’s a concern to us. The biggest concern is that we’re not making the calls within the three tones. That’s nine minutes after the initial call,” said Village Mayor Leo Wiegman.

Croton starting looking at how it could better respond to emergencies in March 2010, after several severe thunderstorms caused power outages. After the storms, the Village realized that their needed to be more coordination on their end between ConEd and the County. That need lead the Village to bring in Dick Nagle as the new Village Emergency Management Director 18 months ago.

Nagle, who is a Croton resident, is a 20-year New York City Fire Department veteran. He was also a fire chief and emergency management director in Ritchfield, CT. Nagle was also the director of the New York State Fire Academy in Montour, NY and a Croton volunteer fire chief from 1988-89.

Nagle was behind last December’s Continuity of Government Drill. “We did a drill that simulated closing down the Village offices for a day. We simulated a fire occurring in the Village offices. And each of the Village departments had a contingency plan and we moved the operation of the Village into the Harmon Fire House,” said Nagle. Nagle says the exercise proved that the Village could be run effectively from a remote location.

Two weeks ago Nagle was tasked with being the liaison between Croton EMS and the Village Board. He was asked to present a report to the board on the state of Croton EMS. Tonight Nagle will do just that at the 8 p.m. Board of Trustees meeting. Patch will bring you the details of his report tomorrow. Check back for that story on Patch.