NYC Medic Band Banned from Parade

St. Patrick's Day Parade organizers have pushed another group of lifesavers back to the middle of the route - Emergency Medical Service workers have been told they can't march with their new pipe band because they work under the FDNY.

Thirty-five ambulance workers formed their own pipe and drum band in early 2006. They've been told by organizer John Dunleavy that they not only have to move back and march with firefighters - but they can't bring their band because the Fire Department already has one.

"The feeling is we're good enough to man the ambulances on standby if someone gets injured but we're not good enough to have a pipe band marching down the greatest parade route in our own city," said one band member, who asked not to be identified.

The 35-member band spent large sums - including $12,000 from a fund-raiser held last fall - to buy instruments and special uniforms.

"We practiced two nights a week as a band, and every day the players would go home and practice for up to an hour or an hour and a half a day," the band member told The Post.

They've played at EMS functions and even Shea Stadium - but when they approached Dunleavy to ask him if they could play during the St. Patrick's Day parade, he said no.

Dunleavy was "cold and hostile," the band member said. But "we're going to show up, and we intend to play."

FDNY union leaders said yesterday that they, too, would march.

"Dunleavy wins if we don't march," said Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy.

Dunleavy didn't return calls from The Post - but Martin Kelly, who works to keep the parade moving along, defended him.

Kelly said the Fire Department holds the parade up for as long as two hours because "they don't march like a unit, they march like a flock of sheep, stopping to shake hands with the crowd."

"Some of them - not all - look like they have a few beers in them," he said, adding that it's not fair to make people marching behind them wait and miss the TV coverage.

Kelly said firefighters should stop complaining: "They're only moved back 35 minutes in the parade route - they could be all the way at the back."

Republished with permission of The New York Post.