We pay tribute today to Lt. Vincent Perez and FF Anthony Valerio of the San Francisco who lost their lives as a result of changing fire conditions in a structure fire that occurred on the 2nd of June. Below is the Fireground Audio of the fire and Mayday. We listen to these audio tracks, read near miss and line of duty death reports, and review fireground video as a means of learning lessons. I've heard it said that a smart person learns from their experiences but a wise person learns from the experiences of others.
Showing posts with label LODD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LODD. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
What Are You Thinking?
We have talked about the importance of being Mindful on the fireground and in our preparation for the challenges we face. To me, being mindful is the culminating point that allows us to truly engage in Four Dimensional Firefighting. Mindfulness is the ability to bring a state of perpetual calm, a state of Serenity, on when you are actively engaged in combat. Mindfulness can be thought of as a single pointed focus on our fireground mission to improve our operations and increase our ability. We cannot simply jump into a state of mindfulness though. We have to begin by laying a foundation of emotional resiliency and developing a capacity for self awareness.
Self Awareness is a critical skill for our Fire Service Warriors to develop if they are going to thrive. In our trade there are many situations we can be witness to, or a participant in that can cause us to experiance acute stress reactions. The fact of the matter is we often find ourselves picking up the shattered pieces of the lives of our fellow human beings. This can cause the acute stress reaction we discussed before, or it can strike us on a much deeper level and manifest as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PTSD is a diagnosable condition according the the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). There are multiple critera that must be met to be diagnoised with PTSD. The Department of Veternan's Affairs has a page with information you can review here.
I think it is worth us spending a few minutes thinking about the stressors we experiance and developing a mental and emotion resilincey in light of the recent suicide of Lieutenant John A. Garcia (ret.) of the FDNY. Lt. Garcia was a Company officer at the Deutsche Bank Fire in 2007 where Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino died in the line of duty. Lt. Garcia was their officer that day. One can only imagine what emotions and feelings Lieutenant Garcia must have had in the wake of such a terrible day. The New York Times covered the Lieutenant's funeral in a piece published on May 20th.
Suicide is a taboo subject that is rarely discussed in our firehouses. The fact of the matter is it occurs, from large cities to small villages. In 2010 the Phoenix Fire Department had four suicides in seven months. I remember in the late 1990's a firefighter from a neighboring department committed suicide by immolating himself, in the town he worked in, on his shift day. The brothers who responded were the men he worked with every day. They had to treat his burns as he lay dying the the back of the very Ambulance he often worked on. The FDNY, the Chicago Fire Department, and countless other departments have seen suicides of active and retired members. Suicide is not the act of an emotionally healthy and resilient person: it is an act of desperation and hopelessness.
We cannot eliminate our brothers and sisters from being witness to the tragedies of the neighbors protect; our sworn duty requires us to be there. What we must do is help our brothers and sister by offering them strategies to develop resiliency, performing an after action review of our responses to allow for discussion before an issue begins to fester, and watch one another for signs of acute or post traumatic stress and have the moral courage to offer the floundering member a lifeline.
There a many more qualified then I am to develop specific strategies to aid in these matters. However I do believe that one of the core reasons to use the Fire Service Warrior Ethos is that it gives our members a defined set of guideposts that if discussed and reinforced through application MAY help develop mental and emotional resiliency. Also, I cannot say enough that for me a grounding in the Stoic School of philosophy has helped tremendously. Remember the words of Epictetus, "It is not the thing itself, but the view we take of it which disturbs us." We do get to chose if we will be weighed down by the emotionally difficult events we are witness to, but our ability to chose is related to our practice of resiliency skills.
Take care of your brother and sister warriors; offer them your support, encouragement, and the tools you have mastered to cope with the challenges we face. If you think a fellow firefighter might be having trouble dealing with an acute or chronic stress condition GET THEM HELP! Remember, "Fire Service Warriors acknowledge their responsibility to their Brothers and Sisters." They may not like it if you bring it to the attention of the Company Officer, Department Chief, or the Employee Assistance Program that they are short tempered, having trouble sleeping, drinking too much, irritable, or any other symptom that you think indicates they are having trouble coping, but getting them help now just may save their lives.
As an aside I find it appalling that we do not track PTSD related suicides as Line Of Duty Deaths. The United States Fire Administration will classify the death of an 86 year-old Fire Captain from a Heart Attack as being in the line of duty, but the suicide of an active member isn't? Why? Is it because there is a stigma associated with psychological emergencies that we don't attach to medical emergencies? I think that is a likely reason.
I don't know how many people have read Malcom Gladwell's book Tipping Point, but in it he examines the rate of teen suicide in Micronesia. One of the things that he found was that once the first teen suicide occurred and was publicized under a given set of circumstances it set off a wave of teen suicides in the small Pacific Island nation. Is it possible that the Phoenix suicides occurred for similar reasons? It's worth considering.
As long as our patterns for mental toughness are derived from the models of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood we are setting our members up for failure. If you want to hold up a man as an example of what courage and resiliency in the face of terrible adversary is have your members read up on the experiences of Vice Admiral James Stockdale as a POW during the Vietnam war in the essays Stockdale on Stocism I and II.
I also think it is worth sharing again the words William Henley wrote in 1875 in his poem "Invictus"
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
for my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And Yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid
It matters not how straight the gait
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the Captain of my soul.
Self Awareness is a critical skill for our Fire Service Warriors to develop if they are going to thrive. In our trade there are many situations we can be witness to, or a participant in that can cause us to experiance acute stress reactions. The fact of the matter is we often find ourselves picking up the shattered pieces of the lives of our fellow human beings. This can cause the acute stress reaction we discussed before, or it can strike us on a much deeper level and manifest as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PTSD is a diagnosable condition according the the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). There are multiple critera that must be met to be diagnoised with PTSD. The Department of Veternan's Affairs has a page with information you can review here.
I think it is worth us spending a few minutes thinking about the stressors we experiance and developing a mental and emotion resilincey in light of the recent suicide of Lieutenant John A. Garcia (ret.) of the FDNY. Lt. Garcia was a Company officer at the Deutsche Bank Fire in 2007 where Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino died in the line of duty. Lt. Garcia was their officer that day. One can only imagine what emotions and feelings Lieutenant Garcia must have had in the wake of such a terrible day. The New York Times covered the Lieutenant's funeral in a piece published on May 20th.
Suicide is a taboo subject that is rarely discussed in our firehouses. The fact of the matter is it occurs, from large cities to small villages. In 2010 the Phoenix Fire Department had four suicides in seven months. I remember in the late 1990's a firefighter from a neighboring department committed suicide by immolating himself, in the town he worked in, on his shift day. The brothers who responded were the men he worked with every day. They had to treat his burns as he lay dying the the back of the very Ambulance he often worked on. The FDNY, the Chicago Fire Department, and countless other departments have seen suicides of active and retired members. Suicide is not the act of an emotionally healthy and resilient person: it is an act of desperation and hopelessness.
We cannot eliminate our brothers and sisters from being witness to the tragedies of the neighbors protect; our sworn duty requires us to be there. What we must do is help our brothers and sister by offering them strategies to develop resiliency, performing an after action review of our responses to allow for discussion before an issue begins to fester, and watch one another for signs of acute or post traumatic stress and have the moral courage to offer the floundering member a lifeline.
There a many more qualified then I am to develop specific strategies to aid in these matters. However I do believe that one of the core reasons to use the Fire Service Warrior Ethos is that it gives our members a defined set of guideposts that if discussed and reinforced through application MAY help develop mental and emotional resiliency. Also, I cannot say enough that for me a grounding in the Stoic School of philosophy has helped tremendously. Remember the words of Epictetus, "It is not the thing itself, but the view we take of it which disturbs us." We do get to chose if we will be weighed down by the emotionally difficult events we are witness to, but our ability to chose is related to our practice of resiliency skills.
Take care of your brother and sister warriors; offer them your support, encouragement, and the tools you have mastered to cope with the challenges we face. If you think a fellow firefighter might be having trouble dealing with an acute or chronic stress condition GET THEM HELP! Remember, "Fire Service Warriors acknowledge their responsibility to their Brothers and Sisters." They may not like it if you bring it to the attention of the Company Officer, Department Chief, or the Employee Assistance Program that they are short tempered, having trouble sleeping, drinking too much, irritable, or any other symptom that you think indicates they are having trouble coping, but getting them help now just may save their lives.
As an aside I find it appalling that we do not track PTSD related suicides as Line Of Duty Deaths. The United States Fire Administration will classify the death of an 86 year-old Fire Captain from a Heart Attack as being in the line of duty, but the suicide of an active member isn't? Why? Is it because there is a stigma associated with psychological emergencies that we don't attach to medical emergencies? I think that is a likely reason.
I don't know how many people have read Malcom Gladwell's book Tipping Point, but in it he examines the rate of teen suicide in Micronesia. One of the things that he found was that once the first teen suicide occurred and was publicized under a given set of circumstances it set off a wave of teen suicides in the small Pacific Island nation. Is it possible that the Phoenix suicides occurred for similar reasons? It's worth considering.
As long as our patterns for mental toughness are derived from the models of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood we are setting our members up for failure. If you want to hold up a man as an example of what courage and resiliency in the face of terrible adversary is have your members read up on the experiences of Vice Admiral James Stockdale as a POW during the Vietnam war in the essays Stockdale on Stocism I and II.
I also think it is worth sharing again the words William Henley wrote in 1875 in his poem "Invictus"
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
for my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And Yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid
It matters not how straight the gait
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the Captain of my soul.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Speaking of Culture Change (AGAIN)....
The May 2011 issue of Accident Analysis and Prevention contains an article titled "Line-of-duty deaths among U.S. firefighters: An analysis of fatality investigations" by Kumar Kundharaju, Todd Smith, and David DeJoy. In their analysis of 189 NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Investigations the authors examined causes of Medical and Trauma related fatalities and partially examined the relevance of culture in the American Fire Service and the impact of culture on the occurrence of firefighter LODD.
The article is an interesting one and it raises several key points and identifies four high order causes of firefighter fatalities.
The article is a good read and provides food for thought. If you don't want to spend the $42.00 to buy the article go to your library and they should be able to get you access. To me it really provides some referenced work about why it is so important that we develop an elite level of fitness, use our PPE, and train our people to a level where they are so proficient that they CANNOT get fundamental fireground skills wrong.
The article is an interesting one and it raises several key points and identifies four high order causes of firefighter fatalities.
- Under Resourcing
- Inadequate Preparation for/Anticipation of adverse events
- Incomplete adoption of ICS
- Sub-optimal Personnel Readiness
The article is a good read and provides food for thought. If you don't want to spend the $42.00 to buy the article go to your library and they should be able to get you access. To me it really provides some referenced work about why it is so important that we develop an elite level of fitness, use our PPE, and train our people to a level where they are so proficient that they CANNOT get fundamental fireground skills wrong.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
It's Size Up Time! Again (Do it for Boo)
YouTube is an amazing resource for us. We don't get to respond to a structure fire everyday, but we sure can watch one. Look at these videos with a critical eye. Start the video and watch the first 20-30 seconds. Pause it. Close your eyes. Do a three point size-up: Building (Construction & Occupancy), Fire Location, Stage of Fire Development. I really believe that those three points can and should be accomplished by every Fire Service Warrior at every fire. Go ahead, watch the first 30 seconds and see what you come up with. No cheating. Scroll down for my size up.
One Story, Wood Frame, 40x20, single family, fire throughout with heavy fire on the B side and in the attic. This is structure burning.
Now watch the rest of the video.
What is going on? What operations are going on? What needs to be accomplished yet? If you are pulling up and assigned as RIT/FAST/RIC what tools do you want staged? Where are you setting up? What are your top three concerns. For you shift commander/Battalion level Chiefs reading what are you going to start working on to make this building behave.
One year ago today the Homewood Fire Department suffered the LODD of Brian Carey in a house not much bigger than this. Consistently we see firefighters dying in 1000 square foot or less single family dwellings. IF we can't make this building behave what chance do we have in the 27,000 square foot warehouse? Take a moment today and work on those two key skills: Fire Behavior (know the enemy) and Building Construction (know the terrain). Do it for Brian.
One Story, Wood Frame, 40x20, single family, fire throughout with heavy fire on the B side and in the attic. This is structure burning.
Now watch the rest of the video.
What is going on? What operations are going on? What needs to be accomplished yet? If you are pulling up and assigned as RIT/FAST/RIC what tools do you want staged? Where are you setting up? What are your top three concerns. For you shift commander/Battalion level Chiefs reading what are you going to start working on to make this building behave.
One year ago today the Homewood Fire Department suffered the LODD of Brian Carey in a house not much bigger than this. Consistently we see firefighters dying in 1000 square foot or less single family dwellings. IF we can't make this building behave what chance do we have in the 27,000 square foot warehouse? Take a moment today and work on those two key skills: Fire Behavior (know the enemy) and Building Construction (know the terrain). Do it for Brian.
Monday, March 14, 2011
And now for something completely different...
We are moving the weekly video blog to Mondays! I think that it will give each of us something to think about for the week, and to be honest it gives me some extra time to get everything put together. Believe it or not shooting and editing these things takes time. Hopefully when the new high-speed/low-drag laptop shows up this week I will be able to get it done a bit faster... but we will see. For now, here is Episode 9 of the Video Blog.
One drill that I really like to use is the Line of Duty Death Book Report. I learned this from my fellow instructors at the Illinois Fire Service Institute. I have used it in classes and find it to be a good tool for learning lessons. Simply chose a firefighter fatality and have a member or two from your crew research the LODD. Have them put together s brief report and a 5-10 minute presentaion on what occured, and the lessons learned. Try to attach the NAME of the fallen Brother or Sister to the report. I think we take these reports more seriously when we can put a name and a face to it. Honor our fallen by learning from the events that brought about their deaths. Strive to be prepared every day for this job.
Cheers.
One drill that I really like to use is the Line of Duty Death Book Report. I learned this from my fellow instructors at the Illinois Fire Service Institute. I have used it in classes and find it to be a good tool for learning lessons. Simply chose a firefighter fatality and have a member or two from your crew research the LODD. Have them put together s brief report and a 5-10 minute presentaion on what occured, and the lessons learned. Try to attach the NAME of the fallen Brother or Sister to the report. I think we take these reports more seriously when we can put a name and a face to it. Honor our fallen by learning from the events that brought about their deaths. Strive to be prepared every day for this job.
Cheers.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tackling Staffing and Mourning The Fallen
I'd like to offer my condolences to the family of Firefighter Mark Falkenhan, of the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Company (MD). FF Falkenhan was searching an occupied building for occupants when, according to Baltimore County Fire Department Chief John Hohman, a flashover occurred. Our Brother was severely burned and succumbed to his injuries. Godspeed, Brother; my thoughts and prayers are with both your families. You can find CNN's coverage here.
I don't know if I should touch this with a ten foot hook right now, but I received a comment on the blog last night that I think is worth discussing. Jessie Rosewall, Assistant Fire Chief, of the River Delta Fire District (CA)commented on "They Have Delusions of Adequacy":
"I am glad you are reporting information but instead of griping, complaining and pointing fingers. Why don't you assist these politicians, management leaders and unions in developing strategies to accomplish goals of keeping fire apparatus staffed? The bottom line is, just like you home budget, you can't keep spending more than what you make. Yes, some of our leaders or politicians have allowed this to happen. Instead of banking revenue while the boom was going good, they made foolish mistakes of increasing spending.
We are all feeling the stretch. We also see the unions equally to blame. Our hands are tied when we look at other staffing options such as volunteers or reserve firefighters filling seats on apparatus.
Unfortunately some, not all of your brothers and sisters in the unions see them as "TAKING AWAY A PAID JOB" instead of a well trained part time paid, reserve or volunteer capable firefighter who can save a life just as well as a paid person."
So we come to the 800 pound gorilla in the room at every fire department convention, conference, round-of-drinks. Do we need career firefighters? In the interest of full disclosure, I am a dues paying member of the International Association of Fire Fighters and worked to organize a former part-time fire department I worked for with the Service Employees International Union.
My answer is yes, we need career firefighters. We want career teachers, career doctors, and a career military. We should want career firefighters for the same reason: a career member can devote more time to mastering their trade than someone who must support his or her family doing other work. I have met many dedicated, trained, focused Fire Service Warriors for whom the fire service is an additional duty they have stepped up to perform. Everyone of them has said to me that they wished they could be a career firefighter and they have all complained about the difficulty of making time to train on top of their full time job and spending time with their families.
I do agree with A/C Rosewall that Unions will argue against the employment of substitute firefighters. That is why they exist. Again as a dues paying member if my local said, "Sure, lay the bottom six guys off and we'll use a bunch of electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and school teachers as volunteers to fill those spots," I would file a lawsuit for failure to represent.
I want to be clear however: My stance on career firefighters has NOTHING to do with unions. No one can deny that unions have done good for many blue-collar folks; however their system cuts both ways. The union has the responsibility to preserve and defend the employee who meets the minimum standard just as much as the superstar. That is the nature of organized labor all over this country. What we come to though is staffing. How do we staff apparatus and provide adequate fire protection for everyone in a fiscally responsible way.
My anecdotal assessment is that we need consolidation. It costs money to keep fire stations open, buy apparatus, buy equipment, and administer a Fire Department or District. It costs money to train, and staff apparatus. Fire has no idea if there is a political boundary on one side of the street versus another. The village I live in has career firefighters, and strives to show up on a call with four personnel per apparatus. Cross the street that is the dividing line between my community and the City of Chicago and every company pulls up with five personnel. The fire doesn't know that my commuinty has lower staff and that it has to develop more slowly.
If you look at communities all over there are fire departments that are providing redundant services. For example in Cook County (IL) there are 118 fire departments. According to the Census Bureau in 2009 the estimated population of Cook County was 5,287,037. Of that 5.2 million people, 2.8 million (2006 estimate) live in the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago is 227 square miles. The remainder of Cook County is 718 square miles.
If we separate the City of Chicago from the rest of the County we see that there are 117 separate fire departments protecting 2.4 million people in 718 square miles. There are 117 fire chiefs; 117 organizations that are buying small quantities of equipment; 117 organizations trying to purchase apparatus; 117 organizations trying to find qualified members to arrive of the scene of a fire ready to work. I know there are departments that are struggling under the weight of overtime everyday. That's because they are trying to "Do more with less," and aren't hiring the staffing needed to minimize overtime.
I think we need to look at consolidations in a serious light. Figuring out the details are far above my pay grade, but I can tell you this. A simple look at the numbers shows that all of Cook County (excluding the City of Chicago) could be protected to the minimum standards of NFPA 1710 with roughly 8000 firefighters, officers, and chiefs. I would bet my paycheck that if a consolidation like that happened the tax burden on our citizens could be reduced and many of the budget issues we are seeing would go away.
I'm sure I have chosen to sit under the sword of Damocles here but even suggesting such a thing, but its what I believe. Later on I'm going to record Video Blog number two and talk about the Duty of Fire Service Warriors. Cheers.
I don't know if I should touch this with a ten foot hook right now, but I received a comment on the blog last night that I think is worth discussing. Jessie Rosewall, Assistant Fire Chief, of the River Delta Fire District (CA)commented on "They Have Delusions of Adequacy":
"I am glad you are reporting information but instead of griping, complaining and pointing fingers. Why don't you assist these politicians, management leaders and unions in developing strategies to accomplish goals of keeping fire apparatus staffed? The bottom line is, just like you home budget, you can't keep spending more than what you make. Yes, some of our leaders or politicians have allowed this to happen. Instead of banking revenue while the boom was going good, they made foolish mistakes of increasing spending.
We are all feeling the stretch. We also see the unions equally to blame. Our hands are tied when we look at other staffing options such as volunteers or reserve firefighters filling seats on apparatus.
Unfortunately some, not all of your brothers and sisters in the unions see them as "TAKING AWAY A PAID JOB" instead of a well trained part time paid, reserve or volunteer capable firefighter who can save a life just as well as a paid person."
So we come to the 800 pound gorilla in the room at every fire department convention, conference, round-of-drinks. Do we need career firefighters? In the interest of full disclosure, I am a dues paying member of the International Association of Fire Fighters and worked to organize a former part-time fire department I worked for with the Service Employees International Union.
My answer is yes, we need career firefighters. We want career teachers, career doctors, and a career military. We should want career firefighters for the same reason: a career member can devote more time to mastering their trade than someone who must support his or her family doing other work. I have met many dedicated, trained, focused Fire Service Warriors for whom the fire service is an additional duty they have stepped up to perform. Everyone of them has said to me that they wished they could be a career firefighter and they have all complained about the difficulty of making time to train on top of their full time job and spending time with their families.
I do agree with A/C Rosewall that Unions will argue against the employment of substitute firefighters. That is why they exist. Again as a dues paying member if my local said, "Sure, lay the bottom six guys off and we'll use a bunch of electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and school teachers as volunteers to fill those spots," I would file a lawsuit for failure to represent.
I want to be clear however: My stance on career firefighters has NOTHING to do with unions. No one can deny that unions have done good for many blue-collar folks; however their system cuts both ways. The union has the responsibility to preserve and defend the employee who meets the minimum standard just as much as the superstar. That is the nature of organized labor all over this country. What we come to though is staffing. How do we staff apparatus and provide adequate fire protection for everyone in a fiscally responsible way.
My anecdotal assessment is that we need consolidation. It costs money to keep fire stations open, buy apparatus, buy equipment, and administer a Fire Department or District. It costs money to train, and staff apparatus. Fire has no idea if there is a political boundary on one side of the street versus another. The village I live in has career firefighters, and strives to show up on a call with four personnel per apparatus. Cross the street that is the dividing line between my community and the City of Chicago and every company pulls up with five personnel. The fire doesn't know that my commuinty has lower staff and that it has to develop more slowly.
If you look at communities all over there are fire departments that are providing redundant services. For example in Cook County (IL) there are 118 fire departments. According to the Census Bureau in 2009 the estimated population of Cook County was 5,287,037. Of that 5.2 million people, 2.8 million (2006 estimate) live in the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago is 227 square miles. The remainder of Cook County is 718 square miles.
If we separate the City of Chicago from the rest of the County we see that there are 117 separate fire departments protecting 2.4 million people in 718 square miles. There are 117 fire chiefs; 117 organizations that are buying small quantities of equipment; 117 organizations trying to purchase apparatus; 117 organizations trying to find qualified members to arrive of the scene of a fire ready to work. I know there are departments that are struggling under the weight of overtime everyday. That's because they are trying to "Do more with less," and aren't hiring the staffing needed to minimize overtime.
I think we need to look at consolidations in a serious light. Figuring out the details are far above my pay grade, but I can tell you this. A simple look at the numbers shows that all of Cook County (excluding the City of Chicago) could be protected to the minimum standards of NFPA 1710 with roughly 8000 firefighters, officers, and chiefs. I would bet my paycheck that if a consolidation like that happened the tax burden on our citizens could be reduced and many of the budget issues we are seeing would go away.
I'm sure I have chosen to sit under the sword of Damocles here but even suggesting such a thing, but its what I believe. Later on I'm going to record Video Blog number two and talk about the Duty of Fire Service Warriors. Cheers.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Problem With Free Speech
Abraham Lincoln supposedly once said, "It is better to remain silent an be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
The line of duty death of Ed Stringer and Corey Ankum has triggered much discussion. The central question has come back to "should they have been in that building?" I've spoken my mind already in my post, "We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident". The issue though has raised a host of opinions.
The blog-o-sphere has been alive with heated rhetoric and some foolish statements. I am sure that ten years from now when I go back and read some of what I wrote at the start of this new year I will find foolish errors. That's okay. The joy of this country is that we get to make fools of ourselves... it's one of our inalienable rights. I had some problems with my host site this morning and I lost about 7 posts, including the one I posted last night. A good friend emailed me the blog and I re-read it as I was putting it back in. I was just as guilty of over reacting as some of the folks I was inditing for their words. Hello Kettle....
I do think there are some points I want to pull out of that post though.
On Christmas Day John Murphy posted "Another Abandoned Building Takes More Firefighter Lives" on Fire Engineering's Forums. He compared homeless people to rats, "Here is a fact –homeless scatter like rats when the buildings start on fire meeting their own primal need of survival." Robert Avsec posted a blog on Fire Chief magazine's forums some days later in which he said that the Chicago Fire Department had behaved wrongly in entering the building on East 75th Street. I can't quote the man because after getting dozens of livid comments (including one from me) Fire Chief pulled the posting from their site.
Today though I see that Janet Wilmoth, Editor of Fire Chief, posted a commentary on the 6th of January regarding the editorial decision to pull Mr. Avsec's piece because, "It's Too Soon For Hard Questions In Chicago." In her Editorial comment Ms. Wilmoth says, "...who hears about fires in an abandoned building and doesn’t wonder about the rest of the story? We all do, but who decides whether vagrants are worth looking for in a burning building?"
That's the trouble with words. There are so many inferences that can be drawn from a vague or imprecise statement. I called out the vagaries in the 16 Life Safety Initiatives here. We must strive to give precision to our words, strive to be explicit in our meanings, and strive to be clear in our meanings. I've put my foot in my mouth before, and I expect that the day will come when I have the taste of shoe leather on my palate again. Until then, thanks for all the comments, emails, and visits.
The line of duty death of Ed Stringer and Corey Ankum has triggered much discussion. The central question has come back to "should they have been in that building?" I've spoken my mind already in my post, "We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident". The issue though has raised a host of opinions.
The blog-o-sphere has been alive with heated rhetoric and some foolish statements. I am sure that ten years from now when I go back and read some of what I wrote at the start of this new year I will find foolish errors. That's okay. The joy of this country is that we get to make fools of ourselves... it's one of our inalienable rights. I had some problems with my host site this morning and I lost about 7 posts, including the one I posted last night. A good friend emailed me the blog and I re-read it as I was putting it back in. I was just as guilty of over reacting as some of the folks I was inditing for their words. Hello Kettle....
I do think there are some points I want to pull out of that post though.
On Christmas Day John Murphy posted "Another Abandoned Building Takes More Firefighter Lives" on Fire Engineering's Forums. He compared homeless people to rats, "Here is a fact –homeless scatter like rats when the buildings start on fire meeting their own primal need of survival." Robert Avsec posted a blog on Fire Chief magazine's forums some days later in which he said that the Chicago Fire Department had behaved wrongly in entering the building on East 75th Street. I can't quote the man because after getting dozens of livid comments (including one from me) Fire Chief pulled the posting from their site.
Today though I see that Janet Wilmoth, Editor of Fire Chief, posted a commentary on the 6th of January regarding the editorial decision to pull Mr. Avsec's piece because, "It's Too Soon For Hard Questions In Chicago." In her Editorial comment Ms. Wilmoth says, "...who hears about fires in an abandoned building and doesn’t wonder about the rest of the story? We all do, but who decides whether vagrants are worth looking for in a burning building?"
I jumped on Ms. Wilmoth's comment as a statement that she was implying that vagrants, that the homeless, might not be worth searching for. As I read the comment again I don't think I am too far off. If that wasn't Ms. Wilmoth's intent it was a poorly written sentence. I seriously doubt that Ms. Wilmoth would have had questioned if we should be searching for people because of their race, gender, religion, or because of a handicap.
That's the trouble with words. There are so many inferences that can be drawn from a vague or imprecise statement. I called out the vagaries in the 16 Life Safety Initiatives here. We must strive to give precision to our words, strive to be explicit in our meanings, and strive to be clear in our meanings. I've put my foot in my mouth before, and I expect that the day will come when I have the taste of shoe leather on my palate again. Until then, thanks for all the comments, emails, and visits.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
"We hold these truths to be self-evident...
... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
We all know these words, written 234 years ago by Thomas Jefferson. They defined a nation and a culture as a collection of Colonies made the decision to assert their right to Independence. That we are all equal is a core concept of the American concept. In many ways that defining sense of equality is why the American Fire Service has been accused of being aggressive, occasionally to the point of being "unsafe".
I sat at my in-law's house for Christmas day and the conversation turned to the deaths of Chicago Firefighters Cory Ankum and Ed Stringer. Someone posed the question, "What do you think happened." My father-in-law made the statement, "They shouldn't have gone in there," based on the fact that it was a vacant building. My wife, true to form, rose to the challenge, "That's what we have firemen for." That conversation and a piece posted on Fire Engineering's website got me think more about why we find ourselves once again in the, "To search or not to search," debate.
I got out of my Truck this morning and Mr. Jefferson's words ran through my head, "We hold these truths to be self evident..."
This is the United States. We believe in EQUALITY (even if we fall short of the goal at times) and we believe in "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." THAT IS WHY WE SEARCH. The day we start writing off a building and the occupants inside because WE might get hurt is the day we have stopped being useful to the community we serve. I would say it's the day we start ignoring what the core ethos of being an American is all about. (To my international readers I don't know if you are facing all of the same issues that we are about this topic right now, and I don't mean to exclude your culture, but I am after all an American).
We search because it is the American thing to do. If there is any likelihood that there might be someone in the building we search. The homeless squatter's life has just as much worth to the firefighter as does the person living in a decrepit tenement, or the person living in the wealthiest of areas. Sometimes we will search a room that has very little chance of being tenable because someone has said, "My child is in there!" Sometimes we search the abandoned building because we know the area is a haven for squatters. Sometimes we search because something just feels, "wrong" about the situation. Really though, we search because it is our Duty.
We search because it is the American way. We search because everyone is our neighbor even if we wouldn't have them into our homes for dinner. We search because we believe that EVERYONE'S life has value and that it is our voluntary accepted DUTY to go the distance and protect those lives. If you do not want to risk your life for your neighbors please turn in your badge, your pager, your gear, and your self-proclaimed title of "hero". No one put a gun to your head and said, "You will be a firefighter!" You CHOOSE to do this job each and every day and you can choose not to if you feel it is too risky. Please, please though, do not do a disservice to those of us who believe it is our duty to protect our neighbors and say that the fire service should change. Own this job, own the risks, TRAIN EVERYDAY to minimize the risk by being prepared.
If you find yourself at Ed Stringer's wake tomorrow I'll be there. I'll be at 115 Bourbon Street to hoist a pint afterward and toast our Brothers. Maybe I'll see you there. Have a happy new year.
We all know these words, written 234 years ago by Thomas Jefferson. They defined a nation and a culture as a collection of Colonies made the decision to assert their right to Independence. That we are all equal is a core concept of the American concept. In many ways that defining sense of equality is why the American Fire Service has been accused of being aggressive, occasionally to the point of being "unsafe".
I sat at my in-law's house for Christmas day and the conversation turned to the deaths of Chicago Firefighters Cory Ankum and Ed Stringer. Someone posed the question, "What do you think happened." My father-in-law made the statement, "They shouldn't have gone in there," based on the fact that it was a vacant building. My wife, true to form, rose to the challenge, "That's what we have firemen for." That conversation and a piece posted on Fire Engineering's website got me think more about why we find ourselves once again in the, "To search or not to search," debate.
I got out of my Truck this morning and Mr. Jefferson's words ran through my head, "We hold these truths to be self evident..."
This is the United States. We believe in EQUALITY (even if we fall short of the goal at times) and we believe in "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." THAT IS WHY WE SEARCH. The day we start writing off a building and the occupants inside because WE might get hurt is the day we have stopped being useful to the community we serve. I would say it's the day we start ignoring what the core ethos of being an American is all about. (To my international readers I don't know if you are facing all of the same issues that we are about this topic right now, and I don't mean to exclude your culture, but I am after all an American).
We search because it is the American thing to do. If there is any likelihood that there might be someone in the building we search. The homeless squatter's life has just as much worth to the firefighter as does the person living in a decrepit tenement, or the person living in the wealthiest of areas. Sometimes we will search a room that has very little chance of being tenable because someone has said, "My child is in there!" Sometimes we search the abandoned building because we know the area is a haven for squatters. Sometimes we search because something just feels, "wrong" about the situation. Really though, we search because it is our Duty.
We search because it is the American way. We search because everyone is our neighbor even if we wouldn't have them into our homes for dinner. We search because we believe that EVERYONE'S life has value and that it is our voluntary accepted DUTY to go the distance and protect those lives. If you do not want to risk your life for your neighbors please turn in your badge, your pager, your gear, and your self-proclaimed title of "hero". No one put a gun to your head and said, "You will be a firefighter!" You CHOOSE to do this job each and every day and you can choose not to if you feel it is too risky. Please, please though, do not do a disservice to those of us who believe it is our duty to protect our neighbors and say that the fire service should change. Own this job, own the risks, TRAIN EVERYDAY to minimize the risk by being prepared.
If you find yourself at Ed Stringer's wake tomorrow I'll be there. I'll be at 115 Bourbon Street to hoist a pint afterward and toast our Brothers. Maybe I'll see you there. Have a happy new year.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Things that Make You Go, “What the &^%$?!”
Like many folks out there I subscribe to The Secret List (which of course is not so secret) to get notified about what’s going on in the Fire Service. Chief Billy Goldfeder and his team do a great job of updating us about significant events in the fire service, Line of Duty Deaths in particular.
I opened my email this morning and saw that I would have to update my count of Line of Duty count. Then I read the email and was prompted to say, “What the f^%k?”
For those who haven’t seen it, here is the email from The Secret List:
I too want to extend my sympathies to the family of Captain Hall, his wife and adult kids and the members of the Hitchins FD. It’s never easy to lose someone you care about.
Is this REALLY a Line of Duty Death though? The man was 86 years old! What in the name of all that is reasonable is an 86 year old doing functioning on an Emergency Scene?
If we are going to get serious about reducing Line of Duty Deaths we need to look at limiting the age of our members. This may come as a shock to some people, but every single one of us is going to die. Me. You. Everyone. So, given that fact is it really reasonable to make a statistic out of someone who is 86 years old that has a heart attack?
So far in 2010 we have seen 77 Firefighter Line of Duty Deaths. 26 of those fatalities have happened to firefighters who are over 60 years old; of those 14 have befallen firefighters over the age of 65. 65 is a mandatory retirement age in many Public Pension systems, and an age where you can collect full Social Security Benefits! Now, I understand that in many departments that make use of on-call/volunteer responders it is men and women who have a wealth of experience, like Captain Hall, who are willing to show up when the bell rings. Maybe we need to look at the studies into metabolic output, and the effects of aging on reaction times, and acknowledge that Emergency Response is really a young person’s game. Maybe we need to find roles where our older members are able to serve in support capacities so their knowledge and experience, as well as their dedication, are not lost, but they aren’t placed in a position where they are under the stress and strain of emergency response.
If we are going to be serious about reducing firefighter LODD we need to consider whether age should be a limiting factor in participation. If being over 65 placed a limit on the extent to which a member could participate (i.e. a prohibition on acting in an operational capacity) we would see an 18% reduction in Line of Duty Deaths. That is taking life safety initiatives seriously. That is making an effort to eliminate PREVENTABLE line of duty deaths.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The Devil is in the Details
I don’t know who first said, “The Devil is in the details,” but it’s true that plenty of great sounding ideas can begin to fall apart on deeper examination. I’ve written before about the how the mission statement, “Everyone Goes Home” is doomed to fail; it’s that kind of well-intentioned statement I think of when I think about the devilish details that we have to deal with in the Fire Service. I’ll be honest; as the concept stands today, I feel that Victim Survivability Profiling is in the same place.
Captain Marsar, the author of the concept, took the time to reply to my previous post, “%$#@ Victim Survivability Profiling, Do Your Primary Search.” I posted his reply here, with his permission, so it could be read in its entirety. I appreciate that Captain Marsar has continued the discussion, and I am happy to have the chance to do the same.
The problem in trying to discuss the applicability of ANY tactic, technique, or guideline to the American fire service is that there is no single American fire service to speak about. (Now that I know I have so many international readers I am going to specify American fire service. I haven’t fought fire in the Brazil, the UK, France, or Germany so I have really no idea how you folks apply specific tactics, but I would love to come visit and see.) There may not be as many different fire services as there are fire departments in the US, but it’s probably close.
The capabilities of the FDNY are different than a suburban department like mine, which in turn are different than a rural all-volunteer department. The Engine I’m assigned to rolls out with two of us; our first due manpower for the whole town is ten members on four Engines and one Truck. We have no automatic-aid responding, and mutual-aid companies generally will not respond until requested by an on-scene Company. We are capable of operating in a particular way, and we manage to do a lot with fewer resources than some of our neighbors because of the frequency our members find themselves on the fire ground.
I say this as a reminder that any discussion has to be measured and evaluated within the capabilities of your department. When I start talking about what we (the fire department) will or won’t do on the fire scene you must always base it on what YOUR department can do.
I read the articles on Victim Survivability Profiling when they were published. My first reaction was, “Don’t we do this already?” I’ve always learned that you need to conduct a thorough size-up and make a decision about the tenability of the building. The articles seemed to be a reminder of this, but with a bit more of the risk adverse “Everyone Goes Home” philosophy behind it. I didn’t comment on them. I figured anyone who read them would need to do their own assessment and see if there was any practical knowledge to be gained.
Then NIOSH released the report into the Homewood Fire Department Line of Duty Death of FF Brian Carey (FF2010-10). The first of the Key Recommendations identified was, “Ensure that a complete 360 degree situational size-up is conducted on dwelling fires and others where it is physically possible and ensure that a risk-versus-gain analysis and a survivability profile for trapped occupants is conducted prior to committing to interior fire fighting operations.” (1) The report references Captain Marsar’s articles as a factor in this recommendation. It was the publication of this LODD report that brought about my desire to talk about this idea head on.
Captain Marsar said in his reply to my previous posting that to date two articles exploring his concept have been published, with two to follow. To date there has not been a clear cut explanation in his work about correlating clues for size-up that would indicate definitive go/no-go scenarios. I get the impression from our email exchanges that he offers some of these in his forthcoming articles; I look forward to reading them.
The dilemma that I am speaking to, rather than being about Captain Marsar’s work in particular, is about mixed of messages from various national recognized sources being at odds with the expectations of the public we serve. I have said before that the public expects us to go into burning building. If we are not going to meet that expectation we owe it to the public to explain what we will and won’t do, and how we will make these decisions.
The Homewood incident is one example, but is one that is at the core of the issue. I think that Captain Marsar is right about us not over committing if to a structure that is beyond being saved if we are certain that no life hazard exists. Since I’m all about clues, if we pull up and see a building that his sealed with a Vacant Property System or HUD windows we can reasonably assume the building is vacant.
My biggest concern, and the point I was raising in the earlier post is that we need to define explicitly for our Neighbors (our customers if you prefer) what we will and will not do. Bill Carey of http://backstepfirefighter.com/ pointed out in a discussion I was privy to that we must consider that at some point in time a family is going to sue the fire department, or the incident commander, because the choice was made to assume (with an educated assessment) that there was no savable life in a structure where one of their family members dies. We must minimize the chance of this by both training our personnel AND educating the public. That is a job for the Chiefs and Political leaders out there.
One of the concerns that I have, and why I referred to the insidious growth of risk adverse attitudes in the fire service, is concepts like Victim Survivability Profiling being employed by those Chiefs/Company Officers/Firefighters out there who are completely terrified of actually fighting fire and joined the fire department because it was a chance to be part of the “boy’s club” or carry a badge and a pager. It is a hop-skip-and-jump from “This scene is likely beyond having savable life,” to, “What with the products in smoke there is no way anyone is ever going to be alive in there,” and now we are making every excuse in the world to NOT go in. Check out Dave LeBlanc’s post “When did it become okay to say no?” Dave raises some great points that should be part of the conversation.
As soon as you start to question if someone is operating too safely you become labeled a Cowboy, or too stupid to understand the intentions of the well-meaning folks who believe that we can serve the public without ever getting anyone hurt. The fact is that we exist to save lives and property and we will risk our lives to do it. We have to do that with a deep understanding of everything that occurs on the fireground, and our personal reasons for being there. If you are unwilling to accept an added risk to yourself in order to search and rescue a KNOWN or suspected victim then in my opinion you need to look yourself in the mirror and ask what are you doing here.
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