Well Done Long Beach!

So, at roughly 1:30 a.m. Pacific time this morning the Long Beach Fire Department, CA, responded to a reported house fire, and were greated with the terrible words, "My baby is in there!"  One member deployed a line to cover and contain the fire while a second member began to search the second floor.  During his search a portion of the floor gave way, causing 4 year member Charles Hakopian to fall into the hole.  He pulled himself out, continued the search, found the 2-year old toddler not breathing and removed the child to EMS who got him back in the ambulance.  The little guy is in critical condition and his mom is under arrest.

Watch this video for more infomation.


All I am going to say is well done!  This is why we search.  This is why we have to be trained to deal with the high-risk environment of the fireground.  Remember every time we respond to a fire it is like walking into an ambush.  We may have the strategic knowledge that fires will occur, but the fire always has tactical surprise and gets to pick the battlefield.  When we arrive on-scene we have to make critical decisions in a time sensitive environment without 100% of the desired information. We have to be prepared to deal with the situation when things go wrong.  Ask yourself this, what would you have done if that floor had partially given way on you?  Would you have continued the search?  Why?  Would you have aborted?  Why?  Either option is perfectly viable depending on the conditions you find. 

Do you want the first time you have to think about that to be when it happens though?  (hint your answer is supposed to be "F&^$ No!")  Of course not.  That is why mental reharsal is a critical tool for firefighters.  If you look into all the reaserch Gary Klein and his team have done on Recognition Primed Decision Making you will see the importance of developing "action scripts."  Take it a step further and in his book Intuition At Work, he talks about "decision games" as a way of developing felicity with intuitive decision making skills.  That is mental rehearsal.  I like the way Paul Howe, MSG USA (ret) describes Mental Rehearsal's in his book Leadership and Training for the Fight. 

For the firefighter, fire officer, fire chief who strives to be a Fire Service Warrior the need for mental rehearsal is obvious!  It gives you a chance to work through all the "what ifs" before you find yourself there.  You develop your decision making skills in the firehouse or on the drill ground so before you have to make that "Go/No-Go/Abort" Decision you have a pattern to use as a guide.  That's what Fireground Tactical Decision Making is all about!

Once again well done to Firefighter Hakopian and the Brothers and Sisters in Long Beach.  You saved a life, you saved a neighbor, you did your Duty.  Chuck, if you're at FDIC come find me and you get a free copy of the book, and a beverage.  Cheers!