SC-TF1 Demobilizing From Chalmette, LA after Hurricane Katrina, 2005.

I was pretty self-conscious about that decision, even though nobody knew who answered each question and nobody would have known it was me that graded us so. I actually thought about it long afterward, in an attempt to understand in my absolute certainty with 10 seconds on the clock, that we deserved the highest mark on a standard grade. It was, frankly, a little presumptuous of me.

The quick answer is that we don’t deserve an “A”. We are definitely customer oriented and we are definitely aggressive firefighters who use best practices and manage our risk appropriately. We are definitely on the leading edge of EMS delivery and while we are not THE organization by which all should be measured, many would be doing pretty well to do so.

But while we are definitely making huge strides and we have many accomplishments, we aren’t where we feel we should be. That is universally agreed upon in our organization. There is just too much to do, and while we are hitting the high priority items, there are so many things we want to do, and have begun doing, but there are only 24 hours in a day and finite resources otherwise at our disposal.

It is for the same reason, perhaps, that I should instead embrace the criticism of some in the knowledge that the minute we stop reassessing our service we become complacent. Don’t believe for a second that I don’t take the criticism personally, because although I shouldn’t, I do. Just as you know all the idiosyncrasies of your own children, you’d never stand for anyone else criticizing them. And, after 29 years of being part of the core individuals who pushed, pulled and shaped what is now known as our department, I have very little patience for the particular individuals who have come along since with a lot of criticism and no substantive contributions. My personal take on it, in fact, is that we have a list of people who would be happy to take their jobs.

Our line of reasoning, however, should be to embrace the constructive criticism that can be drawn from some of the comments. We should always perform self-critique, but self-critique is not self-immolation. We should always be pulling lessons from where we are and where we want to be, and the reason why we aren’t where we want to be. But this isn’t an effort to tell us what a bad job we are doing, but ways in which we need to improve.

The minute we begin to believe we are Number One in the county, the state, the region, or the nation, and we begin to believe we are “The Best”, we (all of us) tend to believe we can’t learn from others or from ourselves. It also demeans the rest of those who do an excellent job providing service with the resources they have in the community they must serve. Of all things, though, it’s pretty presumptuous again to suggest that we are the best at anything other than delivering the emergency services on Hilton Head Island, because really, that’s all that matters.

My own personal vision for our organization is to be one of those departments that others hold up to say, “This is the gold standard. This is how we want to be”. We continue to make leaps in that direction. We are, though, our own worst critics. We need to always be looking out for better ways to improve. Daily, we must try harder.

The effort must be placed on continual improvement. “Zero defects” is a pretty lofty goal, but in our business, zero defects may be the difference between life and death, between going home in the morning or going home in the hosebed of the rig under a pair of crossed aerials.

Never get complacent. Never believe you are the best, at least not for longer than it takes to get to the desired result, then to take a breath, look around, and say, “Where to from here?” The moment we stop, we die. We should always resolve to do better each time we are presented with a new challenge and to dig out whatever lessons we can observe from our current situation. There is no time to dwell on it, though. Digest it, make the adjustment, and move on.

Hilton Head Island Truck 6 working in Palmetto Dunes.

Since I was the lifer truckie captain and one of only three in the department who had even sat behind the wheel of a TDA before (I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I got the job), I got to shop, spec, purchase, equip, and train the company in our new concept. We brought in an expert who was likewise, a lifer truckie, and learned to drive the TDA the old fashioned way (drive it around the parking lot for a while).

My observation was such that, as an educator, there was probably a more effective method of developing drivers for this specialized piece of machinery. When we were doing research on writing a course on driving tillers, I found a shocking lack of information (at that time) on them and ultimately, a few colleagues and I developed the coursework from which we certify our personnel to drive. This, to satisfy the naysayers, also involved INTENSIVE driving of the vehicle: beachfront parking lots during summer, night driving, driving in the rain, and lots and lots of situational stuff. Needless to say, when we were done, that first round of drivers was pretty proficient.

Lately we have been finding that there is a desire for some to want to reduce the requirements for TDA chauffeurs and tiller operators and I expressed my opinion that this was not the way to go. Our organization does all kinds of stuff in our community in conjunction with our customer service outlook, as well as respond on emergencies. Time is very valuable, but I also know of a long and distinguished history of TDA mishaps that each time point to a missed element of discipline and training. There are basic laws of physics that really come into play with a tractor-drawn aerial that don’t in your basic straight frame aerial, and I have been less than tolerant of relief drivers who don’t understand that.

So you can imagine my interest when I found out about this video collaboration between the Raleigh and Seattle Fire Departments as can be seen here:Raleigh and Seattle Collaborative Training Video I have been watching to see what lessons we might get out of the Raleigh TDA rollover and it seems as if we will have a very valuable tool for educating not only TDA drivers, but all firefighters as well.

But while this could evolve into an entire lesson on driving tillered apparatus, the discussion I want to actually have is that there is a wealth of information out there that you all have the opportunity to obtain. We find too often that people are unwilling to accept the observations and experiences of others and instead “reinvent the wheel” regularly, wasting time and money in the process. But these two departments saw needs and worked together to produce a valuable teaching tool.

There is no shame in finding out what mistakes (or positively, what efforts) have been previously made in our business and asking questions about he good, the bad, and the ugly. This is called research. We ask questions to determine an answer to a problem and rely on science and experience to make decisions. The problem is, it requires effort and it requires being candid about the issues. But no progress gets made without learning about what went right and what went wrong.

Check out the video and tell me what you think. I have already viewed it a number of times and take away something new each time. We are fortunate (and thankful) that no one was killed in this event. And it goes without saying, I thank both departments for their sincere effort in making the job safer. But the lessons learned are no good to anyone if we keep them locked up in a closet. Share the knowledge, collaborate, and learn from one another.

Note: I meant to add this link as well and failed to do it: The Fire Engineering article that spurred my interest. I like to give credit where credit is due.

You too could be roadkill. Photo courtesy of aanimalcontrol.com

So I’m walking from our house to the beach with my three daughters.  There’s a road we have to cross in between here and there that’s pretty busy.  On occasion tourists come flying around the curve, not realizing that there’s an area where you have to cross (although it’s not a marked crosswalk).  While no one has been hit at that spot in the 29 years I have been living on the Island (that I know of), I know it’s a bad section that you can’t see around.  It occurred to me today when I was making that crossing that it’s a lot like the risk we endure as firefighters.

I had the opportunity this weekend to read a recent article on Stat911, that seems to have created some serious wailing and gnashing of the teeth between people who call themselves brothers.  Honestly, it was pretty sad to me as I read these comments.  I admit, it is a little bothersome when a video comes out and a number of people point out the obvious mistakes made, but as I mentioned in an earlier article here on FHZ, we should be looking at things that go wrong and learning, and resolving to keep from repeating events that maim and kill our brethren.

Conversely, instead of saying how stupid some of these people are, perhaps we should offer some constructive criticism and offer suggestions on methods that would help solve the problems, rather than lowering the bar into that angry pit of accusatory language.  And when we generalize about whole departments or organizations based on a squirrely few, we aren’t doing anything other than trying to piss one another off.  I agree 100% that some of the repeated actions (or inactions) taken by other firefighters that endanger themselves and their their colleagues are a little infuriating (like refusing to wear a seat belt), but like the point I have also made over and over again, people aren’t going to learn when you rub their nose in it, they will learn when they see the logic in changing.

But back to my story.  There is, of course, risk in crossing the street, but we accept that risk when we go for a walk, don’t we?  As a pedestrian, we take a calculated risk every time we go out in the road, but it doesn’t stop us from doing it.  In fact, walking in the middle of a busy street is exhilarating.  There’s a certain adrenaline rush when you run out in front of moving cars.

As a responsible father, however, I’d advise against running in front of a moving car.  I’m sure I’d get in a little trouble with my wife, the law, and probably get a few death threats if I just let my children run out in front of cars.  If my four-year-old got struck by a car there, after having  just let her run out there, knowing the risks involved, wouldn’t that make me a little bit liable?  But given the logic espoused by a few of my more enlightened colleagues, I suppose I am overreacting when I tell my girls it’s a wise idea to look both ways at that intersection.  After all, no one has ever been struck or killed here.  If I insisted on having the street marked with lines and a sign, I might be construed as overreacting if you ask some of these folks.

I eat risk for lunch.  I eagerly chose to pursue a fire service career because it was exciting.  Even more so, I focused my whole career to concentrate on special operations.  I’m the Deputy Director of a US&R Task Force.  I used to teach high-line rope rescue, and hold internationally recognized instructor certifications in SCUBA and water rescue.  I hold NPQ and IFSAC certifications as a HAZMAT Technician.  Two of my favorite hobbies are mountain biking and skiing.  I’m not in the slightest bit worried about taking risks.

But there is a serious difference between taking stupid risks and calculated risks.  Firefighting isn’t Jackass.  We have a serious job to do that involves serving the public, and using our personnel as cannon fodder doesn’t do the job.  If you take a risk and die trying to save a life in our job, I’ll be the first one to sing your praises.  If you take a risk and die trying to save a burning trash pile, I’m sorry, I’m not impressed.  If you get burned because you failed to use the safety equipment we provide you, I guess my first question will be, why wasn’t it used?

I think some of the plastic vests and hard-hats are a little much sometimes, but I can understand the effort to make ourselves more visible and to avoid having something clonk us on the head.  But as a leader and chief officer, I also know what can go wrong, what can go seriously, seriously wrong, and to ignore it because I’ve never seen it first hand would be folly.  And to just turn my back on personnel who fail to use good safety practices, knowing what the outcome could be, would be negligent.

Quit the name calling and sand throwing and act like grown-ups.  You can argue that it’s just “ragging”, but it’s not.  The language some of you all out there are using is just plain wrong and malicious.  And it certainly doesn’t represent your side of the argument professionally at all.  I can give people crap all day long with the best of them, but that’s not what some of you are engaging in.  What you are engaging in is simply destructive behavior, and it’s one of the reasons why our profession isn’t always taken very seriously. The only people we are hurting here is ourselves.

I guess its all in how you frame your reference as to what is acceptable versus what is “excellent”.  It certainly sounds as if that culture is evolving into a better place with Chief Carr at the helm.  But across the entire fire service, while exposed to so many ideas, we continue visit the same problems within our own organizations that other organizations have been experiencing for years.

Professionalism or progressiveness isn’t defined by experiencing the same problems over and over again. Being effective doesn’t include repeating mistakes that others have made, got the t-shirt for, and moved on from. If learning isn’t occurring from all of the rhetoric, then what use is it?  When your organization is experiencing such dysfunction that it is obvious even to the newest recruit, then how clueless are you to insist that everything is coming up roses?

The sad part is that this lesson has to come on the backs of dedicated firefighters and the deaths of our brothers.  While it appears our friends in Charleston are moving forward, we continue to read story after story around the rest of the nation of lessons that continue to be learned the hard way.  After all, how many unbelted firefighter LODDs need we read about before deciding once and for all that using our seatbelt is a smart idea?

Instead of reading the news and saying, “Wow, that’s incredible”, perhaps we should be saying, “Wow, how do I make sure that doesn’t happen here?”  Be an agent of productive and progressive change.  Set the positive example and show others what the real definition of progressive and professional is and be a real leader.

An OLD shot of Savannah's LifeStar landing for a Hilton Head Island F/R medevac.

The SC-TF1 Director copied an article to our command staff that I found interesting.  It ran in Popular Mechanics titled Unacceptable Risk (I couldn’t find a direct URL for it, so here’s the pdf: HelicopterCrash).

Our organization allows paramedics on scene to request a medical helicopter evacuation with a minimum amount of oversight by the medical control physician.  Being a paramedic myself, I know when to call for a flight and when not to.  I am not about to call for a chopper to take a patient to a hospital for a broken foot, and likewise, I am intelligent enough to be able to assess a patient and opt to fly them to a hospital that has the resources to help my critically injured victim.  I am appalled at some of the case histories where someone was flown out for a routine (very routine) injury and consequently, I know of agencies who simply won’t call for a flight, regardless of the need for it.

How bad of a medic must you be that you can’t tell the difference between a potentially life-threatening injury and one that can be transported by ground to a hospital?  If I’ve got an altered patient with a potential head injury, I know they need to go to a trauma center.  So what if I have to go on an out-of-jurisdiction transport to the trauma center- it’s what we do.

Regardless of whether or not the aeromedical evacuation of a patient is risky and may or may not have tangible benefit, the decision must come to this: What do I need to do for the best interest of the patient? I don’t care if you don’t like the way they look, or they stink, or you are tired.  When you became a medical response professional, you probably took an oath that involved a statement like “Above All, Do No Harm”.  Our jobs involve making sure our patients not only get care, but that it is the right care, it is not care that is provided at a huge cost because we were too lazy to do our jobs, and that the patient’s rights are maintained in their treatment and transport to a medical facility (or not).

Just as I wouldn’t make you take a treatment that could possibly kill you in order to cover my ass, ordering a helovac for a finger amputation isn’t in my first line of thought.  And I know I curse and fuss when I DO call for a chopper and a spot of rain on the pilot’s windshield causes them to scrub the mission, but you know what? I’m a big boy- I’d MUCH rather you err on the side of keeping your crew and my patient safe and I’ll deal with the fallout otherwise.  But to just say, “All patients go by air” or much worse, “No patients go by air” is ridiculous.

Maybe like everything else, we need to stop applying a broad brush to a situation and do our jobs, by appropriately assessing our patient, determining their logical needs based on mechanism of injury, observable findings, and our experience, and make a good call as to what to do with them.  If we ca’t do this much, it’s no wonder we continue to have to convince people we aren’t just “ambulance drivers” but real, live, medical professionals.

In my recent attempts to not be angry (what good would it do?), I instead got to thinking about what would have happened had he actually hit someone, and what, at that time in the morning, was so important that he might risk his and and the lives of others in order to save a few seconds. I even caught up with him at the next light and I was driving the speed limit.

Later that afternoon, however, I WAS in a hurry to go somewhere. I was driving along and had the very same scenario presented to me. As tempted as I was to just fly through the intersection, since I was late to an appointment, I didn’t, and was a little frustrated as I sat there and waited for the light.

It occurred to me that doing the right thing may be inconvenient at times, but in some cases, the risks you take are certainly not worth the end result. It also occurred to me that even though you may feel like you are saving time by taking a short-cut, it doesn’t always work out that way and in fact, it might even be detrimental to the outcome.

How many times have you been working on a project and felt that taking the easy way out was warranted, only to have to go back and re-do things because you didn’t do things right the first time? When thinking about it from a safety perspective, how many times have you felt compelled to leave out a step (packing up, using gloves, etc.) because you felt like time was of the essence? How much longer would it have taken to complete that important mission had you gotten injured or killed because you took that short-cut?

Sometimes the shortest path between two points isn’t a straight line. Take the time to do things right and more often than not, you’ll be rewarded in the long run.

As anybody who has ever been in the military knows, the one of the least preferable places to engage the enemy is on his own ground.  This is especially true in urban warfare, where going house to house can bring on any sort of undesired surprise.  Again, marching down the street in perfect formation, wheeling into position to the left or right, and moving forward to the center of the contested area is likely going to result in a heavy body count.

The advantage for the opposing force utilizing unconventional tactics is surprise; your force doesn’t know where or when the attack will come, you are unfamiliar with the terrain, you are unfamiliar with the weapons that will be used against you, and the attack is most likely going to come where your units are concentrated and have little ability to maneuver or escape.

Likewise, as we engage a fire in a building, especially in commercial occupancies, we have a disadvantage in that we are relatively unfamiliar with the layout, we may or may not be familiar with the fire load and the construction, and we don’t know for sure how long the fire has been burning, where it has extended to, or what components have been impacted.  We can get good reconnaissance when we do our preplans, but even then, unless it is a building you are in routinely, you probably aren’t going to have a good feel for the “terrain”.

Nonetheless, we have some holdouts in the fire service who continue to embrace the romantic image of the valiant firefighter, bolt upright, dashing into the flames with no regard for his own safety, and emerging unscathed with babe in arms, to the cheers of the crowd.  And before some of you haters out there begin to judge, realize that I come from four generations of these, of whom I am extraordinarily proud to be descended from.

And although I’m okay with that image in my heart, there’s a point where my head takes over.  Because while there is a certain amount of adrenaline surge in the glory of headlong engagement with the enemy, my years of education and experience kick in and I realize that I am locked in mortal combat with an enemy that has a decidedly favorable advantage.

If I choose to ignore the risks involved to the point that only the mission matters, if we had an unlimited amount of resources with which to throw at the enemy, maybe that would be okay (stick with me, now).  I don’t know about your department,  but in my department, we would have a limit of about one dead firefighter before things get a little crazy on scene (I’m being facetious; I hate to spell that out, but I’m heading off the hate mail).

There is nothing wrong with that image of valor I discussed before, but as I said in my earlier post, misusing the resources we have been allocated, of which losing personnel would be probably the most severe (at least it would be in my department), is a seriously poor contribution to minimizing the disaster and bringing it under control.  In fact, in most cases, it exacerbates it.

In no way should my opinion be construed as being against taking risk.  Risk is part of my job and if God strikes me down while taking what I considered to be a good risk versus an appropriate return, than so be it.  But risk to the exclusion of common sense isn’t valiant, it’s stupid.

Most of the firefighter deaths in this nation don’t come from valiantly charging into a burning building to save a life.  Most of them come from preventable issues, like cardiac-related incidents and motor vehicle collisions.  And while I mourn my fallen brethren just as terribly whether done on scene or in training, my job as a responsible emergency service leader is to insure that we aren’t throwing away souls toward lost causes or through poor judgement.  I know my family is appreciative when I come home intact, and so should yours be.

Saying you are for doing the job regardless of the safety aspects isn’t manly, it’s irresponsible.  Being cognizant of safe working practices doesn’t mean I stand outside a building and tremble when I roll up on a structure fire, but it does mean that I look at the fire progress, the extent of involvement, the building construction, and the likelihood of interior tenability (among other things) before committing my personnel.  Realize that this comes from a guy who has charred several helmets off the top of his head in his day and has had his share of hairy saves.  And I loved riding the tailboard just as much, if not more, than any of you out there as well.  But there comes a time when you look at what you are doing, and remember how close you came to throwing everything you had at the fire, only to have the insurance company write it off and be out there with a track-hoe the next day, hauling your “saved” building into a dumpster.

As Chris Naum says in his post on The Kitchen Table, there is a place in between overly cautious and overly aggressive that the good firefighters take their place in the line.  I ask that you consider that location and mark it out, and strive for the use of thorough size-up, sound tactics, and reasonable safety measures while remembering that there are more out there who depend upon you than just that victim.  Don’t throw everything you have at a situation you can’t win.  Choose your battles through knowledge and skill, and do the best you can do.

I guess where I am going with this blog is that there are a lot of people who should pretty much lighten up about some things, but it seems to me there’s a few people who should also lighten up and get with the program about things like firefighter safety, or more accurately, accountability, use of IMS, and not sending people in to fight fires in “lost causes”.

It seems that whenever one of these subjects comes up, there are always one or two out there who say, “Hey, we’ve been doing it this way for years, and I’ve been fighting fires since you were in diapers, blah, blah, blah, blah.” (I wrote that because that’s about where I stopped listening).  I remember one particularly spirited discussion on NIMS and what a crock of crap it was and that members of the XYZ (read: big city) Fire Department, by God, have been doing it this way without that NIMS stuff and maybe you all shouldn’t be a bunch of sissies (that’s not the word he used), blah, blah, blah.

So I guess what you’re saying then, is that despite any meaningful adaptations there are from the way we did stuff to the way the rest of us are doing stuff (in the 21st century) all of it is pretty much useless and we should go back to fighting fires with buckets and grappling hooks.  That would be fine, except that building construction has changed significantly and you aren’t going to pull much thatch off the roofs in my neighborhood.  Or maybe using single 2 1/2-inch supply lines and booster lines is really okay, except that in my city, we have large properties with huge fire loads that give off mega-amounts of BTUs that you won’t overcome with that red garden hose.  And being grossly out of shape is okay, except that now we carry more equipment than we did before, including the fact that we are going to have to go up and down stairs wearing SCBA and the heat being produced by today’s burning couch and other contents far exceeds the heat output of fires in the 50′s and 60′s.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time some of you dug some of the wax out of your ears and listened to the voices of today’s fire service, and if you can’t fathom why change can be good, consider maybe it’s you that needs to change (a change in profession, that is).  Learn more about where we are going by studying the traditions of our past, but realize that tradition is nice when it comes to parades and retirements, but it has absolutely no place in the field of modern combat we call the fireground.

Having a child at that age, I have preached to her about going into the street ad nauseum, but you know, kids sometimes just don’t remember that kind of stuff when they are excited or paying attention to that ball, or whatever the circumstances happen to be.

We need to be hypervigilant when it comes to operating these trucks; anticipating what is going to happen is much preferable to having to react to it unexpectedly if it does.  When you see children playing nearby, don’t just drive by and wave- think about what you would do in the event one darted out into the street.  Let off the accelerator and cover your brake, or at least look for evasive action options in case.  It seems ridiculous that we have to be so defensive, but on the other hand, these guys in KC will probably be second guessing their actions forever, even if they had nothing to do with the way things worked out.

Be alert to your surroundings, buckle up, and let’s all go home in the morning.

Pulled from Firegeezer.com

I normally don’t like to double-post, but I was checking out Firegeezer.com and found this great (okay, so if it was your truck it wasn’t so great) story about a little exposure issue.

THAT’S gotta suck, but I felt that I had to share.  Good night.