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A Little Safety Parable

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

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.

Posted by truck6alpha on August 7, 2010 • Filed under: "accident prevention", EMS Health & Safety, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, In the Line of Duty, LODD, Line of Duty, change, fire service, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism, safety, seatbelts • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s The Minimum

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If you didn't have standards, this might be your first out engine. Swan River, Queensland, Australia 2002

If you didn't have standards, this might be your first out engine. Swan Creek/Emu Creek Bushfire Brigade, Queensland, Australia 2002

Authentic Neapolitan pizzas are typically made with tomatoes and Mozzarella cheese.  Genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of high-protein wheat flour (type 0 or 00, or a mixture of both), natural Neapolitan yeast or brewer’s yeast, salt and water. The dough must be kneaded by hand or with a low-speed mixer. After the rising process, the dough must be formed by hand without the help of a rolling pin or other machine, and may be no more than 3 mm (⅛ in) thick. The pizza must be baked for 60–90 seconds in a 485 °C (905 °F) stone oven with an oak-wood fire.[4] When cooked, it should be crispy, tender and fragrant.

Those were just a few of the standards for an authentic Neapolitan pizza (published on Wikipedia), as recognized and protected by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana.  Likewise, most of the things you take for granted in the world, with the exception of things like knock-off Rolexes, are constructed from materials meeting standards, are built to certain standards, and if they carry any kind of guarantee of quality or workmanship, must meet performance standards.

Unless your organization is living in a 1950’s time warp, the people in your community, when they call the fire department for help, expect help for many things that exceed the scope of “firefighting”.  Regardless of whether your community is staffed with a career or a volunteer department, there are increased expectations on the level of service being provided.  I can rationally argue the need for standards on a number of different levels.  I will, however, only provide you with this one today; it’s the minimum.

If you want to call yourself a firefighter, there are certain things you should be able to do.  If you cannot do these things, you run the risk of hurting yourself, not to mention others.  You also run the risk of making an emergency greater than it was when you arrived.  As a reasonable and prudent individual with a duty to act, you agree that your “job” (as a firefighter) entails certain knowledge, skills, and abilities to allow your organization the ability to advertise a product. What that product is in your jurisdiction could be limited to fighting fire or could be all-hazards, or anywhere in between.

Your community, in supporting the “fire department”, does so with the understanding that you are what you say you are.  The community defines that expectation; if their only expectation is that a group of bubbas show up to put out a fire when it occurs, then maybe you don’t need to meet a standard.  If that’s the case though, when insurance companies decide the risk is too great in your community, don’t be surprised when the citizenry can’t get coverage and they hang you (or your chief) in effigy at the town square.  And that may be getting off light.

Minimum standards, among other things, define.  Since a group of individuals representing different aspects of the world affected by a certain thing decided and agreed on a definition, and that group is recognized by the others affected by that thing, the definition becomes a standard.  I could write a standard on constructing nuclear plants and declare it the minimum standard, but since I have no authority or expertise in doing so, my standard would likely be considered meaningless and useless.

For those who aren’t in favor of standards, I’d suggest that it’s not that you aren’t in favor of standards, but what is in those standards and how they came to be.  If that’s the case, I’d say that before you make any proclamations on a standard being a “bad” standard, you seek to understand how that definition came to be and how it happens to be the minimum.  In many cases, I’d bet that you’d find that others wanted a much stricter or more restricting definition and the end result was what everyone on that committee agreed was acceptable for use or was prudent.

Like I tell the people who work with me, don’t complain about anything unless you tried to do something about it.  If you don’t like a standard, feel free to get involved.  But the long and short of it is this: standards exist for at least one primary reason, and that reason is to define what something is.  In the absence of any other meaningful definition, if something close fills that void, that standard will be the one that defines the subject matter.  You can be angry about it if you like, but if you don’t like it, change it.

In the meanwhile, if it’s an accepted standard, you can assume you’ll have to meet it.  You can say all day that you choose not to meet certain standards, but if you are like me, you will understand that to not do so will leave you open to a number of things, including liability.  The only way to escape it is to lay that decision on the people who are at that payscale: the politicians. But that’s a blog post for another day.

Stay safe and do the best you can with what you have.  But remember, the standard is what defines you.  If you have no standard, you have no definition, and in that case, a monkey can do your job.  Even pizzas are made to standards.  If having no standard is what your community believes to be okay, then know that you ultimately get what you pay for, and if your community doesn’t support a department with minimum expectations of members, they shouldn’t be surprised when everything within the city limits are a smoking ruin some weekend.

Posted by truck6alpha on July 28, 2010 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Funding & Staffing, NIMS, Training & Development, US&R, change, credentialing, education, government, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Roto-Ray: Beauty or Beast?

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The Roto-RayAhhhh, the Roto-Ray.  For those of us who grew up in or around East Coast fire companies as children, they are something we cherish dearly, a unique spinning tornado of light on the front of a shiny engine or truck.  The department I work for, in a reach toward tradition and including a touch of modern technology, specified LED Roto-Rays on the fronts of our new fleet of engines and our future tractor-drawn aerial (minor refurb of Truck 7′s  trailer with a new prime mover).

When I posted some pictures of our new quints on Facebook the other day, I was surprised to hear that some people aren’t fans of this fancy warning light.  In response, I searched for similar feelings and found that there are, in fact, quite a few who don’t like them, and quite a few who do.  So I guess, Roto-Rays are the Philadelphia Flyers of warning devices: You either love them or you hate them.

A write-up I found on them came from the Fenton Fire Apparatus website, from which I have paraphrased:

Roto-Ray Warning Lights have been used on fire and rescue apparatus for over 65 years.  Roto-Rays are three sealed beam lights rotating @ 200 RPM in a horizontal plane that still commands attention in today’s traffic. The Roto-Ray Model 200 has three red sealed beam lights; the Roto-Ray Model 200W, available where permitted by state law, has one white and two red sealed beam lights.

Both models draw @ 10 amperes at 12.8 volts D.C. current [Since I'm not a technical guy, I don't know if this is for the new LED version or not]. Both models are available in four different mounting applications. Roto-Rays have an all spur gear drive train with all-driven components using ball bearings. The lamp spider is made of aluminum or polished chrome. All housings are made of 16 gauge steel.  All Roto-Rays except the hidden mount are available in an all-chrome version. Roto-Ray Warning lights have been tested by an independent testing laboratory for compliance with applicable California and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards.

I also found the patent information on the Roto-Ray, which was issued in 1930 to Edward Rumsey.  So that’s a little about them.  Anecdotally, I think they work great.  A few weeks ago I was driving down the road in daylight hours and I caught in my rear-view mirror this visible circle of red and white behind me.  It was our Engine 6, pulling out onto the main drag about 3/4 of a mile behind me.  Between the reflective chevron striping of the front bumper and the Roto-Ray, it was pretty visible.  Scientifically, I have no proof (sounds like an Executive Fire Officer research paper to me).

I have found a few threads where these devices have been debated like at NassauFDRant and of course, at the ol’ Firehouse Forums.  There are also dozens of pictures and videos of them online, like this beautiful Hyattsville rig.

So what say you?  What’s the controversy, other than cost (which seems like some of the issue)?  Or tell us your special Roto-Ray story.  In the meanwhile, I’ll do some deep Internet searching to see if I can find more history (like where the first one was used) and I’ll post it if I find it.  Stay safe and thanks for reading.

[Editor's Note: I have also added a picture of the front of one of our rigs so you can see it; I'll find the night shot at some point]

Two HHIFR engines with Roto-Rays and chevrons.

Posted by truck6alpha on July 14, 2010 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Vehicle Operations & Apparatus, safety, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Back To Work

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The Road Warriors at Bryce Canyon (or as they consider themselves, "The Wonderpets"As some of you may have realized, I was on a vacation. While the first days involved attending to the business of the NFPA Technical Correlating Committee, of which I am a member as a result of my chairmanship of NFPA 1006, the remainder involved a jaunt by RV through some of America’s National Parks and Monuments with my wife, her sister, and my three young children.  My wife and “Aunt Patrice” were pretty self-sufficient, as many adults tend to be.  The three young ones, however, do require supervision (hopefully you all recognize this as being said tongue-in-cheek, since they are three little girls, ranging from 4 to 9, and each of them is already convinced they know WAY more than Dad).

While the supervision of children isn’t that much of a stretch from my real job (supervising firefighters), it does bear discussion here, since it doesn’t seem that all fire officers have the same understanding.  Supervising my children involves primarily looking out for their welfare.  It involves insuring they don’t plunge headlong off of one of the many steep overlooks of the Grand Canyon, and that they don’t shove an entire roll of toilet paper into the RV toilet, both of which could result in a disaster requiring lots of paperwork.  This actually sounds much like my work at the fire department as well.

Watching children involves logistical functions such as scheduling and insuring they have the right materials for the job, which in my case involves a lot of distraction and could involve duct tape and beer, were it not for the intervention of my wife and Aunt Patrice.  Likewise, I could probably fix most of my problems at the fire department with a lot of duct tape and beer, but I know laws prohibit the former and policies prohibit the latter, so I have to actually use the skills of negotiation, coaching, mentoring, and apparently, parenting.

So you see, my job as a father (and sherpa) doesn’t differ really much at all from my job as a Battalion Chief.  When you put it in that perspective, seriously, you realize that the people you work with and for require your insight and creative application of problem solving to make the day go safely and effectively.  Sun Tzu once said, “Treat your subordinates as you would your beloved children, and they will willingly die for you when you give the order.” While I don’t desire that from either my subordinates or my children, you get the point that if you apply the skills of GOOD parenting to both your children and your charges, they will hopefully respect and obey your orders, and do what is necessary to achieve success.

While my leave was really only marginally scarred by a Philadelphia loss to Chicago (where, coincidentally, Aunt Patrice is from) and the constant updates on the games from she and her friends, I had a great time and actually look forward to singing “Here Come The Hawks” for Fire Daily on the World Wide Web.  I got to somewhat enjoy the final game from the comfort of the Maswick Lodge in the beautiful Grand Canyon and when it was all said and done, I said to my children (who Patrice convinced should all be loud, raucous Hawks fans for my benefit) that you know, it’s just a game. When I walked out onto each of those vistas of Zion, Bryce and of course, the Grand Canyon, I realize that ultimately, none of it really matters unless you build something out of all of these experiences, and share them with others.  That’s really where leadership falls into the grand scheme of things, and if we can’t enjoy the sunsets and laughing at ourselves from time to time, what good is it all?

I’m glad to be back at work.  Enjoy your day with your people as well, and remember, it’s all in how you choose to look at it as to how things will go for you and your team.  Maintain a positive perspective and even the big things can be made right again.  Be safe.

Posted by truck6alpha on June 15, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, fire service • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Safety Message With A Parental Advisory

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Repeat after me: "It will all be okay." Breathe deeply.

That got your attention, didn’t it?  However, I strive to maintain a “G” rating on FHZ, and the language is not that bad.  I’m not interested in pushing any of your buttons; I just want to get this safety message across.

So let’s just jump right into it.  Depending on where my shift falls, I drive my youngest daughter to school three or four times a week.  Without fail, there is one dumbass who every morning, manages to tie up the carpool line for an extra five minutes while she yaks incessantly to one or another of the other parents waiting in line.

When she finally decides to pull up her tricked-out Escalade and discharge her whiny little brats, she ties up those exiting by stopping and talking to someone else.  Thus far, I have not succumbed to the (strong) urge to walk up and pull her out through the partially open window of her status machine.  But even as I originally contemplated this post, she ran a stop sign, swerved across three lanes of traffic at carpool pick-up, cell phone in one hand and double decaf frappe crappacino in the other, cutting cars off, just so she could pull up next to one of the other moms (there for the afternoon social, of course) and gab some more. (Breathe deeply).

“Where is he going with this?” you ask (cautiously).  Well, while watching this daily comedy of the bizarre, I was thinking that perhaps our apparatus operators are also too distracted while driving very large, inertially-challenged, parade beasts, and maybe this is part of the cause of so many minor and major vehicle collisions each year.

Take for example, the discussion that I encountered this past week.  I am the Chair of our department’s standard operating guideline committee and people sometimes pull me aside to discuss recent changes to our manual.  With recent changes to the way we back our apparatus, our logic is to make everyone get off the apparatus (except the drivers, obviously) and act as spotters to provide some more eyes on the blind sides of the apparatus.  As you can expect, there are those who think more than one spotter is a bad idea.  I think that given the number of accidents we have had, we should be doing anything in our power to change things, since the current modus operandi doesn’t seem to be working all that well.  If one spotter isn’t working, two or more might be better, but one certainly doesn’t seem to be doing the job now.

In our organization, the command staff (unreasonably, I guess) believes that any number greater than one is an unacceptable statistic for collisions.  We LIKE being proactive.  Consequently, we have people who think a few collisions is okay.  ”It’s the price of doing business”, I heard someone say.

Of course, when assigned to spot the apparatus, if we happen to be doing so with a spotter who can actually manage to do more than fog a mirror, that’s all well and good.  I say this because we have drivers who still manage to back into something even with an individual out there to plausibly prevent such an occurrence.  Of course, that’s if THE SPOTTER isn’t themselves distracted by their own cellphone, the hottie crossing the street, shiny objects, or the flashing lights.

Between the radio going, the siren blaring, the other distracted drivers, the officer ordering, and the three swans-a-swimming, our modern fire apparatus operator has a serious challenge when it comes to paying attention to the road and the myriad hazards encountered between Point A and Point B.  In today’s emergency services, and having read some interesting posts by members of some of the forums, while many of us believe the foremost concern of the apparatus operator should be the safe operation of their vehicle, there are people who are more concerned with what music they should be blasting on their way to “the big one”.  Then we wonder why we have accidents.

Years ago, I heard someone say that if every vehicle on the road was equipped with a nine-inch stainless-steel spike in the center of the steering column, we would probably decrease the number of traffic accidents ten-fold.  While I agree that a sharp object pointed at my chest would probably cause me to think twice before exceeding the speed limit, I think a less lethal solution, like a machine that would punch you in the balls for exceeding the physical limitations of the rig, might just be the answer.  Trust me, if I were smacked in the cajones every time I unlawfully exceeded the speed limit, it would get my undivided attention.  I certainly wouldn’t make that mistake twice.  So, if you’re sincere about avoiding this terrible contraption: FOCUS ON DRIVING THE (Pick one: engine/truck/medic/rescue) SAFELY, because I’m off to get the patent.

It is painfully obvious each time we roll a vehicle, smash one into a car at an intersection, park one on the train tracks, or run over our back-up man that there are serious issues of attention at play here.  Instead of focusing on getting to the fire first, we need to focus on getting to the fire in one piece.  And so long as officers on these rigs sit silently and pray that the ride ends up well instead of speaking up and ordering the driver to slow down and drive reasonably, we will continue to lose our brothers and sisters for what- so some hopped up adrenaline junkie can pretend he’s Mario Andretti racing in a 25-ton killing machine?

Just as my story about the clueless soccer mom riled some of you up, so should the image of a fire apparatus driver ramming into the side of a carload of kids be equally, if not so much more, reprehensible.  After all, our subject mom is just another dumbass civilian with a cell phone.  But you, my friends, are caretakers of the public trust.  The taxpayers chose to allow you to drive the biggest, shiniest example of the American Fire Service down its public thoroughfares because they had a semblance of trust that you wouldn’t mow them down like a dog when you were running to that alarm activation.

Let’s be serious about safe driving of our trucks.  If you really want to kill yourself, do it at the scene where at least you can pretend you were saving someone’s life.  Driving down the highway like a maniac isn’t helping anyone, may likely kill someone, and is really just an excuse for showing off.  Don’t be a dumbass.

Do your job and be proud you are a firefighter, and keep your community safe by easing back a little on the throttle.  Focus on what is important; delivering your highly trained crew with the necessary equipment to the scene of the emergency, and insuring that not only they arrive safely, but everyone and everything encountering you in your travels survives the experience as well.

Posted by truck6alpha on June 1, 2010 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, In the Line of Duty, LODD, Line of Duty, Vehicle Operation & Ambulances, Vehicle Operations & Apparatus, motivation, officership, professionalism, rollover, safety, seatbelts • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Almost Good Enough

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Pseudoladder. Could pass as a truck company in some places.

Pseudoladder. Could pass as a truck company in some places.

What does it mean to be “good enough”? Is being good enough sufficient to meet the needs of our customers? Is it good enough to meet safety requirements? Is being “good enough” good enough to keep civilians from being killed, much less firefighters?

When we establish a standard, the document is a minimum definition of what is “good enough”.  While standards may prove irksome to people, those standards keep what is featured in the attached picture from being termed a “truck company” in some communities.  When we have standards it keeps the old “five bubbas, a pound hound and a pickup truck” example that I like to use from time to time from being called an “urban search and rescue task force”.

As an officer, and more accurately, a leader, what is “good enough” for you to proclaim that title?  Is it a minimum standard of education and experience?  Or was it that you had the lowest social security number?  Or even worse, was it because you are a “nice guy”?  That would be the ol’ elected standard, in some places.

In most businesses, unless you are related to the boss by blood or marriage, there are certain standards required for achieving the pinnacle of success in your company.  It may very well have been that you were the person who lasted the longest, but chances are that you had some kind of a spark of leadership somewhere if someone decided to put you in charge.  Fogging a mirror might not be the only criteria, but if you fogged it the best, maybe that was the deciding factor.

As a leader in emergency services, “good enough” gets personnel injured or killed.  ”Good enough” costs the public millions of dollars in waste.  ”Good enough” is the price for an annual fire loss that leads all industrialized nations.  So long as we continue to settle for the status quo, “good enough” is good enough.

If you fail to recognize that just being good enough isn’t, take this as a call to achieve more than that.  By establishing vision, promoting core values, declaring a mission and goals, and doing something to tie all those things together, you take your team from existing to succeeding.   By seeking innovation and more effective practices, we strive for excellence.  By observing the mistakes of others and instead of ridiculing those people, learning constructively from their experience, we avoid having to make the hard (and painful) mistakes ourselves.

No one reading this probably feels like “good enough” is the answer to anything; by reading this, it shows you are probably interested in motivating yourself and your team and are looking for answers.  If anything, be reassured, “good enough” has killed and injured more of us than any one factor, by way of heart attacks, falls, drownings, vehicle accidents, and any other number of causes of firefighter deaths.  It shows itself in complacency and in acceptance that what the current situation is cannot be altered.  I challenge you to look into your soul and wonder if by standing around and doing nothing, you were leading, or simply accepting your role in the line.

Be excellent and strive for being the best.  It will keep you and your crew alive and it will better serve the public you are charged with protecting.

Posted by truck6alpha on February 18, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Funding & Staffing, Media Relations, Training & Development, change, customer service, fire service, government, leadership, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Playing With Sharp Objects

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webIMG_1668Recently I was dwelling on an inventory of stupid and dangerous things I have done in the past. Since the list was way too long to go on about, I began to wonder why I did those things.  While some of them were from my youth (like jumping off a roof with an umbrella), and some were from my bachelorhood (getting my Suzuki GS750E up to very unsafe speeds), it occurred to me that a lot of them occurred during my adolescence after watching the movie “Hooper“.  At no time during any of those periods did I have a suicide wish- I didn’t WANT to die- but in my mind, I hadn’t really given it much thought.  I hadn’t fully considered the consequences.

You can put the dangers out in front of someone in back and white.  You can paint the picture for them in classes and education.  You can bore them to death with your blog, like I do.  I think that what it really comes down to, though, is that unless you have a very graphic experience with death and understand not only the implications on you, but on others, I don’t think most people can really grasp the message.

There is a lot to be said for working in our business.  I have seen my share of people ejected from vehicles to convince me that wearing a seatbelt is a good thing.  I have seen enough burned homes to understand that being fire safe will head off a lot of heartache.  But no matter what, we have people who ride in fire apparatus without seatbelts and won’t keep their fire station free of hazards, and then they wonder how they end up on the national news wire.  Risk vs. benefit doesn’t have to be limited to the fireground.

I enjoy fighting fires, but some of the fires I used to fight still baffle me.  I have literally put everything on the line for an unsavable building before and to what end?  They tore down the building later.  But we still have people charging into fires, like they just want to roll in it for a little while.  Well, the excitement of the fire is one thing, but I’ve actually seen what a fire can do to someone, so you’ll have to excuse my reluctance to get up close with it and get to know it better.

As emergency service leaders, we need to remind ourselves that just because we used to play in the street when we were kids doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.  Riding on tailboards and charging into unsafe buildings was fun until we saw people dying from those decisions.  Be the grown-up and help point out to your personnel that just because things used to be one way, we have actually learned from our mistakes and it only makes sense to avoid these problems in the future.  Revisiting them for experience’ sake isn’t fun, it’s just stupid.

Posted by truck6alpha on November 23, 2009 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Training & Development, leadership, officership, professionalism, safety • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,