In June 2009, I blogged about spontaneous bystander response, or rather, the difference between that and a bunch of people jumping into their Fire SUV and driving to say, Bastrop, Texas, only to be turned away from the action. I don't expect civilians to understand. On the face of it, it looks like the Feds are turning away perfectly acceptable resources. The response community, however, obviously needs a big-ass brick dropped on their head with a note wrapped around it that says: "Don't go if you aren't invited."
Let's put some perspective on the issue AGAIN. I've been dealing with disaster response for a very long time. When I need additional resources, I have found that there is an electronic device in most response apparatus that I can use it to call for help. In case you are wondering, this would be the radio. In these days, however, a cell phone, e-mail or any other number of methods may be employed (in case you didn't know).
We are not discussing the desire for people to help their neighbors by bringing clothing, money, food, water, labor, etc. We are talking about bringing yourself (and usually not much more) and saying, "I can fight fire". We are talking about popping a sleeping bag in the car and going for a road trip, thinking that in a lot of these situations, it is going to be like camping, sans Kumbaya and S'mores, but with an extra helping of excitement.
As I and countless others have said, time after time after time:
The main problem faced by those of us in the disaster community when it comes to spontaneous response, is the fact that as the designated adult supervision at these events, we have a responsibility to insure not only mitigation (or depending on the complexity and scope, control) of the incident, but the safety of those who were not necessarily part of the problem before, but now are.
My whole reason for saying this is that while most of us in the response community can certainly appreciate the altruism in bystander response to an emergency, there are cases upon cases in every aspect of disaster and technical rescue response where the spontaneous bystander response in and of itself became an additional rescue mission for us on our arrival. If anyone wants to be bored to death, I can cite example after example, and even put you in touch with others who can do the same. This has not changed for any emergency in decades.
You may say, "Hey, these guys were calling for help and nobody came." That is YOUR perspective on the situation. The reality is not that there is a true lack of resources. At Katrina, for example, there were plenty of resources. There was just a little problem of certain parties not knowing the plan for getting those resources, or not knowing how to deliver them, or sending them to the wrong places. There isn't a lack of resources, there is a lack of knowledge on how to put them in place and make the work.
This is where the Feds come in, believe it or not. Because the Feds have a few things going for them that in a lot of cases, the locals, the counties, and the state don't have. Principally, that would be money and coordination.
Having been involved intimately with a few of these little dances, I have witnessed firsthand the dialogue going on in the command post with some of these elected officials:
Fire Chief: "Okay, we have fourteen houses burning over on XYZ Circle, but we don't have the engine companies necessary to cover that area. I need to have the authority to call the state and have them declare a state of emergency."
Mayor: "Well, that's your job, dammit! Hell no, I don't want a bunch of people from Capital City over here telling us how to do things their way! Don't you have a plan? Why don't you just use those guys with the pickup trucks who showed up this morning? Doesn't the state have a bunch of those thing-a-ma-jigs they can send over? You know, strike forces, or task teams or something?"
Fire Chief: "Strike teams and task forces. Yes, but this is the representative from the State here. They are offering their help, but since this hasn't been declared a disaster by the Governor yet, before I agree to sign this Memorandum of Understanding, I needed to let you know this is going to cost us money…"
Mayor: "Is that all you are waiting on? Dammit, sign whatever you need to sign!"
Fire Chief: "By ordinance, I am required to get your permission before creating a liability for the city over $100,000."
Mayor: "WHAT? How much are we talking about here?"
Fire Chief: "I don't know, but more than that. So this guy says we can have the Governor declare a state of emergency…"
Mayor: "I don't want those a#$%$@*s from the Capital down here telling us what to do. Just see what you can do for a little while."
Fire Chief: "Ohhhh-kay…"
Now, I have no idea if that's what is going on in this situation. I would actually doubt it, because they declared a state of emergency pretty quickly. But most localities are pretty reluctant to declare that they need help, because to them it is a loss of control, and when faced with that breakover point (where they can't control it, but don't want to release it), that's when the chaos thickens. I actually wrote a paper a number of years ago on why local fire departments won't develop plans or call for help when they need it.
So let's cut to the chase. Feel free to read the earlier article. Feel free to hunt down any other number of articles I have written on the subject. But while the dates have changed, the situation has not. The system for deploying emergency response assets around the country, while not perfect, is better than it used to be. And the situation is improving. But if you are just dying to go somewhere and help out, instead of piling into the family roadster and hiking out for the unknown, instead, determine what equipment and apparatus you can send somewhere, decide who you will send, identify their capability using relatively well-known recommendations out there, and get with your state to find out where you can list your resource through mutual aid agreements. Do this ahead of time and when the time comes, if your services are needed, they will call you.
Or even better, establish "sister community" arrangements in advance: work with other agencies and communities out there on a special agreement that if your community is impacted, you will call them and likewise, they will call you. Do this with communities who are in other regions or states that permit you to get assets no one else is likely to be drafting from.
The short story is this though: Although the sentiment is appreciated, drama is not something the locals need when chaos has come to call. They need coordinated assistance of the right kind. And they need an asset, not a liability. If you are going to help, go to help, not to add to the problem. And you may not like to hear that, but it's the truth.
For some of the new readers here, not only is Firehouse Zen about enlightened leadership, it is about management issues and creative solutions to ongoing problems in the emergency service industry. If you are a long-time reader, you may recall our discussions in the past regarding 
My final group of people who are not happy with credentialing efforts are the “outsiders”. To me, they are the ones with the most logical and compelling concerns about credentialing. Ironically, these people are often those already with some responsibility for response, or they are in the process of trying to improve the capability. In more than one case I am aware of, these efforts went about to fill a vacuum where poor or absent service existed. And interestingly enough, the people working hard to improve the service have been effectively kept out of the loop by those who guard the credentialing development process.
Now that we have discussed the four major players in the argument against credentialing, lets talk about the argument for it.
Bravery In The Line Of Fire
2 commentsPlenty of blogs exist just for the sake of venting. The origins of the web log are in a diary format and meant as a way for the blogger to share his or her feelings and observations with others. My site was meant to be different, just as I would bet the rest of the blogs on the FireEMSBlog Network were. Mark’s efforts were pioneering like many of the rest of my fellow bloggers. Many of us saw this format as a way to immediately reach the masses with timely messages. But not only that, I think Mark set an example of a blogger that took the high road consistently, so much so that he and Justin at The Happy Medic were able to inspire Thaddeus Setla to team up for developing the Chronicles of EMS series.
While Mark and many of us chose to blog openly, for a long time I used to get a little frustrated sometimes with the people who choose to hide behind a psuedonym. Looking back on it, sometimes I wish I had stayed anonymous, since the longer I do this, the more I realize it’s probably not a bad way to be able to say your piece without being taken out at the esophagus. While I publish any comment for or against my views, except spam, there have been a few unnerving moments when I would read a comment and know a potential spark was heading toward the hot zone. The nature of my blog keeps that to a minimum, but I have read others that have turned pretty emotional.
The subjects of change and leadership cover some dangerous ground. You can be courageous and try to influence positive growth, but from time to time, leaders get attacked, especially if what they say is unpopular. Just ask Gandhi, or JFK, or Martin Luther King, Jr. how dangerous leading can be. While on this site I haven’t gotten into what I consider the “daily grind”, I have discussed some best practices that apparently don’t sit well with everyone. Some of my long-time readers might remember the series I began on credentialing that went south when a few individuals disagreed with my assessment of the current landscape. Not only did they choose to attack me, but my employer as well (they were pretty good natured about it, considering, which goes to show how supportive my bosses are of this endeavor). Likewise, I got an e-mail recently from someone I consider a friend, who, having read something I wrote, took it as an attack on him. Nothing could have been father from the truth. While there were others involved in the situation that I felt deserved some well-placed rage, I never meant to question this individual’s commitment or bravery. But like everything else, when you are enmeshed in a situation, no matter what side of the fence you happen to be on, sometimes the firing gets a little too close. If you happen to be standing nearby when the grenade goes off, just supporting the leader may blow up in your face, no matter how much you wanted to help and how good your intentions.
So to keep this from going on much too long, I’m reminded that I wanted to tell you all this story: I recall an event from my recent past where I was doing my station rounds; a firefighter, who obviously saw my “certificate book” years ago, when I happened to visit his station pulled out his similarly crafted three-ring binder which makes keeping track of certificates a little easier. While mine is pretty full after thirty years in this business, this young firefighter had a pretty impressive start and I congratulated him on the many trees that were killed in pursuit of personal excellence. Of course, this event became the equivalent of a measuring contest and soon the other crew members were bringing out their own versions, ranging from a file folder to what looked like a scrapbook. Thus, the Zen Master saw a little teaching moment.
I wished I had my book at the time, but when I took all of the other books and stacked them on top of one another, they made a nice pile. The crew members were laughing a little nervously (okay, where’s the chief going with this?) when I made a BIG deal out of this stack. Then I turned to the bunch and pointed out that while this was quite an assembly of awards, the entire pile was worth NOTHING if the knowledge and experience that the stack represented wasn’t shared, either by teaching, relating it to others, or simply by setting an example. Mark got that idea early on and decided he wanted to share his ideas, albeit in a method that many don’t understand or even try to appreciate.
Medic 999 was and remains an excellent blog. Mark did a great job with it and he deserved the honor of Fire/EMS Blog of the Year he got last year from a popular vote. As I mentioned earlier, Mark and Justin’s story of reaching out to one another across the pond and a continent (depending on which direction you flew, I suppose) was inspiring and certainly newsworthy. And above all, the situation he finds himself in now, I have been close to before and there but for the grace of God go I. I’ve been fortunate to have an employer who, while keeping their distance and reaffirming their legal requirements to maintain privacy, have also been supportive of my need for creative expression (so long as it is done off-duty and on my own computer). It is here in which we have our last leadership lesson of the day.
Every now and then I have to endure an occasional comment from the “less-than-enlightened”; or “LTEs”, as I like to call them. Like as in “Battalion Chief Lite” or “Firefighter Lite”- you know, looks like one, MAYBE tastes like one, but we all know somehow, when you turn it to the side, you see it is just a facade (or like in beer, it never tastes as good as what it is advertised to be). When you have a lot of these Lites hanging around, it really makes it hard to do your job. While it gives those of us a never-ending source of material to write about, these individuals can quickly make your life miserable and wear you down. If they are your boss, they can make it impossible to be innovative and visionary. I have been fortunate to work with people who realize the power of knowledge and desire for us all to share (appropriately) what we know. Others aren’t quite as fortunate. If you find yourself in the position of being the big cheese and you have some real go-getters, do you want to be known as the chief that took off the leash and encouraged facilitated excellence? Or do you want to be known as the Stalinist who shut down all original thought, suppressed creativity, and required everyone to march in lock-step? In this day and age, we should all be reaching out to not only understand where we have been, but where we need to go. Mark was reaching ahead of himself, not behind. If you can honor his decision to make the choice, the best way is probably to learn from his experience, share it with others, and to strive for excellence. While you may not be able to choose to blog, you can teach, you ca mentor, and you can certainly patronize those of us who can bring it to you.
Good luck, Mark. Vaya con Dios. Visit often and know that I’m hoisting a drink in your direction. Cheers and thanks for leading.