Are We Doing It Wrong?

I spend an awful amount of time attempting to stay current and focused on a number of issues that are relevant to the fire service. I do a lot of research using the NIOSH injury and fatality reports to see what went wrong at fire situations. I review an awful lot of case histories.

I was in the middle of putting together a program for an upcoming seminar that discusses some of the common reasons for firefighter injuries and fatalities and I suddenly sat back and a revelation hit me. I was reminded of the early scenes in the movie Backdraft when the brother was helping the other brother put on his gear and he becomes frustrated and says something like " That's not it, you are doing it wrong" and proceeds to show him a better way to take care of his gear.

 

My question is Are we doing it wrong?

 

As all of us have, I have spent countless of hours of research as stated above, and lots and lots of hours at training seminars all over this country where these case histories have been reviewed and we all walk away with some "lessons learned" as they call them.

 

I have spent more than 20 years from learning about well publicized mistakes. I know that I have learned much from this and more than one lesson has entered my mind that I am sure either helped prevent injury to me or one of my personnel.

 

But........

 

Why are we not putting together all of the positives and success stories and promoting those as teaching tools. Sure I hear about those once in a while but you have to agree there is a much smaller emphasis placed upon the success stories than on the tragedies.

 

The problem with training with these stories are there are no huge catastrophes, and no multiple fatalities and not much television footage or photographs because the incident went relatively well, or was handled very quickly.

 

Those incidents don't have a lot of "training interest" because they are passed off as routine.

 

Sure, I am still going to use case histories in my training sessions, because I think they help, but wouldn't it be nice if we started to collect all of those positive stories and what made them positive, maybe we can promote a whole new concept.

 

I know we talk about these and this is being done, but I think we ought to expand and for every NIOSH report we read we should be able to research the fire service archives nationwide and locate the opposite of the NIOSH report in a similar set of conditions and use that as our benchmark for OUR next incident.

 

If we have only used the benchmark of "killing less members" than the last incident did, as our bar to clear, than maybe we should look at the success stories and attempt to improve upon those.

 

All across America there are thousands of positive stories of incidents that are handled everyday, that you will never hear about at FDIC or the FireHouse Exposition, because no one has bothered to tell the story.

 

I am seriously considering a separate page here where we can build positive archives of cases and incidents that went well. These could be small incidents from small departments or from some of the major cities that are out there.

 

My job in this commentary every week is two fold. Raise an issue, attempt some positive thoughts about a solution. I think I have done that this week.

 

My question is Are we doing it wrong? My proposed solution is to post the case histories that have gone well in your departments with the lessons you have learned so others may experience the positives you and your department have to share.

 

Send an e-mail or use the form below to submit your incidents.

 

Thanks much I look forward to hearing from you.