More Young Men Die...
Once again we see reports of people dying much sooner than they should.
Yes this is a commentary about war.
The fire service is losing a war and our people continue to be killed.
Just this week we lost people in a flashover and a motor vehicle accident. I am not sure what the count is now but since the year 2003 began there have been about 20 or so fire service line of duty deaths.
From January through the end of February we lost about 17 members and 12 of those were due to heart attacks alone.
I say it is a war because I believe we should be treating it like it is My problem is that I am not sure who the enemy really is. I have some thoughts about that but I can't really pin it down.
I have a list of potential targets that I think we should be looking at however...
While this one has always been in my sights it has surfaced time and time again and more and more frequently and that is that we do not perform like our training has taught us to. We continue to go into environments where there are no civilian lives and high fire conditions for minimal gains. Most firefighters will tell you they have had a class on fire behavior yet we continue to still have people killed in flashovers. Explosions are sudden events, fire has properties of physics that say that it grows and performs in certain ways. Flashover conditions can be recognized in many cases. All firefighters have been drilled in the following axioms that the firefighting priorities are Life hazard first (including us!) incident stabilization, and property conservation is last. I know that thousands of firefighters could recite that to you if asked. Why the hell don't we get it...no building is worth the life of a firefighter. EVER.
The sneaky enemy of lack of health and fitness and taking care of ourselves. Please listen and read this next paragraph seriously. We are killing ourselves by heart attack. Now I know many of these are during times of great stress and exertion that simply over tax us, and we will not eliminate all of these but please take heed to some very simple things. I recently have been challenged with a small health scare and it has had a profound impact on me. I have also learned that this enemy is really a simple one and you do have the power to combat this one just by making some subtle changes in your habits.
Eat just a little less at each meal.
Use healthy snacks if you have to snack.
Drink lots more water than you think you need. Have lots less cola and soft drinks.
Exercise vigorously for 30 minutes at least five days a week.
If you smoke, don't quit for yourself, quit for those you love the most...you are shortening your available time with them. You will feel better and be around a lot longer to enjoy that.
See your doctor. (Yeah I know you walk around with an America's Bravest shirt on and you are afraid to see a doctor...how brave are you?)
Those things are simple, the enemy is well known, and you have the direct power and control to do that.
Enough said.
Another enemy in this war is complacency and the lack of personal discipline. The "can do" and "we will always find a way" that makes this fire service great gets us into trouble in many cases. That is my opinion only. It will always happen to someone else and we can do it "just this one time"...are dangerous attitudes to carry. I believe this relates to some of the driving issues and motor vehicle accidents that we have. If we look at the fact that about a quarter of our deaths are responding and returning from alarms, then why should we not be better at this. We drive apparatus every day several times on several calls, and yet we still continue to have vehicle accidents with fire apparatus and personal vehicles with off-duty and on-call personnel responding.
War is a horrible thing and nothing can truly be fixed until the enemy is gone.
Do something either personally or within your own department to make some changes. Take the enemies of not performing to the level of our training, and lack or personal discipline, and a lack of health and fitness for ourselves, and work on those three and make changes. Those can be very tough enemies.
Will it be unpleasant to remove "John" from being a driver because you feel is driving too fast? Sure it will be ugly and horrible and John may leave the department if a volunteer or file a grievance if in a labor organization and both of those will be easier to live with then going to "John's" house and telling his family the pumper has crashed.
War is hell and dealing with the enemy face to face is hard, but the rewards can be great.
Fight with all of your power to keep our fire service brothers and sisters out of harms way.
You know as I think about this we are really trying to protect ourselves from us.
We have the power to fix this....do you personally have the will to do it and follow through?
Stay safe...that is not a request, it is an order for the foot soldiers and commanders of the fire service.