It’s the 5-second rule practiced in fire stations all over the United States and, indeed, all over the world.
You drop something on the floor and scoop it up. Firefighters and paramedics do it everyday, although many won’t admit it. Unless they can’t deny it, as was the case in Mexico City last week.
Exiting a helicopter in what was called “a rapid precision maneuver”, a couple of paramedics “dropped the ball”, or to be more precise, “almost broke a heart” on camera as the precious cargo rolled out of it’s cocoon cooler and tumbled onto the street.
From CBSnews.com
As you can see, the paramedics immediately employed the “rapid scoop” maneuver well within the five seconds allowed, and continued their race to the hospital where the package was dusted off and successfully implanted into its anxious recipient.
I began to wonder what the paramedics first said to each other once safely out of the camera’s eye in the back of the ambulance?
Doctors are cautiously optimistic on the outcome saying the heart is doing fine.
The paramedics?
Well, they'll endure the wrath of their peers for years to come, constantly being reminded that "their heart was in the wrong place."
Daily Fire Fix ran across this video with the interesting title and had to see what was going on. It’s actually a compilation of videos of the Grant’s Pass Rural Fire Department in Josephine County Oregon which is in southwest OR along I-5 and the California border.
Grant’s Pass Rural Fire Department is one of three private fire departments competing for fire protection “contracts” for properties in the county. See if you share the myriad of emotions that others have when you see these “firefighters” in action at a residential structure fire.
One you are past the “Oh my God’s” and the “What the &%^#’s”, I’d like to challenge you to watch it a second time. Only this time, I want you to ask yourself, “if I’m watching this fire department floundering on video, how many other fire departments in the United States operate in similar ways, with no command structure, old equipment, no PPE, no money, and no clue?”
My guess is that there are quite a few.
Now, let’s take this a step further.
I’d like to pose a challenge to you, the firefighter: Put yourself into each of the following roles and think about what actions you would take based solely upon the information in the videos and what I have provided you in this article.
You have just been appointed as fire chief of the GPVF and you have just seen this video.
You are the fire chief of the Rural/Metro Fire Department, a neighboring combination department and you have just seen this video..
You are a resident considering with which department to contract your fire protection services: GPVFD at a very, very low cost (45 cents per thousand) , GPFR at a cost five times that of GPVFD, or elect to opt out entirely from any fire contract and you have just seen this video.
If you’d like to, leave a brief comment to this article, or call in and leave a voicemail with your input. I’ll report back later here on Daily Fire Fix with your ideas.
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A 19-year old Pennsylvania firefighter died in the line of duty while responding to a fire in his POV on Wednesday evening just before 6pm,
Brandon Little of the United Hook and Ladder Fire Company, Company 33, out of New Oxford, Pennsylvania crested a steep hill, apparently lost control of his Jeep Grand Cherokee and crashed through a post and rail fence before slamming into the roof of a house and into a tree. Debris from the crash flew through the front window of the homeowner who called 911.
Speed is believed to have been a factor.
He was ejected from his vehicle, landing in the road. Police do not believe he was wearing his seat belt.
In extremely local news, Bell County Kentucky fire protection is venturing down the subscription-based model that led to nationwide embarrassment in Obion County Tennessee, twice.
You’ll recall the headlines about firefighters responding to structure fires and standing by while they burned because they property owners had not paid their annual fire protection fee. The Obion County firefighters were ordered by their administration to NOT take action, placing them in the unenviable position splashed across TV screens all across America.
In December Bell County KY Volunteer Fire Department shuttered two stations and initiated a subscribers fee of $30 per year for vacant land and $150 for occupied land. The department claims lack of fundage and lack of volunteers, but the County disagrees and wonders where the $6 million of county money given to the non-profit fire department since 1979 has gone. Until the two stations reopen, the county has cut off any further funding of the County Fire Department.
This is where it gets interesting.
Daily Fire Fix has done gone mining and struck gold. They found raw video of a public meeting of the Bell County Fire Volunteer Department in which enraged citizens join in shouting, arm waving, and finger pointing in what appears to develop into an unstructured confrontation of words between fire officials, lawyers and citizens. At one point police from multiple agencies appear, apparently having been summoned by concerned witnesses, maybe one of the nice ladies sitting up front where the spittle was flying..
Check out the audio report on this and other stories over at Daily Fire Fix.com
A Sunday night hi-rise fire in Chicago that spread smoke and heat beyond the room of origin required over a 2-11 alarm assignment and over 150 firefighters to attack, contain, and eventually extinguish.
An EMS Plan 2 was initiated, calling in 11 ambuli as report after report continued to include new victims in need of emergency medical care. 2 firefighters were also injured, one seriously.
When Chicago’s finest arrived at the 21-story residential apartment building at 3130 N. Lake Shore Dr, they reported fire blowing out of a twelfth-floor window and attempted to put the building’s elevators into ‘fire mode’ without success.
Instead, they were forced to hump their hose and other equipment up the fire floor to make an attack, costing precious time which allowed the fire to grow exponentially.
One citizen was coming home from getting take-out food and had taken the elevator to 12. Its doors opened, and she was blasted by the smoke and superheated gasses, killing her.
Many others reported hearing no alarms but were awoken by fire sirens. Some residents, unaffected directly by the fire reportedly never woke up until the next morning, unaware how close they came to taking their final breath.
IF ONLY there was a way to alert all the souls sleeping in a burning building to the deadly danger!
IF ONLY we could invent a way that water could be sprayed on a fire right in the area it started immediately as technology discovers it!
IF ONLY we could figure out a way to have each unit’s door automatically close and keep a fire to its unit of origin with walls that could, in some way, be fire rated!
IF ONLY we were able to program elevators to return to the ground floor during a fire and stay there until fire crews could control them for safe use, rather than deliver unsuspecting victims into a 1,500+ degree hellfire death.
Of course, all of this is already possible. So what happened here?
A city ordinance requiring older high-rises to be retrofitted with a modern, connected alarm and detection system BY THIS MONTH was recently extended until 2015 by the city council, according to a Chicago Building Department spokesperson.
Also, older residential buildings in Chicago ARE NOT required to install sprinkler systems, instead they may opt to be evaluated and other safety upgrades can be put in place.
According to NBC Chicago, an employee of this building’s management company, Planned Property Management, declined to comment at the scene. The company’s president and chief executive officer, Robert Buford, was appointed to the city’s Community Development Commission in July.
So, just how much would it cost building owners to retrofit their money-makers with adequate detectors (beyond the first alert local models) and sprinkler systems? According to the National Fire Sprinkler Association, the cost to retrofit is about $1.50 to $2.50 per sq. ft.
WHICH COSTS MORE?
Compare the costs of adding sprinklers and a building fire detection system with the cost to clean up, repair, and rehab the large area unnecessarily burned due to late detection and exponentially uncontrolled growth of a fire taking place in a non-sprinklered environment.
Compare the costs of adding sprinklers and a building fire detection system with the loss of rental income while repairs are being made to the large, damaged area of your money-maker.
Compare the costs of adding sprinklers and a building fire detection system to the cost of having to face litigation following the incident as building owners would face lawsuit after lawsuit from a single incident.
And finally, compare the costs of adding sprinklers and a building fire detection system to the unimaginable loss now being endured by the family and friends of one of the tenants of your money-maker, who when returning to her Lake Shore Drive apartment, was crisped as the elevator doors opened into the gates of hell.
Which costs more? Which decision is the more fiscally responsible?
Could it be that, at times, the power of the almighty dollar leaves us unable to rationalize between short term costs and long term gains?
Today, I checked in over at the new Daily Fire Fix, where you can get a quick audio of today's happenings in the fire service. They're also on iTunes.
One of their stories covered a subject near and dear to my heart, and what I believe is to be THE fire service story of 2012.
No, I'm not talking about who the real fire critic is, or who fathered him. Sorry to disappoint, that's already being covered.
I know, I feel the same way.
Anyway, I’m talking about the burgeoning heated debates on victim survivability profiling.
There seems to be room for seating only on the two extreme sides of the fence on this one- be too safe, or too aggressive. Why just two sides? Are we so closed-minded that we can’t consider there may be an alternative to this black and white thinking?
Can we just agree that we need to be SMARTER- instead of demonizing the Safety Sallys, or Testosterone Induced Warriors? If the thought of developing a few more synapses to a few more brain cells is daunting to you, then maybe you ought to consider making your “second job” your only job. Because we can’t give up on the thinking that is needed now more than ever.
We don’t have the same staffing, the same leaders, the same fires,- NOTHING IS AS IT WAS just 5 years ago folks. Like it or not, the way we think about the fireground doesn’t apply anymore.
The game board has changed. If we can’t change with it, we’re heading for what one Chief has called 2012’s Perfect Storm.
The final version of this superb video is finally available. Brought to us by our friends over at the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and
featuring my fine friends at the Chicago Fire Department, this is excellent training and should be seen by every firefighter everywhere.
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“What’s most important is that we all go home. We’re not Superman. We have families that need you to, so…we have other obligations as well. “
“When you’re a young kid, you got that cape on. you wanna go through walls. And if you don’t have the old timers, they’ll kinda pull you back a little bit, They say hold on kid, understand what your doing, and why you’re doing what you’re doing, and to give yourself a way out.”
“Have a wife turn to you, and look at you and say, “What the hell happened here? Where the hell was his hood? Who was in charge? How did you guys let this happen to him? Why him? What do I say to them?”
“If you think you’ve got some good reason for not wearing this or for not doing things the right way , write it down. Because I need to read that to your widow. Because I’m not going to know what to say. You say it for me.”
I think the worse day I’ve ever had in my life is when I was five years old and my father was killed in the line of duty. That day stays with me forever. It’s like it happened yesterday. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that. And I don’t speak just for myself, I speak for my family, I speak for the firefighters that worked with my father that were next to him when he got killed. It never leaves you. It’s a scar you’ll always have.
“We don’t have any more room for badges on the wall.”
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Any kid can smear on the war paint. It’s what you do once you’re all “warriored-up” that shows your true worth on our battlefields.
The firefighter I want with me on a line or with a tool by my side is a brother who is not only aggressive and eager to do the job, but also has the knowledge and seasoning to know when to go and when to think twice when it’s appropriate. I don’t need young, dumb, and full of a battle cry and a death wish.
If he aint got no brains, send him the f*&% away..
As reported on DailyFireFix.com:
A 19-year old Pennsylvania firefighter died in the line of duty while responding to a fire in his POV on Wednesday evening just before 6pm,
Daily Fire Fix
Of course, all of this is already possible. So what happened here?
We don’t have the same staffing, the same leaders, the same fires,- NOTHING IS AS IT WAS just 5 years ago folks. Like it or not, the way we think about the fireground doesn’t apply anymore. 
Any kid can smear on the war paint. It’s what you do once you’re all “warriored-up” that shows your true worth on our battlefields.
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