By Ronald E. Kanterman
The inventor, thinker, genius, mathematician, and all-around smart guy Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I think he was right. We worked the same way for a long time (260 years or so) and our injuries and line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) became part of the game.
However, it seems we’re on our way to better days. Keep in mind that there is much discussion on how and when to work safely, when to be cautious, and when it’s “not necessary to be safe all the time,” to quote of few of our peers. However, it still seems that things are getting better. Is changing the way one million firefighters think and behave an easy task? Of course not. It’s like turning around an aircraft carrier (think about that).
- Orientation for Officership
- The Playmaker: The Role of the Company Officer, Part 1
- Keys to Success for Today’s Company Officer
- The Company Officer: The Perfect Training Officer
One component of the “new thinking” is the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s Courage to be Safe and Everyone Goes Home Program. Is it the be-all and end-all? Probably not. Battalion Chief (Ret.) John Salka views the fire service safety culture as a combination of programs, ideas, and ways of thinking—not just one thought, program, or issue. I agree. What most of us who have been around longer than 20 minutes talk about are the components of the safety system that make up the whole. For me, training is the very basis of a fire department’s safety program. Good solid training and a good set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) or guidelines (SOGs) that you train to make up the foundation of safety.
So what about the title of this article? I’ve been a firefighter safety advocate for a long time. My support of safety probably stems in part from the time I spent as an industrial chief. Safety is everything in large industry. If you trip and fall, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration official will be at the gate in 10 minutes. Lately, much attention has been paid to the role of the company officer. It took the chiefs a long time) to understand that everything starts with direct first line supervision. As goes the officer, so goes the crew or the company. I’ve seen it firsthand even with simple mundane things.
As an example, I gave a lecture (four times for four shifts) for a mid-size career fire department many years ago. The first night of the four hot summer nights, the on-duty deputy chief showed late. He had on a white T-shirt and pair of blue work pants that must have been washed 1,123 times. They were purple. He finished off this spectacular fashion statement with white socks and black sneakers. Got this picture in your head? The rest of the shift—six companies, about 25 firefighters, showed shortly after. Without my telling you the rest, can you picture what they looked like? All I could say to myself was, “Oh no, this is going to be a long night.” It was.
Thank goodness, the next three nights proved to be much better. Audience members were in crisp uniforms and were attentive to the lecture. The deputies emphasized my main points as I took a breath in between sentences or a sip of water. As goes the officer, so go the men (and women in certain cases).
It starts with you, the company officer. Become a safety advocate. The old “lead by example” applies here. Telling your members to wear a piece of personal protective equipment and you don’t wear the same piece is a bad practice. You need to set the tone and the boundaries, walk the talk at all times and at all levels.
Sometimes, a simple “coaching job” is what it takes: “Hey, Frank, put your gloves on.” It doesn’t have to be a formal announcement; a subtle reminder will work. Remember that unless there is imminent danger, admonish/remind in private.
Associate Chief (Ret.) Peter Lamb once said at a lecture that “what you allow to happen without your intervention becomes your standard.” Keep this one handy, not just for safety but for everything you do and what’s done around you for the rest of your career. If you don’t stop bad habits or bad behavior, then by default, it’s okay with you and it will become your standard.
Two program documents that can be taught and discussed with ease at the company level are the 16 Life Safety Initiatives attached to the Everyone Goes Home program and the International Association of Fire Chief’s “Rules of Engagement for Firefighter Survival and Incident Commander’s Rules of Engagement for Firefighter Safety.” If you haven’t seen them, get them, read them, and implement them as much as you can. Have you looked at National Fire Protection Association 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program, lately? When it was published the first time, we collectively said “No way. We’ll never pull this off.” But, Chief Alan Brunacini and his buddies were right again. We thought the 1500 committee lost their minds. In fact, most, if not all, of us are fully complying.
Foundations of Safety
As I mentioned previously, training is the foundation for safety. The career folks should be training every work shift, and the volunteers should train on a regular basis. Train to your procedures and guidelines, and remember to work the way you train and train the way you work. Here are a few more of those sayings: “Fight the way you train, and train the way you fight”; “Train for life”; and “Let no firefighter’s ghost come back to say his training let him down.”
Ensure that your SOPs or SOGs are reviewed annually, your members get the changes, and the annual training program reflects those changes. This is an imperative step in keeping everyone on the same song sheet at an incident and having one blue print for operations. Things can change at an incident and we sometimes run into unpredictable things, but if you’re working within a guideline or procedure, you will be more likely to experience success and a favorable outcome.
Situational Awareness (SA)
SA is a universal thought process that assists the human brain with decision making–fight or flight, for example. It starts when the tones drop or the pager goes off. It continues to the apparatus floor or your privately owned vehicle and includes listening to the radio, making a mental size-up of the event while driving (remember: seat belts, proper speed, and caution at intersections), size-up at the scene, and making tactical decisions. Knowing what’s going on around you and what can happen next will help you tactically and add greatly to you and your crew’s safety. Every officer and firefighter on the scene should be doing this constantly and consistently. The “experts” who have studied SA have concluded the following: A loss of SA increases human error; human error is the most common cause of accidental death; and improvements in SA can reduce the number of firefighter injuries, near-misses, and deaths.
Some tools for improving situational awareness and preventing LODDs include the following:
• Preemergency and pre-fire planning
• Building reconnaissance
• Inspections
• Familiarization tours
• Training
• SOPs/SOGs
Health and Safety Champion
As a health and safety champion, start thinking globally. Hop off the rig for one moment and consider the checklist below:
Health and Safety Checklist
Firehouse and General Quarters
• Are your floors skid proof? (Some fire departments have had epoxy applied to the apparatus floor, which makes the floor like a skating rink when it is wet, which is most of the time.)
• Do you have a PPE cleaning program?
• How are your living and sleeping quarters?
• Do you have an exhaust system for your rigs?
• Do you have a decon room for emergency medical services?
• Are your walkways, stairwells, basement areas well lit?
• Are you storing hazardous materials as per fire code?
Wellness and Fitness
• Have you gone “light” for meals?
• Are your members working out and exercising?
• Are you using stairs vs. elevators?
• Are you doing group exercise?
• Do you have a Peer Fitness Trainer?
• Do you have a Health and Safety committee?
• Are you paying attention to nutrition?
• Are you receiving medical evaluations and screenings annually?
• Are you doing long-term follow-up for injuries and work-related illnesses?
Resources
Check out these resources to help you develop your safety program:
National Fallen Firefighters Foundation
· 1581-Infection Control
· 1582-Fire Department Medical Programs
· 1583-Health Related Fitness
· 1584-Rehab at Incidents
BIO
Ron Kanterman is a career fire chief for Wilton, Connecticut. He entered the fire service in 1975 in Brooklyn, New York, and then took a position with a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company 1989-2008 as the assistant chief and then became chief of fire protection. He then became the fire chief and fire marshal for the Mohegan Tribal Nation in Eastern Connecticut. He holds a BA in fire service administration and an MS in fire protection management, both from John Jay College in New York City. He has an additional master’s degree in environmental science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is an adjunct professor of fire protection and emergency management at the University of New Haven and various two- and four-year colleges; he teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
