Reading Tom Brennan’s response to the Roundtable question on ladder bail out in the March issue was deja vu. Thanks-someone does know what is happening out there.
Finally, after much written debate, Brennan captures what happens in real life when things quickly go bad in an interior fire. I never understood what the hoopla was all about; there were actually two sides debating the validity of the headfirst ladder bail. If you have been there, you know a bail is needed, so why not train for it?
Brennan states: “The thing to keep in mind here is, this is the way it is in the real world. The firefighter will do this to avoid pain.” This is exactly what happened to my partner and me some years ago. We were doing a primary search, made it to the victim (who was dead), and felt flashover fast approaching as our SCBA low-air warning activated. We bailed over the ladder we had placed to vent-enter-search. There was no training for the bail then, but it saved us.
If it saved our lives in pure reaction to the hostile environment with no training, why wouldn’t it work after training, in case “it” hits the fan? You’re going out that way anyway.
Richard J. Gomes
Deputy Chief
Norton (MA) Fire Department
I am writing about the ongoing debate about the headfirst ladder bail out in Letters to the Editor. I strongly disagree with those who criticize the technique.
I was fortunate enough to attend one of the first Saving Our Own classes held at the Illinois Fire Service Institute several years ago. It is my understanding that the techniques taught in this class are to be used as a last-ditch means of saving yourself or another firefighter. When I think of a ladder bail out situation, I think of fire licking at my tail, banking down from the ceiling to two feet below the top of the window, and I have two choices: bail out the window or burn to death. There are two things I do not want to do: One is burn to death; the other is stick my head up into the burning gases to stand up and straddle the windowsill to properly mount the ladder and descend. Meanwhile, my partner burns to death as I properly descend the ladder. Remember, this is last ditch-if you have the time, and conditions allow, by all means use the safest way available to leave the fire building.
I am all for safety, and I tip my hat to people who try to make this job safer for everybody. However, sometimes people lose sight of what safety is. If you must leave a fire building because heat or fire is banking down on you, I can’t think of anything safer than a headfirst ladder bail out a window.
As far as whether the technique should be taught, it is not that difficult to learn, but it must be executed correctly to be safe. If you are to perform a maneuver safely and correctly, you must practice it, and what better way than in a controlled environment with qualified instructors.
Before you start objecting to new techniques in the name of safety, realize that everything in the fire service involves some risk. Firefighting is dangerous, so it’s nice to have a trick like the ladder bail up our sleeve just in case we need it some day.
Jim Vaughn
Firefighter
Normal Fire Department
Bloomington, Illinois
Highway safety
The article “Safe Response to Highway and Traffic Incidents” by Jack Sullivan (June 2001) was very informative. Chief Edward J. Scott of the Mahopac (NY) Volunteer Fire Department obviously agreed with the author’s stressing the importance of highway safety, since he provided all of his company-level officers with copies of the article.
As captain of our department fire police unit, as well as the Putnam County Fire Police Response Team, I was surprised Sullivan made no mention of fire police and their role in scene safety.
New York State Sec. 209c of the municipal law authorizes fire chiefs to appoint firefighters to be trained as fire police to be sworn as peace officers by town clerks, county judges, or certain other appropriate officials. Fire police have the primary duty to protect fire and EMS personnel at any type of emergency scene. They are trained to set up work areas, direct or divert traffic, and properly set out traffic cones and emergency signs-allowing fire and EMS personnel to do their important life- and property-saving jobs. It has been my experience in Putnam County that police and fire police cooperate fully at fire and accident scenes.
Fire police operate with volunteer fire departments in suburban and rural areas where police departments generally have limited staffing. Fire police units participate regularly in training, drills, and seminars on traffic and crowd control, scene safety, and security. Their main concern is protecting their fellow firefighters and EMS workers.
Because fire police officers are generally on the perimeters of emergency scenes, their role and contributions are often overlooked.
William F. Keating
Mahopac, New York
Sullivan’s article appropriately pointed out the often-neglected need for firefighters to be aware of the hazards of operating on public roadways. But I couldn’t understand how he completely omitted any mention of the fire police. He overlooked the one branch of the volunteer fire service charged with, trained specifically for, and equipped to ensure the safety of everyone at highway and traffic incidents. Fire police officers are many volunteer fire departments’ first line of defense against “struck by” incidents highlighted in the article. While the author correctly states “road closures are not popular with law enforcement or the general public,” it has been my experience that the initial closure of a road is the result of one or more police units parked across a lane protecting the scene while the officers conduct their investigation. As a result, it is they who are forced to close the road, all but ignoring the general public and leaving motorists to fend for themselves. Usually, it is not until the fire police arrive that (if at all possible without compromising scene safety) orderly traffic flow resumes, preferably by rerouting traffic.
In states that have them, fire police are a valuable resource available to the chief, to use as required to protect operations. I wonder how many of the 45 firefighters’ deaths and other incidents cited in the article could have been prevented by deployment of a trained fire police squad, or was their use similarly overlooked?
John J. Bodor
President
Putnam-Northern Westchester
Fire Police Association
Lieutenant, Fire Police
Patterson (NY) Fire Department
Jack Sullivan responds: It was not my intent to ignore these fire department members in my article. I have learned, however, that many states do not have provisions for special fire police. The overwhelming majority of emergency runs made everyday by fire departments and emergency medical service agencies in the United States are made without the services of special fire police officers.
My article was written to address the issues the majority of emergency responders encounter. Additionally, a quick review of my records found at least nine incidents since September 1999 where fire police or firefighters engaged in scene safety (traffic control) duties were struck by vehicles. An even greater number of police officers have been struck and injured or killed while engaged in traffic-control duties.
For example, on June 30, 2001, a fire police officer from the Maine (NY) Fire Department was directing traffic while his fire department responded to an early morning car fire. A driver under the influence of alcohol struck the fire police officer and was arrested at the scene. New York State Police said the fire police officer was wearing an orange vest and a yellow helmet as he directed traffic with a flashlight in the middle of the road. The driver said he did not see the fire police officer in the road.
By the very nature of their duty, fire police are often the victims of “struck by” incidents. My goal is to heighten awareness of the traffic hazards all emergency responders face, including special fire police. It is my intent that fire police also consider some of the best practices I suggested, such as ANSI-compliant high-visibility clothing, tabletop exercises, personnel accountability systems, and placement of emergency apparatus and equipment to protect the crews on scene. I have observed that these measures are not all routinely employed and that even when they are, emergency responders are still at risk of being struck by drivers impaired by alcohol, drugs, or lack of sleep. Fire police perform a valuable service, but I’m sure you would agree that fire police officers are just as susceptible to “struck by” incidents as all other emergency responders.
SCBA harness as rescue harness
I recently visited with a group of firefighters who had completed rapid intervention team (RIT) training at a state fire academy. They were all pumped up and excited about what they had learned. Their department ordered all the special equipment they would need to respond to neighboring departments as the area’s only “state-certified” RIT.
They described many of the evolutions they practiced to rescue downed firefighters-including the method described in “Below-Grade Rescue Kit” by Walter E. Webb (Innovations: Homegrown, May 2001) in photo 7. When they described the operation to me, I thought they were kidding! Now I see it illustrated in the article, but I don’t believe it!
Where on earth did someone come up with the idea that an SCBA harness could or should be used as a rescue harness? The strapping is designed to suspend a 25-pound breathing apparatus on a firefighter’s back. While most equipment is overbuilt to two or three times its expected use, this is pushing 10 times its intended use.
In this age of attorneys looking for big pockets, who is going to the gallows for this one? Will it be the SCBA manufacturer, the fire academy that taught the method, the fire department that uses the method, or the town or its commissioners-or all of the above?
RIT, FAST, and Firefighter Survival are all well-intentioned, but we need to be careful not to create a disaster while trying to rescue a brother or sister.
Ross A. Wood
Conway Associates
Haverhill, Massachusetts
Overloaded apparatus
I have watched with interest as fire departments have squeezed more and more on one piece of apparatus so that now we have engine/tanker/rescue trucks, engine/rescue/haz-mat trucks, and other multifunction apparatus. I fear that many apparatus are put in service overweight when we haul 2,000 to 4,000 gallons of water, hose, and equipment; six to 10 personnel; plus specialized equipment for other missions and still use three stock axles and brakes. And now, in Fire Engineering’s July Apparatus Deliveries section, I see that the Rattlesnake Fire Protection District in Parker, CO, has even added the kitchen sink! What is next, a bunkroom? Rehab is a serious issue, but I am not sure that an active engine is the best rehab location on the fireground. By no means am I implying that this particular apparatus is overweight, just that we need to be careful as we add roles, missions, and equipment to apparatus.
Bill Shirley
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania
Reusing medical devices
In light of recent announcements from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization that HIV and AIDS are on the increase again; hepatitis, meningitis, and tuberculosis are still ongoing and everpresent problems; and EMS providers are contracting life-threatening communicable and infectious diseases in almost epidemic proportions, all medical devices such as C-spine devices, cervical collars, and splints should be for one-time use only. Eventually organizations may have to issue prohibitions governing the reuse of such devices. This could impact EMS providers who promote or encourage the reuse of medical devices, which cannot be proven to be contamination free. Such providers may soon have to choose between the cost of prevention and the costs of litgation or employee disability benefits. I think prevention is much more feasible.
As a career firefighter and medical professional, I have long questioned and challenged the medical wisdom of reusing medical devices. I also have had, and continue to have, profound concerns about how reusing these devices potentially exposes trauma patients and EMS providers to life-threatening infectious and communicable diseases.
Medical devices that have come in contact with blood, body fluids, skin, and other contaminates, even though supposedly thoroughly cleaned, still have the potential to transmit disease. Perhaps at greatest risk, and most vulnerable, are firefighters who assist EMS personnel and EMS personnel charged with the responsibility and requirement to clean and prepare medical devices for reuse.
Until such time as it can be 100 percent proven that reusing medical devices will not have the potential and probability for transmitting communicable and infectious diseases, I urge EMS personnel to exercise extreme caution when considering reusing these devices.
Hopefully, once we stop reusing them, we will see a precipitous and appreciable decline in EMS providers’ contracting contagious and infectious diseases.
Patrick J. McGill
Firefighter-Paramedic (Retired)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Past President and Legislative Director
Pennsylvania Paramedic Association
Buying quints
I would like to comment on Jake Rixner’s “To Buy (or Not to Buy) a Quint” (April 2001) and the Letters to the Editor regarding it (July 2001). Years ago, the Baltimore City (MD) Fire Department experimented with quints by combining an engine and ladder company into one company with quint apparatus. These companies had six firefighters (including the officer).
I believe the department has disbanded all of these companies, and I received the following e-mail response to my inquiry to the department from Donald W. Heinbuch, acting assistant chief of operations: “You are correct. The quint idea didn’t work for us in the manner that we implemented the concept. Only four of the six towers remain. One runs as a five-person truck, one as a four-person engine. We have no documentation on this. I will be happy to answer your questions.”
It’s too bad we have to learn the hard way again and again. This is another need for a national research capability to help local fire-rescue agencies make critical organizational decisions.
What will compound the reduced staffing weaknesses and operational distraction of the decision-making process of committing to either engine or truck work is NFPA 1901, Standard for Automotive Fire Apparatus-1999, which allows a substantial reduction in water (40 percent), supply hose (45 percent), and ground ladders (19 percent) for quints (less water and supply hose than a conventional engine and fewer ground ladders than a conventional truck).
This is a complex subject with many opinions in the fire community. I am not convinced it has been studied enough to justify implementation. Quints have two reported advantages: reduced staffing and the ability to place into service numerous elevated master streams. The one weakness noted is the lack of or poor coordination of truck company duties. I am not sure this is a good trade-off, and with the reduced equipment, it will be even worse in the future.
L. Charles Smeby Jr.
Florida State Fire College
Ocala, Florida
