By MICHAEL P. DALLESSANDRO
Scenario: A rig returning from a run slowly backs into your station. You hear a firefighter call out “STOP!” to the driver. You then hear that telltale sound of steel on cinderblock. The rig has just clipped your building.
Hopefully, this incident has not happened in your department. If it has, have you listened to how drivers refer to the incident or seen what was written in their reports? Do they use the terms “accident,” “scrape,” “minor incident,” or “fender bender” to describe the situation? Also, do these drivers use excuses such as a lack of daylight, rain, sleet, snow, the infamous “tail step crunch,” or the perennial exclamation of “Who put that there?” when a broken mirror, dent, or scrape appears on the rig?
We in the fire service are quick to investigate and study the major motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) that significantly damage civilian vehicles or apparatus or cause firefighter or civilian injury or death. However, we make little to no effort to truly look into the MVAs that may result in only a few hundred dollars of damage and no injury or fatality. These less notable incidents can be one-time, isolated, and embarrassing, but they can also serve as warnings that safety or training gaps exist or that your organization exhibits risky driver behaviors and cultures.
Why don’t we document and investigate each and every incident where apparatus, property, or other vehicles are damaged? Perhaps it’s because we have set a certain damage threshold in our minds or policy allows us to accept this “risk of doing business” when operating rigs. We accept that, throughout the course of 1,000 runs or saving people or tens of thousands of dollars worth of property, an accident in the bay that breaks a mirror is something that goes with the territory. Maybe our departments have developed cultures of not reporting situations like these to protect members, companies, and the house. Or, maybe fire service leaders and administrators feel so overburdened with paperwork that ignoring these incidents saves them from being buried under even more clerical busywork. It may seem like overkill when reports must be written, photographs must be taken, and interviews must be conducted because a compartment door was ripped off.
Unfortunately, a person or committee charged with safety, driver training, and risk management can only determine that the broken mirror was an “isolated incident” by conducting an investigation. Failing to properly investigate and report these incidents may cause your department to miss some key training, policy, and behavioral issues and warning signs that could lead to many more serious accidents in the future.
Now, when I say “investigation,” I do not mean that each incident where a rig backs into something or clips a parked car requires the same intense examination as an incident that involves serious injury or death. Develop tiers for your investigation based on the incident at hand. For instance, when your heavy rescue truck tears off a mirror backing into a building, you do not need a full list of measurements and spray paint marks around the mirror pieces—i.e., evidence—on your new concrete apron. However, I do recommend one photo of the rig positioned as it was when the mirror disappeared.
DRIVER RESPONSIBILITY
I stress driver responsibility for the safe operation of rigs at all times. Drivers are responsible not only for the safety of their rig and crews as they cross an intersection on a call but also for the minor dings and scratches on the rig no matter where they occur. Drivers may try to provide several reasons for how the dent got there, but always look at how the driver could have prevented it. Drivers who embrace this concept will take pride in and pay much more attention to their driving in emergency and nonemergency situations. In larger organizations, multiple drivers will develop a culture of driver responsibility and foster a level of peer pressure, where the overriding tone will be that “we” will not tolerate fellow apparatus drivers who try to deflect responsibility away from the rig damage.
Never allow the apparatus driver to determine if the incident needs investigating. It is human nature to try to downplay serious issues. Often, we are on the other end of the radio and, for the sake of professionalism, we try to keep radio conversations down to a minimum; it is not uncommon for a driver to simply say he “clipped a pole and damage was very minor, and we are back in service.” I have personally responded to this type of incident in my own career, and it resulted in about $10,000 worth of damage to the rig. Let’s not leave this determination up to the driver involved. Get in your car, or send your assistant chief or service tech out and let him determine if the accident, based on your department’s established tiers for investigation, is truly minor.
About 20 years ago, I drove a rescue rig through a bay door. The power was out at our main station, and we did not have a backup generator. We had recently received a larger rescue truck with a higher box. Since the power was out, we released the bay door from the automatic opener track and raised it by hand. Another firefighter and I responded to this 0200-hour EMS call. We knew the height difference between the old rig and the new rig; he held the door with a pike pole as high as he could, and I slowly drove the truck out onto the apron. Unfortunately, the hook-shaped arm that connected the door to the opener track/chain drive hung down from the door when it was in the fully raised overhead position. As the rig moved out onto the ramp, the hook got caught on the new, taller rescue box. The truck closed the door on itself, destroying two bay door panels and scraping the new rig’s paint.
This incident taught me lessons about our bay doors, our new rig, and power failures, and I went on to have a career free of vehicle-related incidents. If a driver has two or three similar situations like my bay door incident within a 12- to 24-month period without a follow-up, you take the chance of not identifying a high-risk driver until it’s too late. If we failed to investigate the bay door incident, we may have missed key equipment issues or identifying operation deficiencies or training gaps in our fire department.
FAIR TREATMENT OF DRIVERS
When managing groups of individuals, fair is fair. If Firefighter Smith, who is one of your best and brightest, has a paint scrape incident that’s quickly chalked up to a “once-in-a-lifetime” accident while another less professional or conscientious member has a similar incident that gets fully investigated, the perceived “bad apple” may cry foul and say that he is being singled out or picked on. If your department drops him, he may defend himself by comparing these two similar incidents that resulted in two completely different results. By documenting, investigating, and evaluating all vehicle damage incidents, you can protect yourself and your department against claims of inconsistent handling of incidents and ultimately of dealing inconsistently with your firefighters.
Most good citizens are not litigious or looking for a big payoff. However, some individuals view government or municipal vehicles as a potential cash cow that can lead to a huge payday from an incident. Any situation where your rig scrapes or clips a car sitting at a light, causes a bicyclist to fall, or causes other harm can lead to huge legal issues for your department and your insurance carrier, even if the damage appears minor or nonexistent. A minor scrape or fender bender can lead to major liability and litigation issues. Documenting and investigating all incidents will make staff more alert when driving rigs, will help your department key in on training initiatives to deal with incidents, and may help prove in a court of law that your department has not ignored driver safety issues and the general public.
It is of tremendous educational benefit to you and your organization to investigate all vehicle damage incidents that occur in your department. Your skills will stay sharp or even greatly improve from taking statements, drawing sketches, or photographing damage. When the day comes (and, hopefully, it never does) when one of your rigs is involved in a serious incident, you will be prepared to take an organized approach to incident management and the subsequent investigation because of the number of smaller practice investigations you have done.
Fire departments should take note of the “battle scars” caused by vehicle operations. Members must change their department’s culture from one that accepts these scars to one that views them as learning tools and warning signs that may help prevent a larger incident, where the scars may not be limited to the rig.
MICHAEL P. DALLESSANDRO is a 26-year volunteer firefighter and chairman of the Grand Island (NY) Fire Company board of directors. He has instructed at FDIC and is a trainer for the fire service, the public transportation industry, and certified commercial vehicle drivers. Dallessandro also operates the Web site www.respondsmart.com.
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