BY JOHN BUCKMAN
It was supposed to be a routine fire, if there is such a thing. It was almost under control. All was well, and then all was wrong! Just like that, black smoke engulfed people in a darkness that had no beginning or end, no ups or downs. Firefighter George Jackson, one of the best-known, most combative, and capable veterans, never found his way out. He left a wife, a child, an extended family, and a huge firefighter family to grieve his death. How many tragedies happen that way-the routine becomes the unexpected and darkness overtakes?
For firefighters, there is no such thing as routine. When you start taking things for granted or assuming that a call is not that serious and you let your guard down, you risk killing yourself and your partner.
The most routine situations can turn into unexpected tragedies:
- Two parents driving home to their children from a party are on what they consider a routine drive. All of a sudden, another car is in the intersection, and there’s a crash. The parents are killed, and two others are injured.
- You’re cruising along, at the top of your game. Out of nowhere comes a cough, a lump, or a squeezing in your chest. You’re lost in a different sort of darkness, hoping that someone will find you and lead you out.
Life is unpredictable, and firefighters understand that better than most people, because fire is one of life’s most unpredictable elements. It can change direction on a whim. It creates smoke and gases that instantaneously ignite into the roaring fire known as a flashover. It creates its own wind, shoots columns of flame in new directions, and sends hot vapors into the air and huffs of toxic smoke everywhere.
Firefighters cannot choose the situations to which they respond. In most cases, firefighters are the first responders-the first on the scene, there to handle the emergency.
The call for chest pain can suddenly turn into a cardiac arrest. The firefighters must have the appropriate equipment available.
Unless a firefighter can envision the hazards in front of him and behind him, he may be nowhere in sight when his partner encounters a hazard, leaving the lone firefighter at risk.
TRUST IS PARAMOUNT
Trust is a big word-the most important bond between two firefighters. Without trust, all else fails! You can study the ways of fire, train for its caprice, and defend yourself against it with the best equipment on the market, but you can never be certain you’ll beat it. It’s Nature at its best and worst all at the same time. You just never know.
Yes, we have a good time at the fire department. We laugh; we joke around; we kid each other because we know we have to depend on each other and have to get along. I never take for granted that my partner can do something until he proves it. I don’t take anything for granted, because if I let my guard down it may be for the last time. I have to be alert and expect the unexpected-the worst. I anticipate that the situation will tax my ability and knowledge and that my partner may not have the same frame of mind. I can’t always say “I trust you” because, you see, sometimes some of those who may be my partners think this is a game. They think the dumb and stupid things people do before they dial 911 are funny.
I remember the “routine medical call” in which a husband “pile drove” the wife three times into the wooden floor of the dining room with the kids watching.
I recall the response for spousal abuse where the husband was out in the woods and it was thought that he had run away. When we arrived, he returned to continue the fight. Only my partner and I were present!
If you were my partner in one of these situations, would I be able to trust you? Can I depend on you to be there when I need you?
Can you answer “yes” to the following questions:
- Do you expect the unexpected?
- Do you take every call seriously?
- Will you take every call and examine the potential of each?
- Will you look out for my welfare as well as yours?
If you cannot answer yes to these questions, let me know, because I don’t want you on my team.
Are you ready? I am!
FIREFIGHTING IS A TEAM EVENT
Firefighting is a team event. Usually when one firefighter is lost or goes down, others will be close by. Firefighters depend on each other to save their lives and the lives of others. For the team to be successful, each member responding on a call must know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the other firefighters will be there, that they won’t freeze, that they are capable and competent, that they have the skills to support the others, and that they will pull their partner out if necessary and warn them when they spot danger.
One time when I got blown down a stairwell, I had no idea it was coming. When I was almost caught in a flashover, I didn’t know how close it was! I remember the time I was sorting through the ashes of a fire, trying to locate the foot of the baby who had been set on fire and burned to death. I knew I would find it, but I didn’t want to find it. But I expected that I would find it and, when I finally found it, I realized what I had to do.
I remember leaving home for the automobile accident reported as an overturned car. I realized on the way that the worse situation I might find was a dead body under the weight of the automobile. But that wasn’t the worst situation I could find! The worst situation was to find someone under that car still alive because he depended on me and my team to get the weight of the car off him. I remember as we surveyed the scene and forced open one of the doors so that a firefighter could enter the overturned car to assess the victim’s injuries, someone’s saying, “Hurry up. Get the air bags under the car and lift it.”
I stopped that person from lifting the car with the firefighter and the trapped victim under it because we hadn’t put cribbing in place. As we lifted the car, we cribbed. As we got the car about eight inches off the ground, one of the two air bags under the car exploded. The air immediately left the bag, but the car remained in its exact position because the cribbing held up the car. The firefighter inside the car was grateful that his team members on the outside did not take his safety for granted and raised the car in the manner described in the book: “raise and crib.” The trapped occupant was safely removed and transported to the hospital with minor injuries and was released a couple of days later.
I have had members of the public die in my arms. I have been at incidents at which the victims lived when there was no reasonable chance that they would. I know that I had a little hand in that outcome. I talked with the truck driver who was trapped in the front seat by the guardrail with which his truck had collided. The guardrail was sticking into his groin, and he was in pain. He wanted the guardrail removed from his groin. I talked with him for at least 30 minutes before we finally decided what to do and how to do it. When we removed the guardrail, he died right there in my arms: When the guardrail was removed from his groin, he immediately bled out because the guardrail was applying pressure to the arteries. We didn’t anticipate the unexpected.
The fire service is a brotherhood, not a club! If anyone wants to belong to a club, he should join a club, not the fire department.
I can’t predict the future. I know that, but I also know what I can expect from the future. Most of us shun the unpredictable. We prefer controlled environments, and we hope the unexpected, if it comes our way at all, will be in the form of a benevolent surprise. It’s all about being prepared, being ready at all times.
Not everyone is made to be a volunteer firefighter. It takes a special person-one willing to give of himself to help others. Some people say it is not their bag. In a community that is proud of its independence, the volunteer firefighter is oftentimes the best example of that independence. Benjamin Franklin formed the first fire department 250 years ago; it was a volunteer fire department. Some of our greatest leaders were volunteer firefighters because it was a service the community needed. The community and the fire service still need volunteer firefighters.
JOHN BUCKMAN is chief of the German Township (IN) Volunteer Fire Department in Evansville, Indiana, where he has served for 22 years, and second vice president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). He was instrumental in forming the IAFC’s Volunteer Chief Officers Section. He is an adjunct faculty member in the National Fire Academy residence program, is a Fire Engineering editorial advisory board member, and lectures extensively on fire service-related topics.
