By John “Skip” Coleman
Think of all the ways that cell phones have enriched our lives. As with most technological advancements, though, we have to adjust to its existence.
Case in point: I remember many aspects of my “life” as operations deputy in Toledo, Ohio. Most of my memories are good (as good as possible considering the death and devastation seen by any firefighter throughout his or her career). Good firefighters, teamwork, camaraderie, brother-and-sisterhood and so-on. As with almost everything, however, every once and a while, some less than “happy” or “gratifying” memories pop up.
Imagine my surprise when I was informed that an otherwise well-respected and trusted officer of ours received a call on his new-fangled cell phone while actually performing chest compressions on an elderly unconscious victim–and actually stopped to take the call! Even more frustrating and disturbing was the fact that because we had no policy on cell-phone use prior to this incident, the union representing the officer got him off.
Needless to say, a policy was written immediately after that, which brings me to this months question: Does your department have a policy concerning cell-phone use for on-duty members?
Register and log in to the Fire Engineering Web site and leave your comments below.John “Skip” Coleman Fire Engineering; a member of the FDIC Educational Advisory Board; and author of Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer (Fire Engineering, 1997), Managing Major Fires (Fire Engineering, 2000), Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer, Second Edition (Fire Engineering, 2008) and Searching Smarter (Fire Engineering 2011) and 2011 recipient of the FDIC Tom Brennan Lifetime Achievement retired as assistant chief from the Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue. He is a technical editor of
