Firefighters’ lives vs. money; make your voice heard
Ihave been looking for just the right example to demonstrate to firefighters why they must get active in the International Codes Council (ICC) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which are the two organizations that pretty much decide the safety features of newly constructed buildings.
I received the following e-mail from Richard Schulte, one of the many consultants who make their living representing companies with a commercial interest in how the building and fire codes are written. As you will read, he considers the loss of firefighters no more significant than people who overdose on Tylenol®.
Before you read further, please note that Schulte took the trouble to send a copy to Paul Heilstedt, who chairs an ICC committee looking at the collapse of buildings caused by fire. In November at a meeting that was looking into this issue, Heilstedt as chairman made comments and remarks I considered insulting to fire safety officials. The content of Schulte’s e-mail is contained below.
“Mr. Polk-
“I thought that you would find this statistic interesting:
“The Food and Drug Administration has long wrestled with the liver risk, warning two years ago that more than 56,000 emergency-room visits a year are due to acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol®) overdoses and that 100 people die annually from unintentionally taking too much.
“In other words, more people died from Tylenol® overdoses than from fires in commercial buildings in 2004. Roughly the same number of Americans die from Tylenol® overdoses as the number of firefighters who die while on duty.
“Should statistics be used to decide public policy, or should we just spend (other people’s) money on making safety improvements without regard to whether or not the improvements will actually have any impact?”
…. The very last statement suggests that improvements can be made; however, they are just not worth it. In addition, the suggestion that we should not pursue safeguarding firefighters, however possible, is insulting.
After more than three decades as a career firefighter, paramedic, fire office, chief, and state fire marshal, my family is finally free of the anxiety of whether I will return home safely. Because of all that I personally have experienced over those many years, my “retired” life is all about fire prevention. We few active and retired fire safety officials able to participate in this important process need some mutual aid. Here are three ways to help.
1Schulte was kind enough to provide his e-mail address (FPESCHULTE@aol.com) and that of Heilstedt (Paulheilstedt@comcast.net). Join me in showing how offensive these words are to the men and women of the fire service. Pass this along to every firefighter you know.
2The ICC is about to launch a membership campaign to attract more fire code officials. Contact the ICC’s Jim Tidwell for more information at jtidwell@iccsafe.org/.
3Contact Russ Sanders, Olin Greene, or any of the other former fire safety officials now with NFPA and ask how you can participate.
I have met many fair, balanced, and concerned people at code development meetings, but anyone who is so obviously ignorant of the risks firefighters take has no business contributing to standards intended to protect firefighters and the public.
Robert Polk
Chief (Ret.)
State Fire Marshal (Ret.)
Columbia, South Carolina
CISD has proven successful
This is in response to “Psychological First Aid: Replacement for Critical Incident Stress Debriefing?” (Mike McEvoy, Ph.D., REMT-P, RN, CCRN, Fire Engineering, December 2005).
Periodically, articles in various publications take Dr. Jeff Mitchell and his International Critical Incident Stress Foundation to task for one reason or another. Those of us who are practitioners of Dr. Mitchell’s program, which is now about 20 years old, know just how successful it has been for the emergency services not just here in the United States but internationally as well. Anyone attending one of the biannual seminars will hear the success stories from the military; local, state, and federal police agencies; and other emergency services. But the stories don’t end with these people who are on the front line and see things others might not. The stories go on with presentations from the schools where violence has caused trauma and stress to many of the students, the bank tellers who have been frightened out of their wits during holdups, and many others.
As a member of a county team for the past 17 years, we have seen a slow acceptance grow to where now those in authority don’t hesitate to call us if they detect problems or potential problems in their personnel. To get to this point of acceptance, there were many educational programs that provided insight into just what critical incident stress management is. Mike McEvoy states in his article, “Emergency responders should be familiar with the symptoms and know that their jobs increase the likelihood that they will develop one of the stress disorders themselves.” For young energetic police officers, firefighters, or even members of the military to know this, they must first be educated in critical incident stress (CIS) and how it may impact them. Beyond this education, it is important that they understand they must watch each other, because experience has shown that many times people don’t even realize they have been traumatized or are acting differently.
McEvoy says he feels the pendulum has swung from the “John Wayne Syndrome” to where we see many emergency personnel in need of emotional assistance for every major incident they attend. Most police agencies are now aware that there are situations that should automatically trigger a required CIS debriefing. Right here in New York City, if a police officer is involved in a shooting, a serious vehicular accident, a line-of-duty death, or several other events that have been deemed serious incidents, the debriefings are automatic. A bad thing? I don’t think so. Ask the officers who have been helped during these sessions and those who were left on their own sitting in a bar abusing alcohol.
It wasn’t too long ago that the New York City Police Department was experiencing a very high suicide rate that was determined to have been a result of job stress combined with everyday stress that was just too much for officers to handle on their own, and they weren’t asking for help.
As for the “mixing of groups,” anyone who has been involved with CIS knows that not only should you not mix groups from various services or those who were at the scene with those from outside the area, but you also should not mix “workers” with “managers.” Both of these approaches are recipes for certain failure.
Also, the Mitchell model is a peer-driven program-it recognizes that you have to have walked in the individuals’ shoes not only to be able to relate to them but also to have the credibility necessary to be accepted. This program is a melding of two important components, peers and mental health professionals, each playing important roles. The mental health professional watches for those people having problems that may go undetected by the peers.
Over the years, I have recognized that there is no one answer to everyone’s problems and that just as some doctors are better than others, some CISM teams are better than others, but you don’t stop going to doctors, and you certainly shouldn’t stop using CISM teams.
Early next year, our team will be hosting an educational seminar. Dr. JoAnn Difede of Weill Medical College of Cornell will be keynote speaker. Dr. Difede is currently using virtual reality to help traumatized burn victims and is also studying its use with survivors of 9/11. And so a new approach to post-traumatic stress is beginning that may be good for some but not for everyone.
Arthur Smith
Lieutenant (Ret.)
Fire Department of New York
Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress
Diplomate, American Academy
of Experts in Traumatic Stress
Pomona, New York
