As an instructor for over 10 years, it’s always a good feeling when a current or former student tells you that something they learned from you kept them or someone else from getting injured. A few of us have been teaching a lot of FF I and II courses to some neighboring departments for the last several years, and we try to always work some type of safety and survival training into every class.

One of my biggies is to add a glitch to a large entanglement box by putting a tip over platform into it to simulate a floor collapse. As the FF’s (with blacked out mask) fall, they land in wires which pin them to the floor. If they can reach the proper tools in their pocket to cut the wire, we let them continue through the box. If they don’t have tools, we hold them to the floor until their mask sucks to their face. We then remove their mask and inform them that they just became a statistic because of their failure to carry the necessary tools with them.

Recently one of my former students (who didn’t have the right tool at the time he took my class) related a story of a recent structure fire he was in, where he became severely entangled in wires. Additionally, he had little or no visibility. After he got over the initial reaction to panic, he composed himself, and reached in his pocket, pulled out his new set of wire cutters, and freed himself. He actually thanked me for scaring him to death in class, because he said that was what inspired him to start carrying some simple tools.

That’s why we train as if our lives depend on it, because they do.

For those known as first responders, EMTs or paramedics, being at the right place at the
right time is routine – regardless of the time of day or night. Take the case of Brady Grim. He is a firefighter in the Clemson University Fire Department and a South Carolina first responder.

Grim had already worked all night and was home asleep when a call for a first responder was sent out. A man who had been walking on the indoor track that encircles Clemson’s Coliseum had suffered a heart attack and was in jeopardy.

Four people had been on call, and two of them had already responded to another emergency. Fortunately, Grim lived not very far AWAY, so he immediately jumped out of
bed and sprinted as fast as he could to the arena, where he found the man, in his 70s,
unconscious.

“He was walking around the track, as he did every day, until he began to have chest pains and started lagging behind the group he was with,” Grim said. “He then fell back from the group and collapsed, but his friends thought he had just fainted, and they were unable to really tell me about how serious the situation was.”

Grim immediately went to work, starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) procedures until more help arrived on the scene. The man was placed on a heart monitor; then it was determined that his heart was fibrillating and his life was in danger. A defibrillator was immediately placed on the man’s heart to shock it back into rhythm. Grim also used two types of medication to speed up the heart’s rate and then relax it so it could beat on its own.

As the patient was being loaded onto the ambulance to be taken to the hospital, Grim noticed the man’s condition was improving rapidly; he had saved the man from certain death. Saving a man’s life is all part of a day’s work for rescue workers, but even Grim admitted he had tears in his eyes while the man was being transported to the hospital.

“Being able to help someone this way makes the inconvenience of the job seem unimportant,” he said. “I feel good about what I do.”

Here’s a poem a reader wrote for one of our Firefighters following his passing:
Twenty-eight Years…

Twenty-eight years of compassion
to comfort his fellow man,
Twenty-eight years of love
to unselfishly serve o’er the span,
Twenty-eight years of courage
to go where no one dare,
Twenty-eight years of strength and devotion
to show his unselfish care,
Twenty-eight years, ready when emergency called,
who can offer their service or do more than his all?

We had a gentelman whoi had a massive stroke. He was down fifteen minutes and we had to shock him five times. We actually brought him back. Luckily, two sheriffs were across the street from his house. They shocked him twice before we even arrived.

I am Rodrigo Santana I been working for the Tijuana fire department since February of 1998.

This happened to me two years after I started working as a firefighter. I had only worked as firefighter for 14 months. I graduated as a paramedic and my captain send me to the ambulance, so I had little firefighting experience. We had a big fire. I arrived in the ambulance and the captain said that a child was inside and he sent me and my partner to go and find the child.

I went to the fire engine to put the SCBA, but an engineer ordered me to connect the hose to the hydrant. As soon as I finished, I ran to the house an another captain told me to get the 24 foot ladder and enter the house thru a window of the second floor, I was so nervous that my legs were shaking. Once I was inside, I realized that my partner wasn’t with me, but I continued the search by myself.

When I entered the room I found the boy in bed coved with a sleeping bag. He wasn’t breathing, I picked him up and went to the balcony there were two firefighters. They took him to the ambulance. I went outside and when I was taking my gear off, my captain congratulated me and he told me that the little boy alerted his mom and siblings of the fire, then for some reason went to the second floor and hid. I felt so bad because that little boy saved his family and now he wasn’t breathing. The little boy died tree days later in the hospital.

I questioned my work several times for a few weeks. I know I could have done better, I regret some things about that day. That was the day that a little was a hero.

My fiancee at the time was an EMT from Tennesee. Out there things were done differently.. and he was very cocky and thought he was above everyone else.. His main thing was pranks. He would steal ambulances or fire trucks and hide them.. or steal the keys.. that was until one time somehow the ambulance caught on fire after he locked the keys in the ambulance with it running..

After that he moved to IL.. Still cocky and trying to find his place.. lost job after job. Many people didn’t get the crispy critter comments or making jokes about people going to the hospital for amputation. I heard story after story and at the time just didn’t get how he could be so mean..

Then I met some of the other firefighters and emts and realized.. to get through each day and to deal with the pain and the loss they had to make jokes to make it through the day. He could not handle the stress and was unprofessional about it. He could not handle a job and was depressed. He never changed, the job made him cold..

You can learn to deal with your man not coming home or accidents happening.. but when he is detached and shuts you out.. thats it. The sacrifices they make sometimes don’t amount to what the partner has to take.. but that’s part of the job.

You have to be willing to accept everything and know what you’re getting yourself into. Otherwise you will get burned. After four years he finally got back into the emt field.. Overall, I think that’s where be belongs

Sherry Marks, the 19-year-old driver whose Ford Mustang struck and killed Miami firefighter Leslie Luma two weeks ago, admitted she had taken drugs at the time of the crash. Marks admitted to taking Xanax and Lexapro, which she may have been prescribed, but she was also high on nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas or, when inhaled from a whipped cream canister. Police found several cylinders of the drug. Marks admitted to taking the drug at her boyfriend’s house just 20 minutes before the crash. Luma was an 8-year veteran of Miami Fire rescue, a father of three, and had recently returned from a rescue mission in Haiti.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/04/teen_driver_was_high_on_laughi.php

ALASKA FIRE SERVICE – SMOKE JUMPER REQUIREMENTS

While on project work or on fire assignment, work hours may be up to 16 hours per day, 7 days a week. Crew members will be expected to be ready and available for fire calls 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week.

The following is the North Star P.T. test with the minimum goals required to be considered for the Hot Shot crews:

1) 1.5 MILE RUN IN LESS THAN 10:30 (TARGET GOAL)
2) MINIMUM 7 PULL-UPS (TARGET GOAL)
3) 40 SIT-UPS IN 60 SECONDS (TARGET GOAL)
4) 40 PUSH-UPS IN 60 SECONDS (TARGET GOAL)
5) PACK TEST- 45LB PACK FOR 3 MILES IN LESS THAN 45 MINUTES

Crew members are required to participate in a daily physical training program when not on fires. The following is a sample daily P.T. schedule:

1) 5 MINUTES OF FREE STRETCHING
2) 3 SETS OF 50 PUSH-UPS
3) 3 SETS OF 30 FLUTTER KICKS
4) 3 SETS OF 7 PULL-UPS OR 1-6 PYRAMID PULL-UPS
5) 3 SETS OF 7 BAR-DIPS OR 1-6 PYRAMID BAR-DIPS
6) 2 SETS OF 100 SIT-UPS
7) 3 SETS OF DOLLIES
100 ABDOMINAL CRUNCHES OR BICYCLES
9) 3.0-7.0 MILE RUN (7-8 MINUTE/MILE PACE) OR 1 HOUR LONG HIKE (MINIMUM 15 MINUTE/MILE PACE)

Believing In God Will Inspire Greatness

I am a professional firefighter for the Davenport Fire Dept, I have been a part of the department for the past 7 years, and I have been in the fire service for 10 years. I currently hold the rank of engineer, which means that I have to drive the fire engine, know all the streets in the city, get my crew to and from the fire scene without killing them, and also get them water to extinguish the fire without killing them. There is a huge responsibility on my shoulders, and at time it can be a bit overwhelming.

Being a firefighter is the best job in the world! I can honestly say that I have almost seen and done it all. I was a part of a successful rescue where we pulled a 4 year old child from a burning building and brought him back to life in the front yard. I have also been the one doing chest compressions on a 2 month old child that we couldn’t bring back to life.

There are great days, but with the great days come the very bad days. I won’t go into any detail about the very bad ones, but after witnessing them time and time again, I have grown numb to feelings. My wife says I have the skin of an alligator. There isn’t much that phases me anymore, and I don’t show much emotion. This is not a good thing, and I’ll tell you why. First, I come off as a sheltered person. If I don’t know you, I will not come up to you and talk to you. Second, I don’t like going places where there are people. I deal with some of the worst people on this earth, and because of that I have grown to dislike people. (Unless I know you) Third, having the skin of an alligator is very difficult on a marriage, for reasons that you all can probably relate to.

When I was a small child growing up, my mom was an at home mom, and my dad worked every waking hour at a factory. Times were tough and money was very tight. There were many times that we would open the cupboards to find nothing inside; literally nothing inside. I can also recall my dad driving the gravels home from work to pick up cans so he could buy gas to get back to work the next day. We all grew up healthy, turned out great, but after watching my mom and dad struggle every day, I made a promise to myself that I would never let that happen to my family…when that time came.

Well, that time came a few years ago. It seems like I woke up one morning and found myself at the young age of 25 providing for a wife, and raising 3 babies. Amanda was going to school at this time, because she spent her college days in the hospital having babies. I was the only one working, and if I remember correctly, I had 5 jobs. I was a firefighter full time, on my days off I worked for a heating and air conditioning company, at night after the heating company, I ran my own plumbing business, I also taught fire classes for the Eastern Iowa Community College, and the State of Iowa’s Fire Service Training Bureau.

I was averaging 120 hours a week on the time card, and at the same time Amanda was in school fulltime every day. All three kids went to day care, and for the 10 months that Amanda was in school, we paid $11,000.00 in day care. That’s on top of the house payment, two vehicle payments, gas, fuel, kids, and every other expense there is associated with raising a family. It wasn’t long and we found ourselves scraping up handfuls of change to pay for gas to get to work. There were days that we woke up to a 50 degree house because we couldn’t afford to put L.P. in the tank to heat the house. There were even times when there was no money to pay the bills, and if it wasn’t for the help of Amanda’s mom and dad, we would have never made it. (more…)

Blog delayed until Tuesday, April 20 – Website upgrades and new stuff!