May I take your order?
Firefighter: What is your special today?
Today, we are offering all you can risk. The price is a serious injury. If anyone else in your group gets a serious injury, your names will go into a drawing for a chance at a firefighter funeral; compliments of the house…that was gone before you got there!
Firefighter: Cool. Then, I’d like to start off with not wearing my seatbelt while en route to the scene. Can I substitute anything for that?
Yes; you can substitute entering a lightweight structure with heavy fire showing or driving apparatus through intersections without slowing down.
Firefighter: Do you have any recommendations?
Well; entering lightweight structures with heavy fire showing is very popular.
Firefighter: Can I get a radio that doesn’t work to go with that?
Yes, you can; but might I also recommend drinking alcohol and then responding?
Firefighter: I don’t know; I want to leave some room for dessert. Can you warm it up for me?
Absolutely. We will heat it to flashover.
Firefighter: Excellent. Can I get tunnel vision?
It is our specialty. Your dessert?
Firefighter: Can I have a heart attack?
You’ll have it in no time.
Please note that this monologue is dripping with a heavy dose of sarcasm, but is used to drive the point of this blog.
It would seem that our fire services’ “risk menu” continues to grow.
But, now more than ever, the fire service has taken steps to address unsafe behavior that results in taking “unnecessary risks”. Unsafe behavior that is not corrected in other occupations can get you fired for not following policies and procedures. In our profession, unsafe behavior can get you worse than unemployed; it can get you killed!
Is risk-taking unsafe behavior? If engineering, administrative or personal protection controls haven’t been taken, then yes; it is unsafe behavior.
If it gets to the level of knowing that a safe job analysis is required, but hasn’t been done, then everyone from the firefighter to the chief have failed to identify risks.
I posted a blog about building a risk assessment plan together and had a scant four (4) replies with recommendations contained in them. http://www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/building-a-risk-assessment
We tell ourselves THAT isn’t going to happen to us…and then IT DOES!
With each firefighter death comes our outrage.
Another death; MORE outrage!
It is as if we are apathetic to protecting our personal safety.
When we lose another firefighter, we take the time to offer our condolences; as we should.
But, we should also take the time to take the initiative to CHANGE.
If you don’t have a clearly written process for safely executing your duties as a firefighter, then you haven’t been doing your job. You have simply been LUCKY!
Do you want to leave your LIFE in the hands of Murphy? Because, Murphy and his law will be there every time the tones drop.
Stop believing that there is no need to change our culture because it hasn’t happened to you.
Recognize the positives and the negatives.
Reward the positives and share its success.
But, fix the negatives, because THAT is what will get you hurt or worse; DEAD!
Would you like something from the menu?
The article as submitted is published under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella and is the intellectual property of Art Goodrich a.k.a. xchief22 and ChiefReason. It is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-printed in any form without expressed permission from the author. You may read other works by the author at www.chiefreasonart.com.
Also on Chief Reason …
- Building a Risk Assessment Plan – February 20, 2009
- Can We Put Risk Out of Business? – February 16, 2009
- The ABCs of Arson – June 2, 2009
- How Did We Get to This Point? – February 6, 2009
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