I can’t speak for the show’s listeners, but I had a complete blast last night (5/17)!

For my inaugural show, Dave LeBlanc of www.iacoj.com and www.backstepfirefighter.com (Bill Carey’s blog) kindly accepted my invitation and was the perfect guest, as I knew he would be.

It was like I was the lead singer, singing his praises and then, like a lead guitarist, Dave would go off on a riff; allowing me to get a splash of beverage and to “wander the stage”.

I would have to say that hosting a net cast requires skillful multi-tasking.

I discovered that you must first get the proper adjustment on your headset; set the proper volume for ear pieces and microphone; then, sigh in to www.blogtalkradio.com ; open www.firefighternetcast.com and Google Talk; stay to your outline and notes; watch feedback in the chat room; maintain thoughts on subject at hand with guest; get another question ready; check Google Talk for messages; and oh yeah; have fun with it, while making it interesting for guest and audience.

The only glitch of the evening came when my Skype dropped my call. It took me about five minutes to re-establish my connection to the show. I can’t help but wonder if John…

I was in a near panic, but, because of the pros that they are; John (www.firedaily.com) and Rhett (www.firecritic.com) stepped right in, took a question from the outline and kept the flow to the show. Good save, fellazzzzzz!

It was a raucus chat room last night. Chatters were discussing, but were also having fun. It resembled a play ground every now and then, but it was exciting to see so many “at the show”.

Callers Wayne and Jason took the energy of the program to the next level.

The show wound down with Dave honoring his fallen brother firefighter, mentor and friend, Bobby J; who lost his battle with cancer last December 26^th.

The show ended with one of my favorite songs to honor our fallen: “Grace of God Go I” by Flogging Molly.

Then, we did a post production meeting. I laughed so hard that I hurt. I called a friend after the meeting and then took Chopper out, so I could smoke a celebratory cigar.

What a night!

It’s one that I will never forget…

TCSS.

My next installment of FirefighterNetcast Presents The Voice of Reason will be on Thursday, June 24^th at 8:00 pm CT/9:00 pm ET.

Please visit www.fireemsblogs.com and my blog: www.chiefreasonart.com.

How is it that we have no fear of going into a burning building, entering swift water to rescue a victim, rappel down a 200-foot cliff or go out in bad weather to spot tornadoes and yet; when an opportunity comes along that has life-changing potential, we are too scared to seize the moment?

Did any of you have a master plan for how your life would go?

I know many firefighters who planned on it from when they were very young, so for them; did you plan on becoming an officer?

Was your goal ever to rotate off shift to an administrative position working Monday through Friday?

Or, were you planning to rotate to another station house?

When the decision is made to “stay where you’re at”, is it because you have grown comfortable there?

Is it because there would be too much upheaval to change it?

Are we concerned with how the change would affect the ones around us?

Or, are we looking for an excuse, so that we won’t have to confront our own fear of change?

Many of you who follow my “stuff” know that I don’t ask questions for the sake of discussions. I don’t ask if I already know the answer…most of the time!

No; I ask because I want to know the answer and to learn.

What impediments do we put in front of ourselves that denies us the opportunity to further our success and when we do, is that in effect, failure?

We know that we don’t like failure, but what is it called when we don’t challenge ourselves to reach new heights and simply show up and “do our jobs”.

There isn’t a more challenging occupation than firefighting.

Well-planned pre-plans can quickly turn into ad hoc chaos in a New York minute and we have to rise to the challenge and live to tell about it. We are so focused on our tasks that we don’t have time to be scared and it begs many questions.

When does training become skill?

When does work performance become experience?

When does knowledge become wisdom?

When does student become teacher?

When does craftsmanship become leadership?

When does change become essential to our personal growth?

My spiritual advisor-Baziman-did not pose these questions to me. Rather, he asked me other, more introspective questions and made some personal observations of me that led me to ask those questions.

Not only am I asking them of my readers, but I am also asking them for myself.

Though we may not get together, I want us to get to the same place.

Do you hear me, Baziman?

I HAVE to ask questions to get to my answers.

More specifically, I have to ask the RIGHT questions to get the RIGHT answers.

I have constructed incident pre-plans in meticulous fashion, leaving no doubt and little to chance.

I have lived much of my life in “ad hoc chaos” and though it has made my journey through this life exciting and adventurous, it has lacked a certain fulfillment.

Now, I am on a new mission; a new pathway that has already revealed that I stand in the way of me!

I am not going to go back and take a more cautious route.

No; I am going to remove the obstacles and continue my journey. Hosting FirefighterNetcast isn’t a beginning or an end. It is but a destination along the way.

Baziman will be my wing man, my GPS and co-pilot.

And we will split the gas!

TCSS.

The article is written and submitted by Art Goodrich aka ChiefReason. It is submitted under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella. It is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-produced in any form without the expressed and written permission of the author.

Please visit: www.fireemsblogs.com and my blog www.chiefreasonart.com.

Yes; it could mean the amount of time needed to evacuate a structure when conditions inside become untenable, but for the purposes of this blog, it simply ponders that issue that faces every firefighter or EMT when we ask ourselves “Is it time to get out of the service?”

I get frustrated when the discussion boards lack discussion; meaningful discussion, that is. Oh; there is the same old chatter from the squirrels, but the good information that is coming out in a host of blogs…if they are getting read, they certainly aren’t being discussed to any great degree.

Are we THAT busy in our lives that we can’t take a moment and check in to see what’s shakin’ in our little world of the fire service? Then, if we have a few minutes but don’t take the time, are we disconnected or disinterested?

In case you didn’t know, the winds of discontent are blowing…or sucking, depending on your perspective.

As I learned from listening to a recent podcast on www.firefighternetcast.com, our people in fire/EMS are not all that happy and in some cases are getting burnt out and burn out leads to GETTING out.

We cannot afford to let that happen, so what do we do?

Bear with me as I share my thoughts with you. Maybe you should go and get that beverage now.

Where is it written that WE must shoulder the weight of the world just because we want to help our communities in their times of need?

Who says that we have to internalize and otherwise hide/mask all of the ugly junk that we see that defies any plausible explanation or description?

Why do we continue to believe that, if we don’t do it, no one else will? Can’t you feel the sheer desperation of having no alternatives that effectively forces someone to commit?

And finally; why do we watch our brothers and sisters succumb to the pressures of giving our best efforts, failing to change the outcome and believing that it’s failure nonetheless?

Well, I am here to tell you that you lost touch with reality on the day that you thought your fire certifications and EMT licenses was going to fix everything!

We continue to set the bar high which, in and of itself is a good thing, but when we don’t have a net to catch the ones who barely miss reaching the bar, we set ourselves up to fail. We must keep everyone engaged, improve our leadership, training and expand the knowledge base in everyone who chooses to be a firefighter/EMT.

Besides; what are we really measuring our success against anyway?

From cheating death?

From cheating all of those external forces that we cannot control, but manage to survive in while it kills others and taking our guilt from it with us?

And along with that guilt, a sense of failure that washes over us with such pervasive force that we forget our love for what we do?

We become so emotionally invested with every, single incident-we become so singular of purpose-that we let the outcome define us going forward. Each time a building falls or a patient dies, a little bit more of our desire to do the job leaves us until we have no more desire to do it.

We should not measure ourselves and what we do by the outcome of one incident. Instead, we should look at incidents-one by one-as lessons learned, pay compliments to those involved, share a light moment and get ready for the next one, because, in the end; it is the volume of work and we are adding the chapters; some bad, but many that are good or even great.

We hear a lot about pain thresholds. How much pain can we take before it becomes too much?

And though it largely refers to physical pain, I have to believe that the same holds true for mental pain.

I know someone who used a staple gun to pierce their ear and laughed about it as they did it, but when they saw the blood, they immediately passed out!

On the other side, I have friends who will go to the emergency room if they get a bug in their eye, but can deal with the most complex, multi-agency response incidents that I have seen. So, one type of pain threshold isn’t necessarily indicative of the other.

As we know, firefighters need both mental and physical toughness to weather the beatings that we will take from an incident. We have to take something positive from EVERY incident. There ARE positives even if there is a negative outcome and we have to talk it to that point where we all agree that, had we not been there, the situation would have been worse, regardless of the outcome.

Veteran firefighters hold the secrets to their longevity of service. They could be invaluable to the ones who are struggling with the emotional aspects of a call. Veterans could take the broken pieces of someone’s spirit and help to put it back together, if only they were asked.

See; veterans know the protocol. Veterans won’t invite themselves to the party. Veterans don’t take shots at those who have just seen grotesquely mutilated metal and flesh. They remember their first few times and they know all too well that you have to process it. It’s something that you don’t joke about…until you have had time to get better, that is.

Veterans play a pivotal role in helping others process what they do, see and hear at an incident and especially if it is having a negative impact. Were it not for the veterans, our turnover rate in the fire service would be 100 percent plus. They remind us that each of us are uniquely different, but with similar stories and it’s the telling of those stories to each other that gets us back to our love for what we do!

I got by because I treated calls as if they fell somewhere between “I haven’t seen the worst one yet” to “I have seen worse”.

Roll that one around for a bit, but it makes perfect sense to me. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum, so every call will fit somewhere between them. That is how I managed to truly love every minute of my 22 active years of running calls. I have a couple of scrapbooks that I visit from time to time and I know that many of you have your scrapbooks in the memories of your minds.

Today, I have plenty to be concerned with. I am still active in making sure that our fire department is ready for emergencies.

Though I am dismayed by some of what I am reading about scumbags in the fire service, I take something positive away EVERY day; whether it is a story of a good save, a baby born on the way to the hospital, a near miss with a happy ending, a story on a friend’s promotion, an article from a friend’s keynote address, or a book written by an old friend from his Illinois days. That’s right; Illinois claims Chief Rick Lasky.

People in the service like Rick, Tiger, Dave, Gonzo, Rhett, John, Mick, Ted, Jason, Chris, Mike, Steve, CJ and many others help to keep my compass needle pointing in the right direction.

I will offer you this piece of advice: you will miss opportunities if the only times that you dream is when you sleep.

Take something positive from the job and end the day with good thoughts.

TCSS.

The article is protected by federal copyright law under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella. It is written and submitted by Art Goodrich a.k.a. ChiefReason. This article or any other article submitted under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella cannot be reproduced in ANY form without the expressed, written permission of the author. Violations are punishable by applicable laws.

Please visit: www.fireemsblogs.com and my blog www.chiefreasonart.com.

By my count, this fire department had FIVE chances to get this call right. They didn’t.

Why? Because, according to their internal report, they didn’t follow their own procedures, which led to an interesting discussion.

Last night, after Chris Kaiser, the featured guest of FirefighterNetCast had concluded his portion of the Old School vs. New School program, FireCritic Rhett and FireDaily John went to a discussion format and wanted to discuss the Dekalb County, GA Fire Department response to a fatal fire.

When the story first broke, a discussion thread popped up and naturally, I had some opinions based upon the limited information that was coming out at the time. My initial reaction was that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was stunned by it.

Before long though, there was a groundswell under this story fueled by the family of the deceased and from members in the news media wanting some answers. To date, five firefighters have been terminated and the chief has resigned as fallout from the incident at 1687 Houghton Court North, Dunwoody Georgia; home to Ann Bartlett, age 74.

I was in the chat room at the time and someone flashed me to call in, so I did. I weighed in heavy on the discussion of this incident along with Rhett, John and Chris Naum. I was going off of my recollections, but I was up to speed with the exception that I hadn’t read the internal report of the incident from Chief Foster.

While we were concluding the discussion, I got a message from the chat room from a buddy who felt that we were “piling on” this fire department. I pointed out that I didn’t bring the subject up, but was merely offering my opinions; something that I’ve been known to do.

He wanted to know if we were “perfect”. Of course we aren’t, but I also thought that you would have to be drunk or crazy to get an incident THIS WRONG. My buddy thought that we were offering strong opinions based upon speculative journalism and even if the story was barely correct, he was still upset that we were “kicking a department when they were down”.

Well, I initiated some soul searching right there in the chat room and upon reflection, he was right…to a degree. Perhaps on any other day, the good men and women of this department might very well have gotten it right, but one could make a strong argument, based upon the internal report, that it might not have been a different outcome, if complacency and disregard for written protocols were routinely ignored.

In the end, I told my buddy that I had over reacted, but the emotional value of this incident was very high for everyone involved and for those of us who read and analyze incidents for lessons learned. But, I also wanted to read the internal report, re-visit the discussion thread and follow up with local news to make sure that I wasn’t being a total wienie on this one.

Upon further review, I stand by my comments. Everyone involved with that run on that day bear some responsibility and not just the officers who have been terminated or have resigned. The guys riding backwards get some, too and I will be glad to explain.

First of all, the entire time that was spent on the first call was 7 minutes and 22 seconds. Do you think that a thorough search could have been initiated and terminated in this short time frame?

Engine 18 arrived at 1:15:10 in the AM with Truck 18 and Engine 12 arriving shortly thereafter. The scene was cleared at 1:22:32 in the AM with a report of no smoke or fire.

If you read the internal report, you will notice that: captain of Engine 18 arrives first and does not establish incident command and no one exits the vehicle. Truck 18 arrives, but fails to notify dispatch that they are on scene, does not establish command and the captain states for the report that they “looked at the house; no signs of smoke; house was dark”. In other words, no one checked the house. Engine 12 arrives and goes to the hydrant. The captain states for the report that he did not hear anyone establish incident command and watches as Engine 18 and Truck 18 leave the area. Engine 12 leaves without noticing smoke or fire, but no one checked the house. Battalion 1 did not hear command established and did not insure that command was initiated. Battalion 1 never made it to the scene. The shift commander was contacted by the dispatch supervisor who stated that she felt that it was a legitimate call. The shift commander was not monitoring the radio traffic from the call, so he was unaware of the breach in protocols.

Many think that establishing incident command is a royal pain. Some even think that it is over kill. When you examine the missteps in this incident, it appears to be very well suited for command and control, because apparently, establishing incident command would have been  the kick to the head that this incident needed to engage the officers into doing their jobs.

But, where were the “guys who ride backwards”. The working stiffs; the rank and file? Does it take a direct order by an officer to activate your common sense? Not one firefighter could say, “Hey, Cap; permission to walk to the house to talk to the owner”? You could even be a little more demanding without risk of discipline, I would think.

Yes; all officers have been terminated and based upon the internal report, it is justified; sadly.

I have a problem with the chief riding out of Dodge at a fast gallop, but the department will heal faster, too.

The family of Ann Bartlett wants an apology from the firefighters who were involved in this incident.

And if I was a resident of this county, I would want some assurances that asses will come out of the seats of the trucks and check my welfare, if needed. And that’s really my biggest beef. Even after not smelling smoke or seeing fire, someone could have, at the very least, checked on this lady’s welfare, just to re-assure her.

But, that would have required someone to get out of the truck.

You know; to make an effort.

I don’t think that this is what we had in mind when we talk about accountability.

Now might be a good time to go back and review policies and read that book on leadership again.

TCSS.

This article is protected by federal copyright laws. No reproduction of any kind is permitted without written permission from the author.

Please visit me at www.fireemsblogs.com on www.chiefreasonart.com.