Seven Years Later

I read with interest the section called “Progress Report” in the September issue (www.firechief.com/leadership/incident-command/progress_report_0908). I like to see how the others tasked with protecting our communities feel about these issues. I am a little surprised to see the position taken by some as to what still needs to change to make us all better prepared.

Trickle down is not only a form of economics, but also what happens to those of us tasked with protecting rural or less than urban areas. In my part of the world, I can see where the bureaucracy has experienced huge leaps in its size and complexity, definitely not in its efficiency. Even if this was necessary, it does not seem to be good for us all. We have built departments of homeland security at the federal and state levels that were intended to tie us all together, but in a lot of cases, it seems to have just reduced the fire service's ability to have a say in its fate.

The FIRE Act and other newer federal grants were, and still are, sorely needed. Taxpayers and politicians just will not fully fund the fire service, yet all scream when the level of response or local capabilities are not what people think they should be. These grants are underfunded and seem to be drying up. Now we have to deal with issues like, “Here, have a communications grant, but you can't use it for what you need; you must use it for talking to people who already stand next to you, or don't want to talk to you.”

I am sure interoperable communications in the urban areas will have an impact someday, but in the less urban areas, this is a command function, not rank and file. Fix the command communication issues first then throw money into a pit for our line firefighters.

A funny side note is how so many fire service organizations now feel that digital communications are an unsafe method due to the devices abilities. Did no one test these things? Some national association made a SOP for us telling our guys, “If you get trapped, don't sound your PASS until you make your radio call.” That's bizarre thinking.

Chief Randy Bruegman hit it on the head with the most important change that did not happen: fixing things that don't need fixing. If a new system is put into place just to build a new level of accountability or make an oversight person, we could have just fixed the process we had instead of building a new government.

Firefighter safety, as Chief Mark Wallace continues, should be our top priority. How do we get the public to hear that? Fully staffed apparatus and proper coverage should be a top priority. Being a lifetime volunteer I can say it appears the days of the volunteer firefighters are about over. We need to fully fund the fire service. Pumpers for $400,000, ariel for $750,000, where does it end, and how do we keep equipment on the street?

Recruitment of volunteers has dropped off in my part of the country. Our biggest challenge is that no one works at home any more, coupled with the huge jump in training requirements, and volunteers are very scarce. Study after study says that this generation places huge emphasis on family time and past behaviors like volunteering are not important to them.

We did this to ourselves. Since 1776, we gave this service away for free; we pay for dog catchers and trash collectors — no offense intended — yet not firefighters?

Even combination departments struggle to provide the level of service needed to do the job properly. We keep making it harder to train new volunteers; I fail to find sources of funding to add and retain at least some part-time staff so as we continue to grow we can provide quality service in a timely manner.

So what happens when we make this so tough no one wants to do it? Then where will our response capability be?

We have made great strides in making it look like a more prepared response community, but bigger is not always better.

Seven years later, we have more, not fewer, struggles.
— Chief Howard L. Twining
Pipe Creek Township Volunteer Fire Department, Bunker Hill, Ind.

Saving Families

I read with great interest the article “Body Recovery” in the September issue (www.firechief.com/rescue/body_recovery_0908). I am a 28-year veteran of the fire service with more than 20 years in the dive rescue/recovery business. Our team has been on hundreds of operations during that time.

I thought I'd seen the last of the dragging-for-victims days in our rivers and lakes 20 years ago. I also don't believe there is a well-trained and equipped dive team that would ever use drag hooks in a rescue situation. I can say with some authority that those hooks pictured in FIRE CHIEF will most certainly tear and disfigure a body. The idea that they would “catch a piece of clothing” most of the time and “not tear” into the flesh of a victim who has been submerged for an extended period of time is pure fantasy. Anyone who spends any time in the water knows the skin is susceptible to devastating sloughing, lacerations and avulsions after only an hour.

I learned dive rescue and recovery from the great Steve Linton, former president and lead instructor for Dive Rescue International Inc. To Steve, recovering victims was so much more than just finding bodies; he learned, and taught those of us willing to listen, that rescue was about saving someone's life, and recovery was about saving the next of kin. It was about a dignified, compassionate effort to locate a loved one who was most certainly dead, but important enough to recover in a manner consistent with the work we do as public servants.

Let me relate an event that occurred several years ago on a lengthy and complex recovery mission we were doing for a neighboring fire department. A young man had drowned trying to swim across part of a lake. It was a public swimming area and the pressure to locate him was magnified by the need to reopen the recreational area. On the second day of the mission, the family had gathered in full view of our divers who were running patterns in zero visibility and a difficult bottom contour. Snags and fishing line were attached to them when they surfaced. On my way in for a break, I noticed the family all putting their hands in the water at the same time. There must have been 50 people touching the murky waters.

We always try to keep the family informed of what we're doing, why we are doing it, and our progress in finding their loved one. I was giving them an update shortly after returning to shore and I asked them why they had their hands in the water. They said they were praying. I told them we certainly would accept divine intervention to find their relative at this point and that it sure couldn't hurt. The mother of the victim said she wasn't praying that we would find her boy; they were praying that none of our divers would be hurt in the process of looking. I was afraid to speak, knowing the lump in my throat probably wouldn't allow anything intelligible, but managed a “thank you.”

At that moment, all the things Steve Linton, Damon Rust and Dan Gilliam taught me, along with all the other divers out there, hit home. Recovering their son, brother, nephew and cousin would bring great relief and an ability to grieve to all these people. It was personal, and it was one of the most important lessons I've ever learned. The firefighters who carried the bodies of victims out of the World Trade Center aftermath know exactly what I'm talking about. They went to great lengths to provide comfort for those heartbroken families whose only solace laid in the way firefighters and police officers treated their deceased family members as they recovered them. The technical portion of search and recovery must be combined with a profound measure of respect for the lives of those left behind.

For those who would argue the drag hook system is safer for rescuers, I have only anecdotal evidence to offer in reply. Well-trained, well-equipped and well-led teams won't take unnecessary risks to recovery a body. They use available technology, strict selection and training criteria and always employ the philosophy of risk versus benefit that Linton laid down years ago. We dive in some of the most difficult waters in the country here in the Pacific Northwest. Black, cold water that is filled with large-limbed trees, feet of silt and thousands of yards of fishing line that entangles divers. We also deploy in significant currents in our rivers and have not had an injury or fatality among the dive rescue community in the Puget Sound area since I've been in the business. That safety record is due in large part to the philosophy of Linton and his instructors, and the training and management of the people involved.

Recommending the use of primitive methods that further injure or damage a body when we have the technology and skill to provide the respect, compassion and dignity required to save the family is, in my opinion, unwarranted and unjustifiable.
— Capt. Tom Marino
Valley Regional Fire Authority Officer in Charge, Water Rescue Division, Auburn, Wash.