Seconds count!!

I was brought up in a fire service that preached that seconds count; practice tasks until you can do them in your sleep, and then keep practicing! Learn as much as you can, and pay attention to detail. Early on, I also remember being taught to treat every response as if it was your own family or property, regardless of whether it was a call in the projects or the Riverside mansions.

I have always held these fire service morals in the highest regard, and ultimately, they have caused me to change and operate differently than the way to which some may be accustomed. Possibly the most notable difference, which is the main point of discussion for this article, is personnel coming off of the apparatus with their face pieces, helmets, chin straps, ear flaps, gloves, and SCBA cylinder already on; the only thing they have to do before entering a hazardous atmosphere is click their regulator into their face piece.

Now, I can just hear some of you tensing up already, but please relax that sphincter slightly and keep reading. Let me also clarify that I don’t expect everyone to come off of the rig with all of their equipment
on and ready to go. Only two groups of firefighters responding to reported fires that sound credible and confirmed working fires should perform these actions: members riding in positions that are responsible for advancing attack lines and backup lines; and members that are given the role of search and rescue. These members should absolutely come off the rig with all of their equipment on and be ready to go to war! These members should be prepared to open that apparatus door and start moving towards their objective with as few breaks or interruptions as possible! I mean ...that is the goal, right?

I can imagine the older members in the service might cite this practice as a blatant safety hazard; they will say that you cannot do a proper size up with your face piece on, you cannot communicate with your face piece on, you have limited visibility with your face piece on, the face piece fogs up, and my favorite- you get tunnel-vision when you put your face piece on. I will agree and say that all of these concerns are valid, but

I will then tell you that, like so many other tasks on the fire ground, we need to simply train and become PROFICIENT doing these fire ground functions while wearing our face piece.

Sure, it’s easy to say, “Become proficient in operating this way,” but like so many other things in the fire service, you get out of it what you put into it. Do you just want to be an OK fireman, or do you want to be a great fireman that not only provides great service to their community, but influences and effects change within the service itself? To become proficient to the point that you operate like this, you need to have a good grasp on things such as neighborhood familiarization, response areas, types of construction, and equipment and operations. The idea is to spend more time in preparation to cut down and streamline when it’s time to operate!

The event in my life that solidified this idea for me was the first grab I ever had. I say this with the utmost humility, as I screwed up plenty! It was a daylight fire, and it

was reported working, with entrapment from the go. At the time, I was working on a truck company, and we were a two man truck. My partner and I had things worked out, since he had to get out to get his air pack and other equipment on, that he would provide any necessary radio traffic upon arrival so that I could go as soon as the truck stopped. We were the third piece on scene of a small, two-story, ordinary single family. Fire was standing out one window on the second floor. The engine’s backseat rider was stretching an 1 3⁄4 handline to the front door area. I saw the first-in truck driver getting his air pack on, and his partner was taking a ground ladder to perform VES to the uninvolved bedroom window on the second floor.

As we came to a stop, I was out the door and moving toward the building. Since the first in truck was already preparing to VES, I figured I would try the interior stairwell, since it was a second floor fire. I came up to the porch and passed the nozzle man, who was kneeling down, putting his face piece on by the front door.

The door was already open, so right into the living room I went, and I found the first-in truck’s captain kneeling at the base of the stairs, putting his face piece on. I jogged past him, and as I went up the stairs, I clicked my regulator into my face piece

and took a breath. At the top of the landing it was pretty simple: a door of fire to the left, or a door of smoke to the right. At the time, I couldn’t even see a small bathroom door immediately in front of me. I made the right into the smoke filled room, and

I was kneeling about three feet inside the doorway. I thought I would pull up my TIC and quickly scan the room. Problem was, the retractable lanyard on the TIC got tangled up in the irons I was carrying.

While trying to look through the TIC, I felt radiant heat on my back that caused me to react. I threw the irons down to my left and moved forward away from the fire, along the left-hand wall. I found myself at the one window in the room, and the first-in truck was taking the window from the exterior.

I startled the incoming VES firefighter as I grabbed the window sash to yell that I was searching the room and to let him know how hot it was. I continued around the room and came to the bed, checked the top of the bed, and simply started to climb across.

I was thinking, “OK...I’ve pushed my luck far enough; I’m out of here.” When I stepped off the bed, I rolled my ankle and realized that I had put my foot down on the victim’s leg. Here was the victim, lying right beside the bed the entire time. When I first entered the room, planning on a quick look with the TIC, I could have found the victim immediately if I had only felt 12” to my right.

I quickly realized where the victim’s head and shoulders were and grabbed up under the armpits. The patient’s head was away from the stairs, so I had to turn the patient around to take them towards the stairs.
The engine had just made the landing and started knocking the fire. The captain was also right there, and he helped me remove the patient to the outside of the building. The patient was in arrest, and after about two minutes of CPR, the patient had strong pulses and was breathing on their own.

The main point I want you to take away is that all of that happened in the amount of time it took my cohorts to put their face pieces and remaining equipment on. Let me also stress that all of the people I discussed in this call are very respectable firemen that are aggressive and good at their jobs, they were just used to putting their PPE on at a different point in the response than I.

Seconds count! In this case, with these people, that equated to enough time to search and find a victim in a single bedroom.

Recently, my oldest son came to me, expressing interest in the fire service. This kid has obviously been in the firehouse before, but by no means does he live and breathe it.

Our local fire company has a junior program, so we joined, and within the first 2 weeks we were at our first training. He had the opportunity to put on turnout gear for the first time. Some of the other juniors that had about a year on were advancing dry lines and throwing ground ladders. The kids were wearing airpacks but not breathing air.

I told my son that he was going to wear his face piece the entire time. When repacking hose, he could drop his pack, but I wanted him wearing the face piece the entire training.

Two hours later the boy had stretched and repacked several hand lines and thrown several ladders with the other juniors.

Initially, when I told him he was going to wear his face piece the entire night, he questioned it and didn’t understand my motives. After about two hours of operations while wearing it, I asked him how he was doing and what he thought of it. He stated that he was already getting to the point of being used to it being there!

I walked him along the analysis of the experience and explained that you might have to look around a little more to have that complete view of obstacles, especially things directly in front of your feet.

We talked about controlling our breathing and becoming intimately knowledgeable of our equipment and how to use it to minimize adverse effects, such as fogging, or adjusting straps and buckles with a gloved hand.

We talked about the importance of being in shape and taking the time to catch your breath to provide a clear and understandable message.

As for the tunnel vision- simple practice and getting used to the face piece eliminates any issue of tunnel vision and makes the entire operation more fluent and proficient.

Ultimately, we are here for our citizens, and in these situations, I’m talking about, they need us most.

Absolutely every second counts, and if you can change the way you do business in order to make that grab a little bit quicker, it might just be the little bit that makes the difference.