By Richard Marinucci

The FDSOA recently concluded its Annual Safety Forum and Apparatus Symposium. While there were many great programs, the keynote address that ended the Apparatus Symposium and began the Safety Forum certainly offered much to think about. Janine Driver, an expert in reading body language, offered some very interesting insights into what can be noticed besides the spoken word. Of course, it took her years of study and practice to become an expert but just think how valuable this skill would be for firefighter health and safety and on the fire ground. You could better read firefighters regarding how they really are feeling. It would also be helpful to know how they are responding to direction. Just another aspect of the job to improve. Of course like everything else in this line of work, where do you find the time and resources to be able to improve in this area? But it is something to think about.

Speaking of events that have recently taken place—Super Bowl LIII—look what can be learned. These are teams that have made it to the top of their profession. Whether you are a Patriots or Rams fan, (or thought the Saints should have been playing!), you have to admire the effort that it takes to get there—mentally, physically, and emotionally. There is daily study and practice to learn as much as possible and maintain proficiency, even with the most mundane of tasks. On top of that, players and coaches must withstand the emotional ups and downs of the season and each game. What would your fire department look like if the membership was trying to win a championship and committed to daily practice and study? What if members worked to get into the best possible shape that they could be in for the mission ahead? I realize that it is different preparing for a 60-minute game than a 25-year career, but think of the potential if we could improve our efforts to improve through preparation? There would have to be a significant improvement in the service being provided.

I was talking to a fire chief recently who was lamenting the challenges of working with elected officials. In his mind he was providing good direction and sound ideas to move his organization forward. He had evidence and statistics to back up his proposals. Yet, there was no indication of intent to act on the recommendations. Some of the ideas were outside the norm for a fire department but still fundamentally sound. The frustration was evident from the chief. This is too bad on a couple of fronts. The community risks losing a very good chief—either through relocation or the chief electing to take the easy route and go along with the flow. Either way, the community will not be better for it. Unfortunately in too many communities, the fire service is perceived as a necessary evil that does not contribute to the bottom line. This is done in the name of running government like a business. But, government services exist for the greater good and are not intended to be profit centers. That is why there is the power to tax. If everyone “bought into the services offered” (no pun intended), they would voluntarily send in their donations!!!

On occasion, I go through some of my boxes of materials (okay to be honest my wife makes me clean out the attic from time to time!). While recently doing this, I came across two articles that seemed to be ahead of their time. The first was from 1985, and the topic was “burn out.” Aren’t we still trying to figure this out? The second was from 1990, and the topic was the risk of cancer for firefighters. It seems that we only recently began making some headway educating firefighters and some o

By Carl J. Haddon

Although this column is titled Rurally Speaking, this is a topic that applies to all of us who respond to vehicle accidents, be it on rural highways or on the busiest of metropolitan freeways. It seems that not a week goes by without my email lighting up with news of another fallen firefighter, emergency medical technician, towing technician, or law enforcement officer who was mowed down while operating at the scene of an accident.

I was optimistic several years ago as I attended the National Fire Academy’s inaugural Train the Trainer program for the Traffic Incident Management Program (TIMS). I thought this could be the answer to help reduce the number of responders killed at accident scenes. After all, it’s a free training program that’s available to everyone. You can even take this class online now. Unfortunately, the “D Drivers” (Drunk, Drugged, Drowsy, or just plain DUMB) didn’t get the memo about our program.

We have the time-honored, and much-debated, topics of “illuminescents” or reflective materials that we’ve used on the colored chevrons that used to adorn our fire helmets and the backs of our fire apparatus and ambulances. Additionally, we have the much-debated topic of our brightly colored safety traffic vests and the number of square inches of approved reflective material that we must have on our bunker gear.

Much has also been written, studied, and researched about emergency vehicle lighting. We’ve gone from (I’m going to date myself here) spinning incandescent “Bubble Gum” machine lights to today’s high-tech LED lighting. We’ve also discussed how some of this lighting may be drawing the “D Drivers” INTO the lights like moths to a flame.

With all of this technology and attempts to train the masses to keep them safer, it doesn’t stop those very grim weekly notifications of our brothers and sisters who didn’t make it home from the vehicle accident call that ended their lives.

Many of you know my involvement in the New Vehicle Technology rescue challenges and the work that some of us are doing with automobile makers to help enable us to be more successful, faster, and safer during extrication operations. Today’s new vehicles communicate with their drivers, they can communicate with each other, and they can communicate via Bluetooth and the cloud. New cars can be started, and interior creature features can be activated through your smart phone. With all this technology that goes into making new cars, isn’t there something that can be developed that can keep a D Driver from running through an accident scene and wiping us out while we work? I fully understand that there is nothing that can be done about wicked icy or snowy weather incidents where vehicles start sliding all over the place on the highway and bouncing off each other. But, just maybe there’s some of this automotive technology that allows these vehicles to send a signal to oncoming traffic that all hell has just broken loose some distance ahead and signal them to slow down or slow the car down for them?

This truly is a call for help. Fire apparatus, ambulances, and any other emergency vehicle should be able to be equipped with some device or technology that disables or deters (like lane-keeping assist technology that presently exists) vehicles headed into a working crash site. I’m going to go out on a limb because I’m not a cop (insert 1 of a thousand jokes here), but imagine if law enforcement had the ability to avoid high-speed or low-speed dangerous car