The Walla Walla Fire Department is in the area of Poplar St. near the intersection of Myra Road responding to a HAZMAT incident. They say around 7:21 a.m. Wednesday they got a report of a 55-gallon barrel in the road. As soon as crews arrived they isolated the barrel and put absorbent material around the storm drain so no liquid could get inside.
- PUB DATE: 4/20/2016 9:14:36 AM - SOURCE: NBCRightNow.com

The Walla Walla Fire Department is in the area of Poplar St. near the intersection of Myra Road responding to a HAZMAT incident. They say around 7:21 a.m. Wednesday they got a report of a 55-gallon barrel in the road. As soon as crews arrived they isolated the barrel and put absorbent material around the storm drain so no liquid could get inside.
- PUB DATE: 4/20/2016 9:14:36 AM - SOURCE: NBCRightNow.com

View some more action from the hands-on training Tuesday at FDIC International 2016.

Video: HOT at FDIC International 2016, Day 1

More FDIC Video

Indianapolis, IN (April 20, 2016) - In his welcoming remarks at this morning’s Opening Ceremonies, Fire Engineering Editor in Chief and FDIC Education Director Bobby Halton described a mosaic of the firefighter character that has sustained the fire service’s reputation for courage, honor, and civility. At the same time, Halton alerted the audience to the fact that forces in today’s society can work to undermine firefighter code and honor unless firefighters continue to value and uphold those attributes and practices: “For the fire service of today, it is a time of great discovery and of great debate, a time of tremendous advances and of troubling criticisms,” Halton said.

Character
There are various schools of thought about the origin of character, Halton explained. Some believe character is inherent in us at birth. This may be so; but, still, it is not too late, he asserted, citing the influence of parents and education: “Most agree that with training, with example, with exposure, and with habit, you can create ‘character.’ It is self-evident that how one conducts oneself in manners of honor, courage, and civility is dictated by one’s background and education as a gentleman or a gentlewoman.” The right mentoring, the right examples, and diligence, can help good men and good women to become great firefighters.”

And beyond that, added Halton, “We can imbue firefighters with heroic dreams.” He quoted Benjamin Disraeli: Nurture your minds with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

This firefighter character, Halton said, should involve devotion to the mission, loyalty to our fellow firefighters, respect for authority, and a desire to reflect the highest moral ideal. That ideal for firefighters, the one that rises above all the other ideals is, "Honor Before All," Honor Ante Omnia:  We will never under any circumstances leave anyone behind. Whether they are rich or poor, they are like us or different from us, they are mentally healthy or mentally ill, whether they contribute to society or live off the generosity of society, we leave no one behind.

High Standard Threatened
Noting that the fire service’s tradition of high standard is ‘continuously threatened,’ he repeated a warning issued almost 20 years ago by Fire Service sage Tom Brennan: We are losing our fire service. It is time to take it back. Although little has been done in response to this prediction, Halton said, it is not too late to act.

The answer to Tom Brennan’s clarion call, Halton said, has been with us since our inception. We are required to do what George Washington has directed us to do: Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God. Raising that standard requires that we embody fairness, exemplify self-control, exhibit sympathy, and embrace duty.

Halton drove home his messages with riveting examples of military men and firefighters who displayed all these virtues under conditions of extreme duress. All involved leaving no one behind, Honor Above All, Honor Ante Omnia.

Mosaic of the Firefighter Character
What constitutes the firefighter character that will “get the fire service back” to where it should always be? Among the components Halton cited are the following:

• Charisma and representing all that is good, honest, and noble. ‘Adapting’ the statement of Kurt Vonnegut that the fire engine is a  stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man, Halton noted that it is the firefighter that is a stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man. Trying to uphold this image leads to tremendous moral and ethical demands, said Halton.

Alluding to Thomas Hobbes’ view of the world as a place where every man is against every man, Halton said fire

Indianapolis, IN (April 20, 2016) - Steve Pegram, in his keynote address this morning, shared with the audience how firefighters can take a step toward saving a life ‘without ever riding a fire engine again, without going on a call, and without even getting out of their seats” by becoming organ donors. He also related how ‘the simple’ 4 F’s Rule’ --Faith, Family, Friends, Fire Department—the priorities by which he strives to live his life--figured prominently in sustaining him and his family during a crisis involving the illness of Mollie, his wife, and their long, distressing wait for donor lungs that almost arrived too late.  

Pegram and Mollie, a nurse, were married for 16 years and had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Riley when Mollie, who was 37 years old, developed a nagging cough. The cough grew progressively worse and whatever was causing it was adversely affecting Mollie’s stamina and overall health.

Following is a summary of Pegram’s account of the long ordeal the family underwent as they waited and waited for the donor lungs that would ultimately save Mollie.

One morning while I was at work, Mollie called to say she was in the emergency room (ER).  I wasn't surprised. I knew that something was wrong. When I arrived at the hospital, Mollie was in severe respiratory distress. A scan showed she had a huge pulmonary embolism lodged between her heart and her lung. She was rushed to the intensive care unit (ICU), where she was aggressively treated to save her life. In a few days, her condition stabilized.

But, nagging questions remained: Why did she get so sick so fast? Where did the embolism come from?  After a few months and additional tests, we learned that Mollie had pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that doctors said had no cure and could kill Mollie in a few years if she did not have a double lung transplant.

Our family entered into a pattern of living fraught with repeated visits to the hospital and tests and reevaluations that revealed that Mollie’s body was in an escalating struggle for oxygen, jeopardizing her vital organs and, ultimately, her life.

Friends, Brotherhood, Hope
“Throughout my life,” Pegram interjected in his description of the medical crisis, “people have appeared at different times, at just the time for the right situation; many of them firefighters.”

As Pegram went on with his account of Mollie’s brave fight, the audience could see how accurate this statement was and also how the 4 F’s Rule figured prominently.

One example involved Chief Billy Goldfeder, a good friend and mentor of mine, who helped locate a doctor for Mollie. Goldfeder and I met while in high school in New Jersey. When he heard about Mollie, he contacted me and said when he was a volunteer firefighter on Long Island, he rode tailboard with a young boy named Johnny Ornes. Ornes now was a thoracic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital—and, his specialty was lung transplant. Here is just another example of the great network the brotherhood of the fire service is.

Dr. Ornes immediately reviewed Mollie’s case and quickly confirmed that lung transplant was the only chance for survival, and he said it should be done soon while Mollie was still strong.

We chose the Cleveland Clinic instead of Johns Hopkins because the clinic was 3.5 hours away from home instead of nine hours away as Johns Hopkins. Cleveland Clinic  is one of the top lung transplant centers in the country. At the clinic, it first had to be determined if Mollie met the criteria for a transplant. Testing results showed that she did, and she received a Lung Allocation Score (LAS) rating of 45. The LAS dictates where you are on the national waiting list. The higher the number, the sooner you will get transplanted--or at least that’s the theory.