WE ALL NEED TO TRAIN ALITTLE MORE

Here at Loose Topics we usually try and keep our articles political based, but this one will be alittle different then the others.

In case you haven't kept up with the news the last month or so, our city has had a few very serious and dangerous situations occur, where our fire department has had to respond and act. There was the rescue at the grain elevator not to long ago (where the firefighters actually saved the man's life and received awards for doing so). There have been many vehicle accidents where there are trapped citizens that must be extricated from the vehicle by the fire department. Just today a young woman, whom was pregnant was trapped in her vehicle under a 18 wheeler that the fire department had to extricate her from. The young woman and her 8 1/2 months still in womb baby are said to be doing fine at the hospital. There have been many structure fires throughout the city where the fire department has been called upon to extinguish the blaze. There have been large grass fires recently that the fire department has had to use many different resources to put out those fires. There have been hundreds of medical call from heart attacks to diabetic emergencies to the average sick call, that the fire department has been called upon to help and possibly save a life.

This article is not going to be a "Look at how great our fire department is" article. This article is about how fire departments train or possibly the lack of training they do in order to accomplish these tasks. Now some people that read this will start getting upset about right now and that is ok. Most people I know, fireman included, have the attitude of "these situations are dynamic and we just have to over come whatever we need to in order to get the job done". This attitude while heroic is not helping people learn through training.

Fire departments actually give there personnel very little actual training. Most training that is done in a fire department is company based, and voluntary at that. There was an interesting article I found from up north on the east coast. It is one of a fire chief in Pennsylvania who was at a training seminar. This chief stood up in the middle of the seminar and stated he did not want too much training in his department. Why would he say this? He said he did not want his personnel to know more then he did. Really? That shows how most departments nationwide think, the foot soldiers do all the training and work but the white shirts take credit for the results.

There are many people that believe training is a waste of time. These people are not just in the fire service , but everyday people feel that same way. People feel there are more important things to do then train like, drink coffee, eat chow, and watch tv or play games. These things have there place in life and in the fire service, but not at the expense of training.

There will be people that say "who is this guy to say we need to train more, we practice on the go, I don't need to train because I already know that stuff. These are cop out answers. Yes I am a fireman and yes I do train just about every single day. Whether it physical training or mental training (maps, protocols, scenarios) myself and my crew train.

Everyone needs to remember that just about everything in life, from the time we are born to the time we die, involves some kind of training. There may be things that you do, that you think you don't need to train on because you feel proficient at and so training is not necessary. I assure you that training and practice are needed in every part of your life. The only way to improve at anything is to train and practice, whether it be pulling simple fire hose or playing the guitar we must train and practice.

Many different people depend on our training. There is of course yourself, your family, your co-workers. There are the citizens of the city that depend on us and expect us to be experts at solving their problems. We must train in order to do that. To think that training only is for your benefit, you are wrong.

As you can tell this article is fire service based (obviously I am biased). As much as we want everyone to train alittle more, which must be given the training and the training items we need. Who provides us with that? Well of course there is the city that we work for but some of the training and training needs come from the state. So if a department does not have the proper training who is to blame? Well I guess alittle bit of everyone is really. But I want to share with you what can happen if the city or state does not provide the training that is needed.

There are some cities that provide their fire departments with everything they need from the smallest piece of equipment to the largest fully functional burn buildings. We here are somewhere in between. We like to think that our department has a training facility, but we must share it with a local college here. The facility itself is very nice, the problem is our department actually gets to train at it very seldom. Sure there scheduled dates once a year, but as far as everyday usage no way. Give alittle example here of how a fire departments training can be put aside because of a shared facility like this. I once saw a fire company at this facility, they were training on setting up exposure lines. That is basically shooting water from the outside onto a building to keep it from catching fire. There was a college fire academy class next store in a smaller structure and I believe that were training with ladders that day. Well in here Corpus Christi it gets alittle windy and some of the over spray from the fire departments hose lines were getting that academy class wet. They are going to school to be fireman and they are getting wet, yet they complained and that fire department company was asked to leave their own facility and come back a different day. That actually happened people. So you see what happens, even if training is wanted by departments they must be given all the resources in order to do so.

There is a story I found on the web that I thought was interesting and pertains to this subject. This story takes place in Massachusetts, when a serious incident involving a private sector construction worker was injured. This individual was attempting to disassemble a crane for movement to a job site. According to the article the construction company was cited for "serious" violations by not training the employee to use the crane, which fell on him and crushed his legs while he was dismantling it. The OSHA report further states that the employer did not instruct each employee in the recognition and avoidance of unsafe conditions and regulations applicable to his work environment to control or eliminate any hazards or other exposure to illness or injury.

So basically in plain terms this guy was attempting to operate a piece of equipment he had no training on and got injured severely in doing so. This is where people will say that he was stupid to attempt to do something he wasn't trained for. Really? How many time have you done something that you weren't trained to do? How many times has a fireman done something on the spur of the moment but was not trained to do so? How many fire departments have not properly trained their personnel to do things they do everyday? The answer to these questions is too many. This training is not just about the physical aspect of training, its about training people to manage other people as well. How many fire departments give their newly appointed officers actual management training? Not many, if any at all.

Now don't get me wrong training happens in the fire service. It happens basically on a voluntary basis though. There are state mandates and regulations on training sure. But these are easily done by signing a piece of paper saying certain training has been completed. Some can sit at a computer and take a few tests and that qualifies as their training. Training protects everyone, from the firefighter to the general public. There are way too many people in important positions with the attitude of we will figure it out when we get there. You and your family depend on you knowing it before you get there. Families worry, friends worry, the public worries that we may get injured or even worse lose our life doing our job, so training makes perfect sense to ease their worries.

The other side of this is that I am willing to bet that you or someone else could be found liable in a court of law (or the court of public opinion) for someone dying or getting seriously injured because the responders were performing tasks for which they had improper or no training on.

A close friend of mine and a great fireman once told me "Don't get complacent, complacency leads to injuries and deaths, not just for you but the people you swore to protect". I will never forget that and I try and train alittle bit everyday ever since.

Remember training doesn't just apply to the fire service, we all need to train and practice at our everyday functions.

What do you think?