Hero In Action, Santa Barbara County Fire Dept

Police, Fire and EMS professionals go to great lengths to perform at a high level.

Driving their performance is:

• Personal Courage and Bravery

Aiding their performance is:

• Great Training
• Strong Team Members
• Experienced Skills
• Injured Parties who Cooperate
• The Right Safety Gear
• A Belief in the Mission of Public Safety

So from time to time we'll feature the story of a "Hero In Action"

This is the first installment

Date:   Jan 12, 2012
Place:  Hwy 101 along the Central Coast of CA
Hero:  Santa Barbara County Fire Department and US Navy Seebees

Sometime mid-afternoon an empty gravel truck rear-ended a BMW sedan, while on a bridge.  The BMW was forced into the center railing of the bridge and the car was left literally dangling over the edge.

The truck descended some 75 feet over the side of the bridge, which caused a fiery explosion and the death of the truck's driver.

Inside the car was a 40-year old mother, her 10-year old daughter and her 10-week old baby.  Again, teetering over the side of the bridge.

As rescue workers sought to save the family, they obviously battled some extreme dangers.  One of their greatest challenges was gaining the right safety gear to complete this rescue.  Fortunately US Navy Seebees (a Navy construction crew) were driving by and stopped to lend a hand!

What the Seebees offered was a large forklift they had with them, which became the perfect equipment for completing this rescue.

Hats off to the Santa Barbara County Fire Dept and the US Navy Seebees.  And here's a couple video news stories...

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/family-rescued-car-dangling-off-bridge-15370113

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/rescuers-saving-family-dangling-car-15370152

Home Fire Sprinklers

Did you know 3 states now require fire sprinklers to be installed in all new home construction?  These states include California, Maryland and South Carolina.  And the NFPA is working to get this same requirement passed in the other 47 states.

You might ask why this is necessary.  The reason is because research reports, and the stories of firefighters themselves, point to significant savings of life and property when sprinklers are present.

The goal of the NFPA is to reduce (1) the loss of life and (2) the loss of property caused by fire.  Over the years, the NFPA (and others) have been very successful.  Now fire sprinklers in every new home is the current cause driving their mission.

To personalize their message, the NFPA has launched the "Faces of Fire" which tell stories of people dramatically affected by home fires.  Here is one story:

We have mentioned many times on this blog that medical calls consume the vast majority of a Fire Department's work.  But the dangers of fire - in its various forms - is no less serious.

MLB Star to Become an EMT-Firefighter

UPDATE:  Bryce Harper was added to the 2012 MLB All Star Team!!

If you haven't heard of Bryce Harper, then you must not care about baseball.  Bryce Harper is a rising (19 year-old) star for the Washington Nationals.  So much so that he narrowly missed a roster spot on the All Star Team this year!

But he's not getting ahead of himself.  When asked this week what he would do if he weren't playing baseball, he stated his desire to be a Firefighter.  And in case his job in baseball doesn't work out, Bryce plans to spend the offseason getting his EMT training - so he can "do the firefighting thing."  He said its to give him something to fall back on :-)

Well, its an honorable profession.  Doesn't pay as much as the MLB.  And firefighting is more stressful.    But it's rewarding, which is why a huge majority of the 1.2 million US firefighters are volunteers!  And Bryce knows what he's talking about when he says he'll focus on getting his EMT, since 70% of the calls to fire departments are for medical reasons.

Hats off to Bryce Harper, and the heroes who "do the firefighting thing."

Community Paramedicine

If you live in a big city you may not realize this... but almost 75 million Americans live more than 50 miles from the nearest medical clinic and hospital!

For me, in the Los Angeles metro area with 15 million Angelenos (and nearly that many Starbucks!), this can be hard to imagine.  But 25% of the US population lives a very long distance from primary medical care.  What can be done to bridge this gap?

One idea takes local paramedics and EMTs (often in the local Fire Department) and expands their training to help them become Community Paramedics.  Following this training, Community Paramedics support a regional healthcare system by staying in their rural setting and offering various medical services.

Already, about 70% of the calls to a Fire Department are medical related.  But in rural settings the volume of calls can be fairly low.  The concept of Community Paramedicine takes the underutilized services of a Fire Department and connects them to a local population for more than just Emergency Medicine.

Community Paramedics can be trained to offer services such as:

• Primary Care
• Public Health
• Disease Management
• Prevention and Wellness
• Mental Health
• Dental Care

If you are currently pursuing a paramedic program, or know someone who is, consider this one - Community Paramedicine.

A little Firefighting, a lot more Doctoring

As you know, Fire Departments respond to far more EMS calls than actual Firefighting calls.  In fact, an EMS event occurs literally every second in the US!  60-70% of all calls to a Fire Department are for "medical" reasons, not "fire" reasons.

But most firefighters joined the Fire Department not for the gentleness of doctoring ... they joined for the action of firefighting!!

So, to rub a little salt in the wound, firefighters often grow weary of medical patients who become "frequent flyers."  These are medical patients who call on the Department so many times they might as well get a loyalty card and a frequent flyer number!

Firefighters get frustrated that this takes away from their first love - firefighting.  But sometimes their loud complaining can have unintended consequences - by leading Politicians and the Public to believe the EMS function should be privatized.  And perhaps parts of it should, but keep in mind the EMS work brings in quite a lot of money to a Fire Department.  It would be a tremendous loss of resources, and potentially jobs, if Fire Departments began to loose out on the EMS side.

Marc Scrivener wrote a terrific article about this in the Fire Chief Blog.

For now, Fire Departments offer both excellent EMS and firefighting services.  And the complexity of being superb at both is one of the reasons being a firefighter is ranked among the most stressful jobs of 2012.

So to firefighters everywhere ... you do a great job, keep it up!!