Steve Arnold
Retired Fire Chief, Pattonville Fire Protection District
Missouri State Advocate

Over the past 33 years of my fire service career, I have paid close attention to the number of annual line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) and have always strived to learn the lessons, chain of events, and causes that led to each situation. As a fire service instructor and safety officer, I have educated and trained fellow firefighters about the inherent hazards of our profession with the hope of preventing a LODD in my department and in the greater St. Louis area.

When the Everyone Goes Home® program was nationally launched, I was relieved to know that national fire service leadership was finally paying attention to health and safety. I was passionate enough about Everyone Goes Home® to become a state advocate to help spread the word about the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives.

I dove in headfirst, full steam ahead, speaking to everyone I knew in the St. Louis area about the initiatives. I sent out personal letters to fire chiefs all over the state of Missouri announcing I was personally available to assist them with educating their firefighters about the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. I was ready to effect change right now, right away. I was surprised, let down to say the least, because the response to my efforts and letters was very poor even to the point of a lack of interest. I didn't let this discourage me. I kept plugging away, picking up a department here and there, speaking to those who were willing to listen to me. I began to realize this was going to be a long, slow process that would take a lot of time to effect "true change" on how we, in the fire service, look at our own health and safety.

The definition of "change" is: to become different; to become altered or modified; to become transformed or converted; to pass gradually into; and the substitution of one thing for another. As we all know, major changes in the fire service always meet stiff resistance because it is a challenge to the status quo - 200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress. Look how long it took the fire service to upgrade personal protective clothing from rubber coats, pull up boots, flimsy thin shell helmets, and orange rubber fireball gloves to the state-of-the-art protective clothing of today.

Thinking about the word "change," I recently had the privilege of delivering the Courage to Be Safe® class to the St. Louis County 78th Fire Recruit Class on April 13, 2009. The recruits were brand new to the fire service and just starting out with their careers. Their minds were ready to receive new ideas, knowledge, and health and safety concepts about the job of a firefighter before anyone else had the opportunity to contaminate them. I presented the initiatives by making them personal to each and every recruit and appealing to their common sense.

To my pleasant surprise, I received an email from one of the recruits several days after my presentation wanting permission to put the Everyone Goes Home® logo on their class T-shirts. We ran the request up the Everyone Goes Home® chain of command and the request was approved. This class wanted to support the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and promote the Everyone Goes Home® message by placing the logo on their t-shirts.

I attended their graduation on June 24th. The 78th recruit class president spoke about commitment to education, training, good health, and never allowing complacency to affect them throughout their career so that "Everyone Goes Home." I was on cloud nine. The future of our fire service talking about, living, and promoting the very idea of change that all of us have been working so hard to instill in the corporate mind of the fire service.

The class honoree, Pattonville Fire Protection District retired Deputy Chief Mike Price, was honored with a class plaque that will hang on the fire academy wall for all future recruit classes, as well as, fire service personnel to see. On the plaque was the Everyone Goes Home® logo to remind us that "true change" is beginning to happen in the greater St. Louis area, no matter how gradual it seems to us.

My message to all state advocates is to keep plugging away. Keep trying to effect change in your local departments. Think about devoting as much time as possible with new recruits. This is where there is fertile ground. This is where true change will happen as these young men and women enter the service and eventually work into leadership positions. We will then start seeing a dramatic reduction in LODD.

On a side note, I am happy to report the Courage to Be Safe® training program has been accepted as part of the class curriculum for the St. Louis County Fire Academy and St. Louis City Fire Department Academy. We are also working on placing it in the St. Charles County Fire Academy class curriculum. My fellow Missouri advocates and I will continue to work hard for change. How about you?