Brian McMahan
Everyone Goes Home® Region X Advocate
As we reflect back on the year 2009, we think of the good, and not so good events that have happened to us during the previous year. Unless we had a tragic or negative significant emotional event, we tend to think of the positive things that have happened to us. For some of us, the positives include getting married, the birth of child and/or grandchild, a fabulous vacation, the purchase of that once-in-a-lifetime item, or a goal met. For others, the loss of a loved one or a great disappoint may be how they remember the year.
With mixed emotions, I'm happy to see the 2009 line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) as published by the United States Fire Administration were down in 2009 - a sharp decrease from previous years. LODDs have not been below 100 since 1998 when there were 91 reported. At the same time, I'm also sad that there were in fact 93 LODDs for 2009.
As a whole, the fire service has some responsibility for the loss of people in its profession. While not blaming anyone specifically, we all need to share the responsibility for the loss of our fire service sisters and brothers. It is up to us, our crews and company, our shift, and our department, to come home safely to our families.
Firefighters need to get educated on how to prevent LODDs. We need to take an active role in reducing preventable causes that contribute to LODD and we need to convince at least one other firefighter to do the same. This goes not only for LODDs, but for fire service injuries as well.
There are many programs set up to educate fire service members. All of these programs listed below are free and quickly available through the Internet. All address the same general mission through different groups. All of these fire service organizations are committed to the safety of fire service members.
The Everyone Goes Home® program has information and training available to assist with the reduction of LODDs and fire service injuries. In addition, the Firefighter Life Safety Resource Tool Box has thousands of hours of learning. Firefighter Close Calls has information and training available on their website and can send you updates of LODDs and happenings in the fire service as well. Another thing we can do is submit a near miss report to the Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System and gain on-going education from these incidents. NIOSH has investigation reports aimed at reducing future LODDs by investigating and sharing information from past experiences. In addition to training, the International Association of Fire Fighters has their education programs for safety, as well as, the fit to survive program. The International Association of Fire Chiefs maintains a list of ongoing hot topics affecting the fire service today. The National Volunteer Fire Council has a listing of training and education material. The Western Fire Chiefs Association has their Take 5 drills (also available on EveryoneGoesHome.com) for quick drill topics and related documents. Online learning is offered through the National Fire Academy as well as on campus and off campus training. Fire Department Safety Officers Association has learning on Safety Officers and PPE. While not listed here, there are many more programs that do great things to reduce preventable firefighter injuries and death. Simply use your Internet search engine and type in "firefighter safety."
Firefighters also need to honor those who have lost their lives by educating themselves on how others died and what they can do to reduce and hopefully eliminate preventable fire service LODDs in the future. Honoring firefighters from LODDs also includes using the resources of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
In closing, 93 is a number to remember for 2009. While tragic, 93 fallen firefighters represent a decreasing trend. Remember the 93 people who lost their lives for the fire last year. Please do something for yourself, your co-workers, all of the past LODDs and their families, as well as, your own family. Get educated on what you can do to prevent the next fire service injury or LODD. Share what you have learned with other fire service members. Together, through education and training, we can ensure Everyone Goes Home.
93 - it's a start.