Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday.

I'm getting old.

How did I spend my birthday? I was on duty at my firestation. My crew got me a Spongebob Cake (I have proudly mounted the Plastic Spongebob that came with the cake on the brim of my Helmet).

It was an unusual night - we didn't run any calls. Well, we did from 3am to just before 6am, but not on my birthday itself.

Bah.

Fire School - Consumption Test

Consumption test day is usually a long drawn out day. Given that I've attended the last 4 or 5 of these, I decided to make sure I was comfortable while watching the students do their thing.

We setup for the day, lined the students up, broke them into groups and began the fun.

I did make sure that I brought an ambulance out and parked it nearby - as a reminder that every year *someone* goes to the hospital on this day (usually for dehydration because they're retarded and ignore our advice about not going out drinking the night before, but it's more dramatic to make it look like the Consumption Test is Evil).

The Consumption Test begins.

My job was to take the students who had just completed the Tire Drag, and have them do 20x (yes, only 20) chops with an axe. Not the most stimulating of jobs, but thankfully I had my Comfy Chair and Cooler With Ice and Cold Drinks.

Much to my surprise, I did get to Make A Difference with a lot of the students. I'll explain.

When you exert yourself, are wearing 60-80lbs of structural firefighting gear, and are breathing through an SCBA, you tend to get a bit winded. Most of the students who arrived to my station were breathing very very rapidly. Of course, this type of breathing doesn't really give your body time to do it's magical gas exchange and get the oxygen you need in and the waste you need out, out (hyperventilation).

I took it upon myself to spend a moment prior to chopping to work on the breathing techniques. The idea was to get the students to focus on breathing in and out while counting to 5. 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. This is a modification of a technique I learned cave diving that enabled me to minimize my air consumption rates (0.25 cubic feet per minute with moderate activity).

Anyway, this seemed to prove beneficial to many of the students.

Then came one of the students who was starting to panic. He claimed (quite obviously and accurately) that he was claustrophobic and that he wanted to remove his mask. He was very near total panic and become more irrational as the seconds ticked past.

Happily, we (the student and I) were able to regain his focus, using a combination of breathing techniques and Jedi Mind Tricks, and help him push past his phobia and he continued with the rest of his tasks. That made me feel pretty good inside.

The rest of the day passed almost without incident, until the very end.

Near the end of the day, it became obvious that one of the students was somewhat overheated and dehydrated. As the class was dismissed, I noticed that said student was in the hands of one of the Holy Triumvirate, one who is known for his disdain to all things EMS.

Apparently the HT was suggesting to the student (who was in somewhat of an altered level of consciousness, dizzy and had stopped sweating), that all he needed was a cool shower to fix him because "that how we did it back in highschool football", (keep in mind this would be in the 60s).

So I asked one of the other instructors to get the Lead Instructor, and bring the ambulance to us. Meanwhile, I attempted to cool the student with towels soaked in ice water draped around his neck and had him place his hand and arms in coolers full of ice water (this helps cool the blood and thus lower the temperature from the inside).

When the ambulance came, we put the student onboard, grabbed one of the medics from the training center and took our boy to the hospital.

Phew, that was close. I can only imagine the medical and legal fallout if the HT had his way...

Thank god for 18 yr old Talisker.

Fire School - Day 1 - Introductions

So today was the first day of class.

We, The Instructor Cadre, wanted to try to make a point to the fire plebes this year that would hopefully stick with them throughout their careers. This point was simply - this is Dangerous Shit and Being a Firemans Can Kill You. As someone who is a Near Miss statistic (I was injured at a box call in a way that has killed more than a few people over the years, but ended up with a smashed face, busted teeth, split lip and a very very wounded pride), I felt that it would be good to point out that Shit Happens, and It Can Happen to You. I had asked to be the one to teach this point but unfortunately one of the Triumvirate did it. I was relegated to helping with the paperwork. This was okay for me (just not the poor students), as I had to drive to NYC shortly into the day anyway

As the lemmings started to arrive, I saw some familiar faces - students from the last class who were here for Firefighter 2, students from my former station and students from my current station.

The anticipation in the air was palpable. The students were clearly excited to be there and begin their Journey of Fire. The eagerness to learn was on the faces of all the new students, and the wary apprehension was there on the returning ones. You see, they new something the newbies didn't. They knew the instructors.

[My county] Fire Rescue system is a combination system. This means we have both paid and volunteer firefighters in the same system. While there are some career / vollie issues, over all this works out well for everyone. The county saves money on staffing, and the vollie side has a real budget for apparatus, equipment and training.

Where we fail on the vollie side is the Instructor Cadre. While there are some instructors who are excellent, traditionally the Lead Instructors are guys who have been in the Fire Service so long they were waiting for Prometheus with a hoseline.

While this is a resource that is full of experience and history, it has a tendency to be a resource that is outdated in approach, concepts, technology and attitude. The county is aware of this, but instead of simply using their better instructors, they are gradually phasing them out. it's like pulling teeth, instead of pulling once and being done with it, they are wiggling, twisting and gently pulling - causing much more pain and anguish than needed.

Disclaimer: I don't put myself in the category of the better instructors. I'm fairly new at the Fire and EMS instruction, so I'm more focused on trying to delivery the information the students need to pass their tests, and to minimize the carnage of twisted minds left behind by the Holy Triumvirate.

So... Day 1.

As I mentioned above, I left early into the day. But I did learn some things about the class already:

1) 1/3 of the number were AWOL and didn't advise the Lead Instructor - so buhbye to them!
2) filling out personal information on bubblesheets (the infamous Green Form), was beyond many people
3) the Holy Triumvirate can rip the happy innocent souls from students in mere minutes.

Instructor Orientation

Last night was Instructor Orientation. It was the night where we received a copy of the Master Plan (the nights that we're teaching), and also to learn the Rules of Engagement.

Aside from being there to teach most of the hands-on practical days, I was disappointed to find out I was only teaching two lectures. Salvage and Overhaul and Ropes and Knots. Ugh. I'm hoping it's a testimony to my great motivational, inspirational and awe inspiring teaching skills that I received two of the three dullest lectures (the third being Wildland Fire), but really I think it's cause I'm the low man on the totem pole and shit flows downwards.

I was also surprised to learn that we are being a kinder, gentler Fire Service. Apparently it is much harder to remove the chaff from the wheat now - much more paperwork and documentation is required to beg the County Administration for permission to remove students before they go out into the real world and kill someone (and that person is unfortunately unlikely to be themselves). We had some issues in the last class with a couple of people who demonstrated the validity of the [My State] Department of Fire Programs Firefighter 1 testing. Basically we learned that if you have a pulse, you can pass. Cerebral functions are apparently entirely optional.

Traditionally, one of the more effective ways of removing the unwashed from the program is the Consumption Test. This is where we have the students carry a weighted highrise pack (45lbs or so) up and down stairs 2x, drag a tractor tire that has been weighted with sandbags (170lbs-ish) the length of the Pad (the training ground) 2x, simulate pulling ceiling with a weights pikepole on a weighted and springloaded ceiling prob 40x, chop with an axe 40x, climb 3 flights of stairs and pull a 50' coil of 1.75inch hose hand over hand up and over the railing and back down again 2x and finally raise a permanently mounted 36' truss beam extension ladder on their own. All while in full turnout gear and on air.

However, this time, we're doing less than 1/2 of that. Looks like the Whiny Bitch Movement is infiltrating my hallowed Fire Service.

One of the larger, more senior and self inflated instructors (one of the Holy Triumvirate) also went on a tirade (as usual) regarding the absence of some of the Instructor Force and how they are Not Committed and Letting the Students Down by not being here so we could remove some of the inconsistencies in the program. This was most ironic as he is one of the larger contributors to the inconsistencies in information that our students face.

It was pointed out to him that the missing instructors where currently teaching the EMS First Responder class. Happily, as another tirade began to wash over us, [Ned] came and saved me by dragging me (kicking and screaming for joy!) to assist with the aforementioned class.

Ned rules.

The Program

This year will be an interesting year for the instructors at our County's Volunteer Fire School. Here's why:

1) It is the first time we are combining Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2 together.
2) We have a brand new burn building and training facilities that have never been used, so we'll be learning about this as we go.
3) We are using newer instructors (like me) more in an effort to reduce the presence of those known as the 'Chubby Triumvirate.'
4) There are students just coming for the Firefighter 2 portion of the class.
5) Total class numbers are expected to be around 75. (50 for the 1 and 2 program and 25 for just the 2). The largest class we ran was the last one, which was around 48.

I wonder if Costco sells Prozac in bulk?

The Reasons

Why did I become an Instructor?

My reasons are simple:

1) when I started teaching, it was really the only way I could keep my basic firefighting skills fresh. Getting anyone at my (now former) firehouse to do any training was like trying to pull teeth from Plies - likely to get me killed or ass-raped. I'm at a real station now, but I still love teaching.
2) it actually helps me make sure I know my shit. Answering questions, explaining concepts in different ways and with different examples ensures that I truly understand the fundamental material.
3) it's fun to torture people
4) my shirt says, "Instructor" - how sexy is that?
5) my life will literally depend on some of these people at somepoint. What better way to gauge who I should avoid, and to help make sure that they really know what they're doing?
6) it's a great way to help my station and community
7) it is very rewarding on a personal level
8) it gets me out of the house, and my girlfriend knows where I am

Introduction

My name is 'Chad' [name has been changed to protect the innocent, guilty and a special sheep I met last Thursday called 'Flossy'], and I'm a volunteer Fire Instructor. This is my blog.

Let's start at the beginning... well, not at the beginning, but at the inception of why I wanted to write a blog about this in the first place.

I wanted to keep a journal of this process for one of three reasons: 1.) Either I could look at it 20 years from now and laugh at what a poser I was, 2.) People could read it at my (or my students') funeral and try to eke out some sort of meaning for the life that was snuffed out in the first-ever fire-school death brought on by uncontrollable laughter, or 3.) I found out one of my student's has been writing a blog of his own, so I wanted to share the Instructor's Perspective.

Plus, I'll get to publicly make fun of people, and they might even read about it!