WHEN YOU ENTER the fire service, you may hear that more lives are saved by a properly positioned hoseline than anything else done at a fire. Some may contemplate how that can be true when throwing ladders or performing an aggressive primary search to rescue civilians is of paramount importance. However, protecting the open interior stairs of a private dwelling with a hoseline is extremely important for firefighters to get to the floor above to search. At multiple dwellings, it’s just as important. This line is there to protect fleeing occupants using the stairs as their exit. Often, we’ll have to hold off on fire attack until the stairs are clear. Research has shown us that controlling the door will limit bringing the fire to us and reduce the smoke using the doorway as a ventilation point. For these reasons, it’s imperative to stretch properly and get the hoseline in position to attack the fire and protect exiting occupants and our members operating on the floor above.
Another way to save lives is to use the structure’s physical characteristics to help us, namely the windows. Venting a window creates a doorway and introduces fresh air (oxygen) to the fire, which helps feed it. In addition, if the door to the room we just vented is open, the fire can be pulled in our direction. If you’ve created a doorway, then proceed cautiously over the threshold and search the room. Sweep and sound the floor before you enter to ensure there’s no victim below the window and the stability of the floor is intact and can hold your weight. Once inside the room, shut the room’s door to limit fueling the fire and hopefully lift the smoke off the floor to enhance your search efforts. Searching a regular-size room for a victim in a window-initiated search (better known to many as vent-enter-search or VES) can help us do exactly what we’re supposed to do: save lives. Don’t forget that this doorway is also a rescue avenue to remove victims from the contaminated atmosphere that much quicker.
Over the course of the years, we’ve also seen a change in our daily duties to ensure we’re saving lives, usually the mission of all departments across the country. Although it might not seem as glamorous as walking out of a burned-out room-and-contents fire covered in blown-in insulation, throwing a pair of medical gloves into a biohazard container can reap the same results, a victory. Although we might not look at it as a life saved, we’re doing more and more each day than just a properly positioned hoseline. Performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the 40-year-old softball player who collapsed on the field in front of family and friends puts us in the spotlight— especially when we hear, “We didn’t call the fire department, we called for an ambulance,” in the background.
We’re trained to save lives; the citizens depend on it; and the city, town, or district that pays our salaries has us there for an overall insurance policy and to serve the community’s needs. That’s why it’s just as important during the apparatus checks to ensure the oxygen bottle is full, the defibrillator battery is charged, and the medical supplies are stocked and ready to go. In an instant, we can be called on to perform a lifesaving measure and, just as our air in our self-contained breathing apparatus is our lifeline, so is the medical equipment we carry for the victim.
Although we may experience the same habitual call for the person down on the sidewalk and find the same individual suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, it’s our duty to help. Whether it’s administering Narcan or just getting the patient into the ambulance for transport to the proper facility, we’re in the public eye.
A similar run is to a nursing home for an unconscious victim where we perform CPR on frail, elderly adults. We must remain steadfast in our operations and service and follow medical protocols.
The “lift assist” is another common incident. While many of us might behaving thoughts in our head about the “hows” and “whys” of the victim’s size, we’ll have to put that aside and use our human strength and occasional ingenuity to remove the victim from the building and into the ambulance. There are times when we have to remove windows, take sliding glass doors off the track, or cut walls open to remove the patient. Many times, a Stokes basket may not be large enough to handle the victim, and we may have to use a specialized carrying device. In multiple dwellings, rope and a highpoint anchor have been used to lower the victim in a Stokes basket using the well hole as the channel while firefighters escort the victim down the stairs. Don’t be surprised if you don’t have an ambulance wide enough to transport the victim. Often, the brackets on the floor that secure the stretcher are removed to facilitate transport.
Despite the harsh realities of an incident, there come times when we’ll perform for an extended period and either lose or save a life. All of us will experience performing CPR on a patient and bringing him back, then suddenly losing him again, and then working to establish a pulse. Performing chest compressions or squeezing the bag valve mask makes you realize the victim’s life is in your hands. Starting an IV line is totally different than stretching a hoseline, but we must have the same pride and professionalism in both duties. Saving lives is saving lives, and the public is thankful for that.
MICHAEL N. CIAMPO is a 38-year veteran of the fire service and a lieutenant in the Fire Department of New York. Previously, he served with the District of Columbia Fire Department. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the lead instructor for the FDIC International Truck Essentials H.O.T. program. He wrote the Ladders and Ventilation chapters for Fire Engineering’s Handbook for Firefighter I and II (Fire Engineering, 2009) and the Bread and Butter Portable Ladders DVD and is featured in “Training Minutes” truck company videos.
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