WMD supplement superb!
Kudos! Kudos! The “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Determining Your Readiness” supplement, Fire Engineering, November 2004, is superb! The entire segment was informative, interesting, well assembled, thoughtful, thought provoking, and germane to today’s environment. I feel all of the emergency services personnel in the United States should be strongly encouraged to read and understand the contents of this edition. Thanks to Fire Engineering for continuing to inform and educate emergency responders.
Don Kirkham
Firefighter/Medic (Ret.)
Delaware City (OH) Fire Department
Specialty training a necessity today
Wayne Sutherland’s Letter to the Editor “Firefighting, the New Specialty Team” (December 2004) prompts me to ask him to rethink his career as a firefighter. It appears that his attitude concerning specialty training, and even basic firefighting training, is bad. And bad attitudes kill.
I agree that firefighting is not what it used to be. However, we must remember that without “specialty training” such as EMS, weapons of mass destruction, and hazardous materials, we are taking away “tools from the toolbox” that just may save our lives sooner or later. We have to deal with a vast number and many types of emergencies, some of which we have never encountered before.
Building and home construction are being done faster and with cheaper materials; collapses are quicker. Literally tens of thousands of hazardous materials are being used, produced, and transported each day-and more are to come. And don’t forget about the bloodborne pathogens being transported.
Two skyscrapers were demolished, and 343 of our colleagues lost their lives because someone else was smarter in building construction than we were; boy, they got it right the second time around! We are entering house fires and battling car fires only to find burning enough chemicals, used in the production of methamphetamines, to blow up one or two city blocks. Worse yet is that these “street chemists” don’t work with tried-and-true chemical formulas. For them, it’s a little of this and a little of that, and if I don’t have that, I will try this. Then, we have to deal with all of the “specialty” hazards indigenous to these incidents.
If your department does not train or has forgotten the “basics,” shame on it, your chief, and you. Our fire department and those around us still train, as do the academies I have attended. The fire service is built on tradition. Built into that tradition are the knowledge and experience of the firefighters, company officers, and chief officers who had the foresight and open-mindedness to teach and hand down as much of this information as possible, including in the specialty areas, to keep the great tradition alive in the present fire service and for the future firefighters (the “rookies”) for a long time to come.
Keeping an open mind involves accepting information, both new and old, and will enhance the firefighting experience. Gone are the days of not knowing what killed us. We truly know now what that is-mostly a lack of training and bad attitudes toward training. We have to be prepared!
Think about this: How many times does a resident or a concerned citizen call 911 for a nuclear chemist, a physical scientist, or a WMD expert? When the public calls 911, they expect us, the firefighters, to mitigate all fire, medical, hazardous-materials, special-rescue, and terrorism incidents. We are the first to respond.
Having said that, we have to take care of number one, our responders. The way to do this is with specialty training. If there is fear that the basics are being forgotten, incorporate them in as much of the training as possible, including in specialty areas.
Andrew Marsh
Lieutenant
Mt. Oliver Fire Department
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Seeking to extend PSOB benefit eligibility date
I am a totally permanently disabled volunteer firefighter and am trying to get the Public Safety Officer’s Benefit law amended so that any “living” public safety officer classified as receiving a total permanent disability in the line of duty may qualify for this benefit, not just those injured after November 29, 1990.
In October 1972, six months after I became an active member of the Bushnell’s Basin (NY) Volunteer Fire Department, a car struck me while I was directing traffic at a fire scene. I was only 17 years old and a junior in high school. I suffered two broken legs, a fractured skull, a stroke, collapsed lungs, and numerous internal injuries. I was in a coma for three and a half weeks.
I was awarded $80 per week from the Volunteer Firefighters Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State and received no monetary settlement.
I tried in vain to live a normal life. After I got out of the hospital, it took me an extra three years just to finish high school. I tried to work; I had 27 jobs between 1975 and 1991.
Because of the complications from my injuries, I began collecting social security disability benefits in 1991. I later was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI); the technology to detect this was not available at the time of the accident. I am in constant pain (back, legs, and feet). Overstimulation is also a problem, and I have long- and short-term memory dysfunction.
On researching, I found that compensation benefits for permanently disabled volunteer firefighters are locked into the year in which the injury was received. Since I was injured in 1972, my benefit is $80 a week. However, if I were injured in 1992, I would be receiving $400 a week.
In 1993, I petitioned the workers’ compensation board to reopen my case. I appeared before a workers’ compensation law judge with information from my physicians about my newly diagnosed TBI, which was not documented in my original file. The judge said I was not entitled to any more money. He then said, “If you want to do anything about this, then change the workers’ compensation law.”
I later met with a local state assemblyman and a state senator. We drafted a bill that would authorize and direct the workers’ compensation board of New York State to redetermine my degree of disability benefits as if I had been injured on or after July 1, 1991, the last time benefits were raised. They told me there was little chance of the bill’s passing unless I had the backing of the state’s volunteer fire community.
I wrote letters to each member of the New York State Assembly and Senate as well as members of the legislative committees asking support for the bill. I spoke before numerous town and village board and county legislatures across the state, asking for memorializing resolutions supporting the bill.
The bill, S-1657 (a personal bill dealing specifically with my case), became a law under Chapter 481 of the laws of 1996. Later, I successfully lobbied for legislation to benefit the 28 to 33 permanently totally disabled emergency service workers in New York with similar situations. This law, S-7217-a, orders the state workers’ compensation board to redetermine the disability benefits of these individuals as if they were injured on or after July 1, 1992. This became a law under Chapter 574 of the laws of 1998.
On November 29, 1990, the U.S. Justice Department created the Public Safety Officer’s Disability Benefit, which entitles public safety officers with total permanent disability to receive a one-time monetary line-of-duty benefit.
Recently, I wrote my congressman asking if he would sponsor an amendment to the federal legislation that would grandfather me and the other “living” totally permanently disabled volunteer firefighters injured before the date the benefit was created.
He sent me the following reply: “A concern I’m hearing about expanding the program is that one would have to include all of our nation’s public safety officers injured 30-plus years ago to be fair-not just New York. This could result in a substantial number of newly eligible applicants and could significantly drain the scant resources that currently fund the program. Each new participant would be eligible for up to $5 million, which could add up quickly. The program gets about 275 claims a year. The worry is that the program would be spread too thin.”
I even asked a representative of the National Volunteer Fire Council for help and was told “off the record,” “We all have empathy for you and the rest of the disabled volunteer firefighters out there, but there are other more important issues for us to deal with. It is a dead issue!”
This summer I asked for and received memorializing resolutions from many towns, villages, and county boards of supervisors in Western New York in support of amending the Public Safety Officer’s Disability law to include any living totally permanently disabled public safety officers injured prior to November 29, 1990. I am getting grass-roots support to get the law amended.
Recently, the board of directors of the Fireman’ Association of the State of New York and the Association of New York State Fire Chiefs have agreed to support my proposal for an amendment. I am asking other public safety officer associations across the country to join in the campaign for a change in the federal law.
T. Michael Nicholson
Victor, New York
Lack of seat belt use a problem
Dr. Burton A. Clark’s “How to Get Firefighters to Wear Their Seat Belts” (October 2004) points to a very serious problem in the fire service today. As a firefighter with the Catlett (VA) Volunteer Fire Department, I have responded to more than 1,000 emergencies in the past couple of years. I will be the first to admit that when we are responding to calls, the last thing we want to think about is buckling up that seat belt, but we have to do it.
“Only 55 percent of firefighters wear their seat belts,” according to the article. Wow! Not good. Chief Al Woo [Washington (OH) Township Fire Department] states in the article that firefighters use the excuse of not being able to fit in a seat belt while wearing turnout gear. If this really is the case, then the departments these firefighters are part of need to not only enforce rules for wearing seat belts but also set and enforce rules for the physical fitness of their members. Not wearing seat belts is the number two cause of firefighter line-of-duty deaths. Heart attacks (due to lack of physical fitness) is number one.
You would think that we firefighters would always wear seat belts, with all of the times we stress safety to citizens, not to mention all of the accidents we see on a daily basis. This article should not have been needed, but it is. This is a huge problem. I thank Dr. Clark for giving this issue much needed attention. I just hope it can save a few of my brothers’ and sisters’ lives by getting them to buckle up.
Jeremy Moore
Catlett, Virginia
