BY BILL GUSTIN
A modern firefighter’s helmet that meets all of today’s safety standards is marvelously strong, lightweight, and protective. But all the high-tech design, materials, and testing that go into a helmet can’t save a firefighter’s life if it doesn’t stay on his head. This thought occurred to me while I was watching several hours of fireground footage during the production of my training videos. I was dismayed to see how many firefighters lose their helmets because they remove their chin straps or fasten them around the back brim.
I became a believer in helmet chin straps long before I became a firefighter. In the early 1960s, my dad, William Gustin, a lieutenant in the Chicago Fire Department, decided to “retire” his old leather helmet and replace it with a new, lightweight helmet made of a plastic and fiber composite. His new helmet was equipped with a chin strap-something rarely seen in Chicago in those days.
Years ago, firefighters didn’t have a big problem keeping helmets on their heads; older helmets, especially those made of leather, were heavy, and gravity did a pretty good job of keeping the helmet in place. Additionally, leather helmets were sized to fit each firefighter like a glove, securely and very comfortably. Remember also that old fire helmets rode much lower on the head than many of today’s helmets because they were not required to have an elaborate inner-impact cap and suspension assembly. But, perhaps the biggest reason our predecessors got by without chin straps was that they rarely used SCBA. Hence, they didn’t have to contend with a face mask that interfered with the helmet’s fitting squarely on the head.
Helmet chin straps, like just about any new thing in the fire service, were met with some opposition. My dad tells me that he had plenty of “experts” warn him against wearing a chin strap. They theorized that if he ever fell through a floor he would surely hang himself if his helmet were to catch on something. Fortunately, my dad did not heed the warnings, or he would not be around collecting his pension today.
In 1962, my dad was assigned to Snorkel 1, the first articulating boom platform in the fire service. While operating at a fire in a furniture store, a collapsing wall completely buried him in bricks at the Snorkel’s turntable controls. Although critically injured, he eventually returned to duty and owes his survival to the chin strap that kept his helmet on. “Without that chin strap,” he says, “the first brick would have knocked off my helmet, and the next ones would have killed me.”
Some firefighters still use the old “hanging” excuse for not using their chin straps. Could someone actually get hanged from his chin strap? Years ago, I suppose it was a possibility. Today, however, hanging is a pretty lame excuse. Modern helmets are equipped with an inner-impact cap designed to separate from the outer shell if the shell and helmet are pulled apart with sufficient force, such as in falling through a floor and catching your helmet on the way down.
A state-of-the-art helmet cannot protect a firefighter’s head if the helmet is accidentally kicked off a porch, pushed off a fire escape, or knocked down a flight of stairs. Firefighters risk losing their helmet when they take it off and lay it down while donning their SCBA facepiece and protective hood. Although this seems to be a widely accepted method, I believe there are better ways if your helmet has a chin strap. A chin strap can keep a helmet attached to a firefighter when he dons his mask and hood.
FASTENING METHODS
Chin straps with a long, easily adjustable “postal” slide allow a firefighter to loosen his strap, lift his helmet, and rest it on his shoulder. This method permits the donning of the facepiece while standing or walking.
Some chin straps have a break-apart clasp instead of a postal slide. The clasp allows the helmet to be removed when donning the mask and hood and the strap to be refastened under the chin without tightening around the air hose connected to the mask. However, using the break-apart chin strap in this manner has its drawbacks. First, it separates the firefighter from his helmet. Second, firefighters tend to waste too much time fumbling with the break-apart clasp when they try to reconnect it under their chin.
If you have a large neck, break-apart chin straps, as well as some postal slides, may be too short to allow a helmet to rest on your shoulder. If this is the case, try the following method: Loosen the chin strap and take off your helmet. Then, pass your SCBA mask up through the chin strap. The helmet will now hang from the air hose while you’re donning the mask and hood. Passing the mask, connected to the air hose, through the chin strap ensures that it will tighten directly under the chin when the helmet is redonned, instead of around the hose and regulator.
It is difficult to don an SCBA mask, check for a proper seal, and cover exposed skin with a hood while wearing bulky firefighting gloves. I believe it takes a lot less time to put your gloves on after the mask, hood, and helmet than to try to don them while fumbling in heavy gloves.
When I respond to a fire, I stow my gloves under my SCBA shoulder strap and don’t put them on until they’re needed, usually after donning my mask and hood. Other firefighters keep their structural firefighting gloves in the pocket of their bunker pants until they’re needed. A self-closing glove strap, available from fire equipment distributors, is an excellent way to carry gloves where they are readily accessible. Similarly, some members of my company have fashioned a clip and snap hook that securely carries their gloves but allows for a quick release. How you carry your gloves is a matter of personal preference-what works best for you. Some firefighters choose to or are required to wear their firefighting gloves on the fireground at all times. No argument there. But they will “mask up” a lot faster if they take off their gloves and hold them between their knees when donning their SCBA facepiece, hood, and helmet.
Structural firefighting gloves that meet all applicable standards are necessarily thick and bulky. Although they do a fine job of protecting the hands from burns and lacerations, they lack the dexterity to rapidly couple and uncouple hose connections, tie knots, or start and operate power tools. Some departments permit their personnel to wear leather work gloves when they’re not directly in fire conditions. They always carry their firefighting gloves but wear the lighter work gloves when stretching hose, working with ladders, or operating extrication tools.
Such a policy, however, demands strict discipline and close supervision; otherwise, firefighters “in the heat of battle” may forget to switch into their firefighting gloves and end up burning their hands.
At this point, I’m sure some of you who use SCBA with a facepiece-mounted second stage regulator are wondering: “What’s wrong with donning my mask, hood, helmet, and gloves while I’m en route to the fire? Then, all I have to do is snap the regulator into my facepiece when I need my SCBA.” This practice is, of course, fine if you’re first due at a fire in a small residence and will rapidly enter the structure. It’s not fine, however, for firefighters stretching hose across a courtyard, climbing stairs in a high-rise building, or serving as the hydrant man, hundreds of feet away from the fire!
Wearing the SCBA facepiece with the regulator disconnected has its drawbacks:
- It reduces peripheral vision and the ability to communicate. Look at a group of firefighters; you can’t tell who’s talking when they’re all wearing masks.
- In cold weather, masks tend to fog without a flow of air across the facepiece. When wearing the mask in extremely hot, humid weather, firefighters will rapidly fill their masks with sweat to the point that it can slide around on their faces and compromise a tight seal.
Many fire recruits are trained to get off the apparatus at every fire with their masks on. Again, that’s fine for the quick attack at a small residence. But, this “quick-attack” mentality can get us in trouble at fires in larger, commercial buildings. At these fires, many functions must be performed before SCBA is needed, and these tasks will be easier to perform if firefighters get the masks off their faces.
An SCBA mask dangling on the end of an air hose tends to catch its spider or web straps on just about everything. Some SCBA manufacturers provide a neck strap, which allows the facepiece to hang in the “standby position.” The neck strap, however, can interfere with the protective hood and has the facepiece hanging in an upright position, ready to catch any debris that falls into it.
As an alternative to the neck strap, try this maneuver when you want to keep your mask, regulator, and air hose from catching on things: Take your mask, connected to the regulator, up behind your neck and let it hang on the other side of your body (usually the right side for most SCBAs). This will very effectively place the mask high on your chest and allow it to hang upside down, where it would be less likely to catch any debris.
Every firefighter should practice masking up until it becomes second nature. Rapidly donning an SCBA facepiece can save your life if you should suddenly find yourself in heavy smoke or a cloud of anhydrous ammonia. Find the method that works best for you, and practice, practice, practice!
Use the chin strap on your helmet. It saved my dad’s life; if you have children, someday it may save their dad, too.
