Brennan Q&A August 2005

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TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience having responded to 33,000 fire alarms. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (Conn.) Fire Department. He has a bachelor of science degree, summa cum laude, John Jay College; Alumnus of the Year Award, John Jay College; chairman of the Connecticut Fire Chiefs Association and a charter member of the National Fire Protection Association, Fire Service Section. He has delivered courses and seminars throughout the United States and has instructed at the National Fire Academy. He was the editor of Fire Engineering Magazine for eight years, is currently a technical editor, and his column “Random Thoughts,” is a regular monthly feature. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition. He is the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.

AUGUST 2005

Question: One of the more wasteful and frustrating of injuries and deaths that firefighters on any emergency scene have ever experienced is getting struck by their own apparatus being operated in reverse gear to gain a better position or in taking up from the scene. We have recently read of the results of just such a circumstance causing the death of a young firefighter, and it has occurred often in the past — too often. Do you know of any policies that would prevent such injuries from occurring in a fire department?

Answer: Apparatus striking a firefighter or a firefighter falling from an apparatus is truly a disaster, because it usually has nothing to do with the emergency scene or any risk analysis or any result-oriented procedure that I know of. We have had firefighters fall from the apparatus as it is leaving the quarters even before it makes the apron and into traffic. We have had additional injuries and deaths of firefighters falling while backing into quarters, only to be run over with the tires of their own rig. Maneuvering at the scene into a more aggressive or advantageous position or backing out of a street full of apparatus have also taken an alarming toll in injuries and deaths to our firefighters.

My frustration lies in the fact that it is the most controllable happenstance of any that we can perform on duty. It is so simple that you have to wonder where are the leadership and management heads for all these years?

The simple rule is this: No one other than the chauffeur (driver, if you must) is to be on the apparatus while it is being operated in a reverse direction! Period.

There are a lot of reasons for this, other than the obvious:

1. An apparatus driver operating in reverse needs all the help he or she can get. There are so many blind spots that have to be watched. It is impossible to safetly operate any of today’s monster rigs in reverse. This was also true with horses and steam engines. All rear corners of apparatus and the center blind spot of most aerial devices has to have a second and third pairs of eyes to guide and communicate with the driver and the officer.

2. The officer must get off the rig, walk next to the opened window, and be in communication with the driver all the time the apparatus is in reverse.

3. For response, no one, save the officer and the chauffeur, should be on the apparatus while it is moving from quarters to the thoroughfare in which it will begin its response. We are appalled at the apparatus creating another emergency with civilian or firefighter injuries before they even get out of the block that the firehouse is erected on. There are so many duties for the on-duty personnel to be responsible for to insure a safe and injury disaster-free response to the emergency scene:

a. Doors have to be checked open if apparatus bay; doors must be closed if compartments on the apparatus.

b. Sidewalk traffic must be accounted for and halted before the officer is signaled to initiate response.

c. Automobile traffic must be stopped. In a heavy urban setting, this may also mean traffic must be cleared from the direction of response before the apparatus proceeds past the sidewalk line.

d. Firefighters and officers don response clothing and the officer positions in the cab. All other response personnel proceed to the duties described above.

We can go on with this for a long time but I think you get the idea. I was a member of the New York City Fire Department, and for the last century of responses there have never been firefighters on the apparatus when it is operating in a reverse direction. The above intent has been in the book of regulations for that department since firemen stopped pulling apparatus to fires.

No one that I have met in the last 20 years as I travel and spend time with the nation's fire departments has a faster turnout time than those in the City of New York, so slow response is not an excuse that any of you can use.

Get smart and get a policy so entrenched that firefighters will always disembark any apparatus that is intended to be operated in reverse.

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Write if you agree or don’t agree or on anything. Tbrennan@firenuggets.com

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