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Being Anal with proper terminology and political correctness
Alright folks .. now its time for me to do what I do best and get those creative and thinking juices flowing... Just the other day there was an incident Where two Vehicles Collided .. upon Dispatching this Call I referred to this as a Motor Vehicle Crash With unknown Injury or Entrapment.. Immediately I was scolded by a Security Sgt and a Captain ( Neither of Which are Firemen or have any Emergency Service Training ) saying that Calling it a Crash Made it sound More Severe than it may or may not have been.. ARE YOU F**KIN KIDDING ME! Statements like this are what give people Annurisims and Im sure of it.. This is a Dangerous profession folks .. When Emergency Responders are hindered by such Trivial things as Political Correctness everybody suffers.. I can recall another instance I was on a Ride along ( I do this for training and Familiarity of My Response Area) with a Patrol Lt.. Upon making a right turn The radio rang out with My Partner who was covering at Dispatch asking Our location I responded that We were near the Contsruction site and Yes I could call .. I was told immediately that this was not a Construction Site as I have called them for years.. but instead it was called a Construction Footprint..
There are times when Proper terminology is important and times when it is more important to use Plain English.... I have found that it is more important to use plain English than attempt to make my responders confused with My grasp of the Language.. What are your thoughts?
B King
There are times when Proper terminology is important and times when it is more important to use Plain English.... I have found that it is more important to use plain English than attempt to make my responders confused with My grasp of the Language.. What are your thoughts?
B King
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Spanner 122 on
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We try to keep our radio transmissions as clear and concise as possible and that includes using the same and correct terminology. That being said, if someone used the wrong term, no one was there to jump all over them. We don't use terms like Roger anymore and other more military terms since we amalgamated, but you hear guys using them all the time as a sort of revolt... lol. It doesn't interfere with the work so really, it's more of a running joke than anything else.
As for calling it a Motor Vehicle Crash, we use MVC here for all vehicle incidents. Accident, collision, crash, whatever, why does it matter if it sounds more severe? What matters if you respond thinking it's worse than it is, are they going to go faster or slower depending on what they think they are responding to. If it's a priority one call, should you not always respond the same?
Ah well... I say try to use the right terminology simply for clarity's sake, but if you don't from time to time, as long as the message gets across that's what matters!
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Fire is not a beast.
It is a chemical chain reaction of heat, fuel and oxygen! (wink)
And I thought that we had replaced the gender specific "fireMAN" with "FIREFIGHTER"?
NIMS says that we do NOT talk in code. Plain English.
As far as scanner land?
There is a little known tactic used around here called "private channel". As soon as we get everyone in MABAS on red, white, and blue, scanner land will go silent or at least they won't be monitoring our calls anymore.
And frankly; I don't care is Joe Public listens in. We conduct ourselves professionally and it doesn't matter.
I don't know of any attorneys who has a scanner on their desk waiting to hear the next screw up.
It's a non factor here.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda W. on
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According to NIMS as many other have said we have to use plain language and no 10 codes.Instead of using the 10 code we just plain language out what the 10 code meant.Like our 10-10 is back at the station so we just say we're back at the station.I don't think it was fair for him to say what you said was wrong.If the person you were talking to could understand what you were saying then he should have kept his mouth shut.It wasen't his conversation!! At least you didn't saw something like "Down that road there bout 1/18 mi. then south 3/25 mi. turn at the icebox and thats where we be" I know lol,buts it's true. Sometimes you may have to say turn at the icebox.Heck we have one rural rd. that we call icebox corner and there's no icebox there anymore but there was at one time for many years and people just still refer to it as that.Yes some people think it's a lil silly but as long as the person who needs to know understands then thats all that matters.
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Permalink Reply by Erik on
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MVA vs. MVC. vs. PIC. vs. 10-50PI... I've been in the same position; in fact I think for a while there was a big fuss about switching to MVC and away from MVA because it wasn't always an accident... it's seriously a messed up situation, but oh well what can you do. Grin, nod, and once you make chief institute a "common sense" policy regarding terminology lol.
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Permalink Reply by mck306john on
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In my county we use MVA for all vehicle wrecks or anything like that that do not have entrapment, for wrecks with entrapment its called MVA-1, and for a wreck with a DOA its called MVA-2, just a lil way we made everything better. we also use it the same way for fires. in my county dispatch toness us out for either: Vehicle Fire, Structure Fire, Garage Fire, Barn Fire, Brush Fire, etc, and if theres entrapment its called Structure Fire-1, etc... it seems o make everything go smoother... but honestly id doesnt make a difference from a MVA to a MVC they both mean the same thing and u know ur going to a Motor Vehicle Wreck...
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Permalink Reply by Derek Ery on
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In Michigan all collsions are refered to as crashes.
They are refered to as crashes as there is someone at fault.
An accident is just that and there is no fault.
And, All emergencies are considered as severe until further information is provided to prove otherwise.
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And that makes perfectly good sense.
Crasher is at fault; crashee had the accident!
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Something one of our dispatchers has started to do was to say responding to a Car vs pole, car rollover, But for anything involving multiple vehicals it always remains Motor Vehical Accident. The one word differance will not hold a shred of credibility in a court and is just a manner of being grammatically correct.
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Permalink Reply by Katie Moon on
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When I first came to Alabama, I would say Rescue 18 en route (n root)
I was promptly told it is pronounced rowt. Lot's of laughs from people thinking I'm an idiot. As the song says, I get my kicks on Route 66. It's pronunciation and local preference. Now it's just R-18 responding. ...
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