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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on January 26, 2008 at 6:16pm

Many yeras ago, we were responded to an MVA with entrapment (we provide rescue) and on route, one of our members came across a car roll over. He's an off duty Police officer.

Upon investigation, he found 1 fataly injured member of the loca lfire brigade, in uniform who was responding to the same accident.

He called it in and waited for the services to arrive.

The first arriving was the local fire brigade who diverted a truck from the original call.

Recognising the potnetial issues and implicaitons with this job, he pulled hi badge and stopped them from entering the scene citing it was a crime scene. He held them back until the Police and other services arrived.

Once the fire brigade were informed that it was one of their own, another brigade was activated to provide fire coverage and the original brigade was stood down from all operational duties for 1 week.

What happens in your department?

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on January 26, 2008 at 8:45pm

To para phrase John Travolta in ladder 49, we get back on the truck and keep going, because thats what the (victim) would want you to do. If you get to an accident and it involves your own members, call the local police department, contain the hazards, treat the patients and then you let the police department do their investigation like any other time. If you are in the midst of a LODD there is no time limit for being stood down set in sonte, it would depend on the department policy to dictate that. It would suck for it to happen, but we all must face the harsh reality that it could happen and if it did to remain professional to get the job done that we are trained to do.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on April 1, 2011 at 12:56pm

bump....more pertinent than word games

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Permalink Reply by Bull on April 1, 2011 at 2:00pm

This is a hard one for me to understand !!!! Are you asking more because you knew the person involved......or just to the fact he was a firefighter on the responding dept ??? Around here where I live, it is very small and rural, 98% of the calls we go on involve someone we know or are related to. We would never get to go on any calls if we had to stand down just because we knew the victim....thats why Im asking more info on the original question....

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Permalink Reply by Clay Reynolds on April 1, 2011 at 3:12pm

Interesting questions, I believe the main point of the questions are if one of your own apparatus's were involved in an accident and god forbid one of the members was killed what do you do? I believe your closet so you respond but mutual aid would be requested to assist. As far as standing down I believe give time to greive however long it takes and then let the members decide when it's time to get back on the trucks.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on April 1, 2011 at 4:46pm

Did you say bump?


LODD Protocol would be to remove folks directly involved with the incident from active duty. Decision to return to work should be left up to the individual. It's better to be around others who fully understand the situation rather than folks who can only imagine, and try to be helpful. It's not uncommon to have a mutual aid response by neighboring departments to help reduce the manpower burden until overtime crews can be brought in.

Good question for forum post Lutan.

CBz

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Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on April 1, 2011 at 6:02pm

We had years ago a fatality of one of our own but it was probably before I was born or shortly after i was.He rolled the tanker and he was ejected and the tanker landed on top of him.That is as much of the story as I've heard cause nobody really talks about it.
This is a great question and I'm not sure if we have a policy on this or not but I will check because it's not something that I'm sure pops into peoples heads.I'm sure everyone at one time or another has thought of how they would handle an LODD mentally but not about how a response is handled according to a policy.I'm going to assume that if you show up unknowingly that it is one of our own then we would proceed to do what we do but It may be a good idea to maybe get another station called because you don't have a clear head if it is one of your own.We had the misfortune of one of the EMS in our area involved in an MVC and he was ejected and died as we were responding to a call rightin front of us and we stopped at that call and had another station paged out to cover the original accident.That is as close to this situation I have seen.Great question.I will see if we have a policy or maybe my Chief who is also on here might answer it first.

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Permalink Reply by Wade Seely on April 1, 2011 at 7:33pm

We would respond and treat the scene according to SOG's and then do everything needed to make sure our members were taking care of. The other thing to point out on this subject is that in samller more rural areas a lot of the time everyone on the crew knows the person invovled whether they are a member of the department or not. In my department most of the firefighters grew up and went through school in the area, so think about how many times you may run on a close friend in those scenarios, and how the department can help the firefighters in those situations.

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Permalink Reply by 55 TRUCK on April 2, 2011 at 12:26am

We take care of our own.

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Permalink Reply by backsteprescue on April 3, 2011 at 4:19pm

A few years ago we had crews out on the interstate for an MVA on a cold, icy January night. One pt in the vehicle and a FF was inside holding c-spine with another standing next to the vehicle applying a C collar. At this time there was only an Engine and Medic Unit on scene as the Rescue Squad was still en route. A van lost control on the ice and slammed into the vehicle, rolling it onto the firefighter who was next to the car and a police officer, trapping the driver and other firefighter inside, and pinning another police officer between the two vehicles. Immediately, an additional full extrication assignment was requested. Our guys did what they could, but manpower was low that night and in addition to needing more bodies to help with the rescue, our guys who were near misses were in a state of shock and were not of much help. (Can't blame them)

Both firefighters were off work for an extended period of time but returned to work after extensive physical therapy and surgeries. Both police officers had to retire on disability due to injuries sustained from the incident.

Since then, two other police officer from our jurisdiction have been hit by vehicles and both times our department did an extraordinary job considering the circumstances and considering that both were very good friends of alot of our firefighters. One of these officer had to retire due to his injuries and another was off work for a year.
Over on Firehouse, some people argued that if a member of XYZ is hurt/injured/trapped, etc that it should be other members of XYZ FD who work on them, and while I agree with that to an extent, sometimes the shock will be such that you're going to need the help. There is no shame in calling for help.

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