we have one guy on our dept. that got a helmet cam and used it a couple times. But on most runs we have found that while he is trying to get it going we are waiting on him and or leaving him behind outside. And besides that like many have already stated I have enough stuff on my helmet. just having my pelican light is enough for me. we don't carry wedges on our person, because every building that has sprinklers in our area we would need a ladder to get to anyway.
Good point Joe. There was a LODD north of Pittsburgh a couple of months ago and the ff was wearing a helmet cam. The video was viewed by the Chief then turned over to authority's for investigation.
I will start off with saying that I have a helmet camera in service on my helmet. I have read all of the posts on here and just have a couple things to point out. One of the safety factors of a camera being on the helmet has been taken care of with the FC II helmet camera. This camera has the break away helmet mount. That way if there is an entanglement problem, the camera will pull free from the helmet. The next point, is with the quality of the footage for interior fire attack. I have a recent video of a working house fire, that the interior fire attack was caught on tape and is of very good quality. I will add the video link at the end of this post. My company has policies in place for the usage of any footage obtained on the incident scenes. All of the footage is regulated through one individual at the fire station. Any footage for posting on the internet, is reviewed before being posted. The only reason the video footage for our company is posted to youtube is for streaming purposes. The videos are then link into our company's website. Even though there are a lot of negative comments out there about helmet cameras, in our situation, it has been a very positive thing. The videos has promoted our fire company in a positive way with our membership and our community. The videos have been used for fire prevention purposes as well as a review for the past year, at our annual banquet. The helmet camera footage has been used in conjunction with dash camera footage and still pictures from company photographers. Our company has a total of 12 helmet cameras in use at this time.
Some of the camera footage has been used in some court cases. Our company also has policies in place for how long raw footage and internet posted footage must be kept. This information was discussed with the fire company's attorney.
Some of the other key points that have been beneficial for members of our company have been watching some of the things that we do on the incident scenes. No one is perfect, and sometimes seeing yourself doing something that might be unsafe, is a reminder for the next time. Members have learned from there mistakes, only from seeing them on the video tape.
Jake, I would strongly suggest you to NOT use a helmet camera in your official capacity on scene. I'm sure you're aware of HIPAA laws and such and if it gets out in the cyber world it will almost certainly be traced back to you and you could be tied up with lawyers and crap like that. Our department expressly prohibits the use of those or even taking cell phone pics on any scene.