Two days ago I read an article about a ff being injured while working a car crash where the vehichle came flying through the scene and struck the FF without any warning. Today I read an article where three more FF's were injured after a car came through the scene, initially struck one FF, then struck the car involved in the initial accident where two FF's were working the vic inside. All three were injured!!!! I dont think the explicit words need to be said to show how I truly feel about the situation.

My dept. has recently put in a new SOP regarding any type of car wreck, whether there are injuries or not. Prior to this SOP change, we would roll our heavy rescue as soon as we had a crew (vollie dept.), then we would roll an engine, and finally a small tanker if it was needed (most of the time it was signal 9). The new SOP states this, with the addition of a new chiefs vehichle to the fleet, he rolls in his explorer first to the scene from wherever he is. Once on scene, (i've never seen him not be first on scene) he blocks the traffic on the side of the road where the accident has occured. Once the rescue pulls up, it blocks the other side. When the engine rolls up, it blocks the side that his explorer is on. Now we have two huge trucks blocking both sides of the road giving us a safe working area inside.

Like I said, this happens no matter what type of wreck it is... Okay...yeah... traffic is blocked but who cares??? Not me!!! Most of the time the cops on scene have a big problem with us blocking all traffic and they spend most of their time on scene bitching at whoever they can about "their" roads being blocked. Then they do what cops do best; go and sit in their cars and play on their laptops or find some girl to flirt with. But once again, my dept. has decided that this is the route we want to take to avoid injury the best we can. I urge all of you to do the same, if you dont have an SOP like this, push for it!!! Cite these unnessecary injuries to the right people. Do what you have to do because this issue is getting to the point of absolute ridiculousness (is that a word? IDK, but it is today)