Times Square NY

As a departure from my usual ruminations I am looking forward to next year and, with a reasonable amount of apprehension, considering leadership goals.

The NFPA has thrust a rather large one upon us for the coming new year- Rehab. Sure we've always done it donuts, sandwiches if you're lucky, and of course all the coffee and soda that you can drink. But that doesn't play anymore.

I said to the chief "hey, I'm 50 pounds overweight (It's my blog and MY reality here) I'm thinking that I should be removed from active service and sent to some desk where I can't hurt myself, or someone else." SHAZAM!! I'm the Safety Officer. Careful what you ask for.

So now after all of the certifications that really haven't shown much I am pushing for Rehab. Picture this, NFPA 1584 says necessary, education, monitoring, and my favorite EMS confirmation. Let's get 12 type A personalities on the fireground at a "worker" and have my five foot nothing female ambulance crew do an assessment and tell a few of them that they shouldn't go back. Let's let the Safety Officer (Captain) intervene and order them to break. Let's watch the chief have a stroke when third alarm is needed for a house fire. The average fire service folks have not realized that this SOP, SOG is so far "out of the box" that almost nothing can be "the way it always has." And that's good.

Subterfuge is what I am suggesting. Slow calculated steps of deviousness that leads the entire group to DEMAND that we have this fantastic new service available for our firefighters. We started slowly by storing cases of water and Gatorade in the apparatus room. Then someone put some on the engine. Then people started asking for the sport drinks instead of soda or coffee. Now we don't supply the sugar and caffeine. Next it's the donuts. We'll start by offering Power Bars at the meetings, throw a few boxes on the apparatus for a snack. So what if they are eaten at times other than those intended? We'll replace them. Soon I'll be getting requests for them because they don't like waiting for the canteen to come. The next stepis on scene.

I talked with the EMS chief about ordering the new forearm immersion chairs and a Masimo CO detector. All I have to do is submit a few pictures to the paper with firefighters using them with a caption "firefighters use new chairs to help get them back into the fight more quickly, or firefighters prepare to re-attack" and they will be lined up for use. Now my diabolical plan takes a turn, we have to put the chairs near a sought after area of the fireground...I'm going to request that the chief do what he can to position Command in my unnamed but in reality Rehab Area. Everyone wants to know what's going on, here's a chance to hear it first hand. Plus there will be unspoken pressure for the firefighters to listen to the EMS folks because the Chief is there unofficially supervising the area.

I'm sure that there will be bumps along the way, but I'll rehab the plan and reset the goal because this is one resolution that I simply must keep.