Add a Comment

Comment by jonathan on November 10, 2008 at 4:40pm

if i was that fire fighter i would sue them for false aresst

Comment by Nick DiVesta on October 27, 2008 at 4:44pm

Well I see that this blog has gotten alot of good use even tho someone ripped me a new one for it. this is exactly what i wanted to come out of it, this is not just a one time incident... it happens more then what is caught on tape, although it doesn't come to that extreme of an incident. just to make it clear this was NOT meant to be a "BASH or PIT COPS against FFs" it is mearly a what would you do in this situation??? thank you everyone for your thoughts and stories. stay safe!

Comment by Chad Eason on October 24, 2008 at 9:19am

A few years ago, we had something similar happen here. We had our rescue parked on a bridge providing lights while we were doing a water rescue of some lost boaters. The sheriff's deputy tried to lock up our chief till his captain arrived and in no certain terms told him to leave us alone and let us do our job.

Comment by Jenny Holderby on October 24, 2008 at 3:18am

Sounds almost like an incident where a tanker was overturned in a ditch, the placard read flammable & acid, but didn't give aspecific number. We blocked the roadway, rerouting traffic & were attempting to identify the load. A trooper appeared & demanded that he speak with the ape in charge of the circus and that the road be opened. I explained that we had not yet identified what was in the truck & were putting a team together to investigate if the tanker was leaking. The trooper told me if I could guarantee that there was a leak/spill that he would leave it alone. I told him that if he could guarantee me that there wasn't ,we would pick up our toys & go home. I also asked him if he would like to suit up & see for himself. He went to look but since the tank was 3/4 turned he couldn't tell (with no gear). He was upset because it was taking so long to get enough people in hazmat gear to try to get the manifest papers. I pointed out to him that the placard wasn't giving us a specific number to look it up & that it said it was flammable acid. I was also worried about it leaking into the drainage ditch that flowed into the river only a couple of 100 yards away. Before it panned out any farther, a ODOT officer arrived. The road remained closed.

Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on October 23, 2008 at 3:47pm

I have attached a picture of a cop car that wasn't parked in a safe area in front of the engine on scene. He was parked BEHIND the engine doing traffic control, had just gotten back into his squad and BOOM!
He wasn't a happy camper.
The motorist who hit him was travelling 75mph. If she slowed down to that speed, I wonder how fast she was going before she did?
Here's the photo. It's also on My Page.

Comment by Cory on October 23, 2008 at 2:34pm

Hey how is everybody doing today? Hope everybody is doing good, one thing we have to remember that just like firefighters there are some stupid cops out there, and we have to remember not all cops would pull this crap. We all know a firefighter that can be stupid at times and hope that the chain of command will take care of it just like we hope his supervisors give him a little talking to and maybe a little more. I know the first time I watched this video I was outraged, because we had a similar incident with a state trooper that thought he was the all mighty, we tried to convince him the highway needed to stay shut down so nobody else would get hurt. It was in the middle of the winter and a bad stretch of the highway, thank God our guys were standing in front of our fire truck, but it got slammed by a vehicle so needless to say his chain of command had a few words with him after the call. There are more details about one of our guys that almost got arrested but that was averted too bad the fire engine had to get slammed in order to make a statement.

Comment by Joey "BigShow" De Piano on October 22, 2008 at 1:06am

When I was a Lt. had a very similar event go down on our GSP (my other co. ) we were covering for sister company mutual aid and arrived on a bus v car 1 entrapped not serious hurt . as we pulled up to scene the slow lane was already 80% blocked by the mva so as in this case safety fir my men and thinking of the trooper to free him up from traffic duty , angled and shut the lane off with the rescue unit. as my guys jumped off he ran to the truck and started screaming to move he got in my drivers face and I stepped in and explained nicely if he was going to try and enforce anything we were leaving and he can explain why,, he said and I am not kidding.."Get this pos off my road"..I informed dispatch we told to leave by trooper so and so and got my guys on the truck , what the Super trooper was unaware of was ems freed the victim, but since all dispatch is taped i went right to Dispatch and retrieved a copy of tape and made 3 copies one for our mayor one to the troopers barracks..and one well in case, he was a bit nicer after learning that and the troopers decided it best to have a meeting with all units responding to parkway calls and as a result we get the lane if need be

Comment by FETC on October 21, 2008 at 2:27pm

Let me first state that if ICS was used at this incident the overall outcome would probably been different. A solid Command Presence, with identification of who is in charge would be very beneficial. A cop telling the chauffuer, just pisses the Captain off to begine with.
So the Captain didn't really do his job as the Senior Fire Official who was supposed to be managing the incident and not patient care.

My State changed the RSA (the law) stating that the Senior Fire Official and the Senior Law Enforcement Supervisor ON SCENE will be in UNIFIED COMMAND together at motor vehicle collisions in a roadway. Therefore it forces the fire and police department's to start working together and takes away one from being more powerful than the other. The RSA used to be the Fire Department was in-charge.

Since the change in law, the communication between police/fire has changed and they now understand how we would like to operate and we have also incorporated cross training the PD. We offer the Police Department a free training about FD Operations and view some videos of police and firefighters being struck by a car. Likewise, we asked the PD to cover "Preservation of Evidence" so everyone can learn from each other.

When teaching the class recently, I asked the Police Chief of this little town, what was the patrol officer's second priority when doing a size up of a motor vehicle accident. (first being scene safety) His answer was the patrol officer does a survey of traffic flow and how can he get the traffic moving before they have a traffic jam or secondary accident.
This is instilled into the patrolman's brain from his/her early days at the police academy.
Now ask the Police Chief what the - Accident Recosnstruction Team's priorities are when arriving at an accident. 1st being Evidence Preservation and ROAD CLOSURE.

You see we will continue to see roadside agruements between patrol officers and firefighters about the mere 30 minute road closure while the brothers do extrication, BUT when the ART- investigators arrive, they don't think twice about closing the road down for 4 hours while they photograph the accident scene?

It is all about comunication and training, so everyone can remain professional and go home at the end of the incident.

Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on October 21, 2008 at 11:38am

FS:
We can't have the u no whut vs u no whut threads.
So, this is the next best thing.
I mean; how many discussions have we already seen on "how do you get along with police?"
Are we already getting short on topics?
I'm thinking about Facebook.
TCSS.
Art

Comment by Elissa on October 21, 2008 at 6:32am

Ok I have never seen this video until today but I have to admit "what an idiot" the cop. As a law enforcement officer and a Firefighter/EMT, I can't believe that someone would do that.
I am glad the case was dismissed, and your right it never should have gotten that far. i guess I am very lucky to work in an area where cops and firemen ALL get along and we never have many incidents that I know of like this one..

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page