Inside the Apparatus Industry

Know Your Emergency Vehicle: We can learn valuable lessons from the tragic death of a Boston fire lieutenant

By Bob Vaccaro

I’m sure most of you have been following the news related to the death of a Boston Fire Department lieutenant who was a passenger in a ladder truck that slammed into a building last year.
A long report put together by an outside consulting firm stated that the department had a poor maintenance record for its vehicles. In addition, the Boston Globe recently reported that a fire department outside contractor installed unsuitable brake parts on the vehicle, and that firefighters who weren’t qualified to do so repeatedly adjusted the brakes in violation of national safety guidelines.

According to the report, in the spring of 2008, the contractor reportedly replaced a brake chamber and pads on the ladder truck, significantly decreasing stopping power. The report said that decreased braking power contributed to the brake failure on Jan. 9, 2009, when the truck careened down a steep hill and crashed into a building, killing the lieutenant.

Another report stated that the fire department failed to provide adequate training on how to handle fire trucks in emergency situations. So when the fire truck careened down the hill, the driver had no knowledge of how to engage secondary braking systems. He allegedly pumped the brakes, releasing the remaining brake pressure from the brake system, and then put the truck into neutral, preventing the secondary brakes from engaging.

The purpose of addressing what occurred in Boston is not to Monday-morning-quarterback the department or the driver, but rather to say, “Let’s wake up to what’s going on around us!”
Proper apparatus maintenance and adequate driver training are seriously lacking in departments across the country, and it’s not something that should be taken lightly. Department of Transportation regulations require that all drivers perform a safety check before they operate a vehicle. In a paid department, this can be done by a driver, engineer, chauffer, MPO or whatever you call the operator in your part of the country. In a volunteer department, this safety check could be performed on a daily or weekly basis by an in-house mechanic or maintenance officer. In any case, it should be done! If you have an outside contractor doing your work, who checks their repair work, and do you keep adequate maintenance records?

Emergency vehicle operation is another big problem in this country. Some states require a CDL license; some do not. If your state doesn’t require one, what’s your department’s requirement to become an emergency vehicle operator? Do you have standard operating procedures or guidelines? Maybe we should get off our lazy butts and develop a statewide or a national standard for certification of emergency vehicle operators and actually follow them.
The lawyers are already having a field day with this one. Let’s not give them more fuel for thought, as they say.

Bob Vaccaro has more than 30 years of fire-service experience. He is a former chief of the Deer Park (N.Y.) Fire Department. Vaccaro has also worked for the Insurance Services Office, The New York Fire Patrol and several major commercial insurance companies as a senior loss-control consultant. Vaccaro is a life member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

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