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Highway patrol verses Firefighter
This was just resent... A car fire broke out on a turnpike here in okla. and three departments were paged out to assist with the blaze. Now where this fire was at couldn't have been in a worse place at the worse time of day, and ya heavy traffic. It took quit some time for the dept's to respond and get there for the distance and man power and the time of day but they all got there, but this single OHP office decided he was mad because the fire dept's had traffic down to one lane for over an hour fighting this blaze that had a fual tank ruptured and metals burning and took it upon himself and I quote this, this has taken entirely to much time and I assure you this will not happen again and took down every single firefighters name and unit # for there report that was on scene...Now here is the catch I seen atleast six diffent OHP cars there on the side of the road with one unit a 1/4 mile back with no lights on to the rear with orange cones down to divert traffic to one lane, and what was being told at the scene is they had a POV come close to hitting them which in turn took there aggression out on the firefighters and even the tow truck driver on scene. My question is: when is enough a enough??? I mean we all need to work together and we all serve the same public and I've heard this on so many scenes and from other depts throughout the state: You give them a gun and they walk around with a chip on there shoulder and its there way or no way at all....But I will say this not all the OHP officers are like this, but you always have a select few or you have that one that has a bad attitude and gives you a bad taste in your mouth when having to work with these guys.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Trevor Holmberg on
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Cops and Firemen that don't get along, That's wierd. =)
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Permalink Reply by Laurie Hicks on
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Hey, Im in Nova Scotia Canada and we have to deal with much the same here with the RCMP, any incident on the highway has to be a quick fix or there not happy, Ive seen more then once officers demand we reopen a highway while a Hazmat incident is going on or a MVA, Sometimes i dont think these officers realize most of us around here are volunteer and working on the side of a major highway tends to be a less diseriable place to preform a job, my biggest fear and peve is when a officer of the law opens a highway back up without communicating to the fire dept, Once this happens it seems our members are open targets for rubber neckers who would love to make one of us a new hood orniment, Most of these officers dont see it from our prespective they see it as a inconvence to themselves because they do traffic control, It only takes a momentary lack of judgement on the behalf of a busy firefighter or a nosey driver and bad things happen, Every dept should work together with local law enforcement and ems to understand the needs and wants of each other, then our work would be much safer and practical.
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Permalink Reply by Timothy D. Stone Jr on
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I have never had a problem with our local PD or SP. We joke and mess with each other from time to time but we have never had any real issues.
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Permalink Reply by walt on
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Well a few years back i was responding with a engine for a neighboring city on a mutal aid. I had one of our finest county deputy follow me to the fire and waited 3 hours to write me a ticket for a illegal lane change when i was running lights and sirene. Needless to say when the fire marshall and the fire chief was finished the ticket was dismissed and i received a letter from the sheriff apoligizing for the bad judgement of the deputy. Funny thing was a few weeks later responding to a major accident i was lead paramedic guess who was involved in the wreck good ole deputy that wrote me the ticket talking about pay back time we still talk and laugh about the iv he was giving.
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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on
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"drive like heads on fire and their ass is catching" LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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you know who I hate??? Oh yeah...COPS!
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Permalink Reply by Ron Ayotte on
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That was real intelligent post...
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Permalink Reply by Bill Brierton on
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Well the LEO's can fume all they want in our jurisdiction but unless they have the equipment to put out a car fire or the equipment to deal with an MVA the scene is ours including shutting down a lane or in some cases the entire road.
Generally we do work well with the county and state PD but every now and then there is one with a chip on his hip.
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Permalink Reply by cole hammons on
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The volunteer fire departments are very capable of doing the job. Like chief Norman said "all departments (paid and volunteer) receive the same training". My point was we are not all at the station waiting for a call to come out. We have to leave our jobs, houses, and whatever else we maybe doing and then drive to the station so it takes us a little longer to respond than a "paid" department. I also am currently doing both "professions" and 97% of other law enforcement would not have reacted the way he did.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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I'm with you Ron. Was that a very poor attempt at a joke or simply an indication of low intelligence?
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Permalink Reply by Steven on
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My department covers about 20 miles of I-90 which goes coast to coast and is a major route for truck traffic through NY state to NYC.
They changed the rules regarding markings on PPE and apparatus for firefighters when working on federal highways and while we do have a fairly decent budget, we can't replace all our turnout gear like that when the rules change. The alternative is to just shut down the road. The state police don't like it, but they don't want to be responsible for victims inside a vehicle either.
That should be a key point. Yes, there may be a crime scene involved in a MVC, there might be evidence to protect, scene integrity, whatever, but lives trump all other things. Same thing with a possible arson fire. We try to keep the scene as intact as possible but we still have our own job to do and more often than not, that involves pulling people out of harm's way.
We work well with all levels of police for the most part. An officer here or there might have a chip on their shoulder, but that's rare from what I've seen. Frankly, there are quite a few officers I would welcome to be on any scene because they are good people and many have been in the same shoes we have as firefighters/EMS.
The working relationship develops best outside of the scene in my opinion. Classrooms, joint exercises, social functions even. There is too much to do at a working fire, EMS call, or MVC to work on creating positive multi-jurisdictional relationships. If it happens, great, but don't wait for it.
And yes, it starts with the leadership and trickles down from there.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Deutsch on
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Does anybody remember something called incident command? The last time I looked at a FEMA grant application, there was a block requiring a mandatory affirmative to a question that ran something like "has the applying agency and local government officially committed to NIMS and have all elected officials and officers completed (the required) NIMS training?
In Kentucky the law enforcement agencies, Fire, and EMS agencies can't ask for state or federal money without the commitment to train with and use the Incident Command system. There are still glitches -- My IC kit includes a tape measure just in case it is necessary to make a determination about whose is longer -- but for the most part all the emergency services work very hard to keep the accident scene safe, and clear the impediments to traffic as soon as possible with safety for everyone and patient care being the priorities.
I recall a very interesting afternoon a couple of years ago when a four car injury accident shut down the only street through my small town. (Small? We're so small we have to take turns being the village idiot!) Three engines, two Fire Departments, two ambulances with multiple patients in each, and two new Troopers. The Troopers decided to open a lane of traffic without consulting with IC and lookyloos were threading cars around apparatus, disabled cars, and patients still on the ground. We had a little talk about wanton endangerment. Traffic stopped. No problems since.
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