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Risk a lot to save a lot is BS
Great article I just read. He talks about the "Risk a lot to save a lot" saying and how it really doesn't make sense. Some people pull up on a vacant building and say that they aren't going in because it's vacant. Well do you really know that without a search? NO. Homeless people could be squatting or children could be playing around. The fire had to start some how. Our job is very dangerous at times and some people don't realize that. They think they can just stand outside with a hose line spraying water into the building and everything is great. We shouldn't only risk a lot to save a lot; we need to risk a lot to do our jobs.(as said at the end of the article)
http://thetailboard.com/2011/12/risk-a-lot-to-save-a-lot-is-b-s/
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by capcityff on
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So please explain to me your genius idea that will guarantee no more firefighter deaths from here on out while still saving just as many people and houses.
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You're completely straying from the topic just for the sake of arguing now.
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I'd be willing to bet money that if you go to 95% of the guys in NYC, they will call themselves firemen.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Now THAT was putting words in my mouth. As we both know, there is no such guarantee - for firefighters, or for that matter, for pizza delivery guys.
There are things that make a difference - building pre-plans, doing a complete size-up on every fire, and especially not trading firefighters lives for property.
I also noticed that you ducked my request for you to explain your comment above. Color me unsurprised.
Merry Christmas.
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B.S. on at least three counts.
One, it really would be interesting to see if there are more pizza delivery LODDs than firefighter LODDs per year. It would only take around 2.5 pizza delivery LODDs per state to create a pretty stark comparison to firefighter LODDs.
Two, you did indeed close your previous post with a false dilemma - one that you have used on FFN before, and which I've pointed out to you before. You "conveniently" mischaracterized my motivation rather than addressing that false dilemma.
And Three - I never argue just for the sake of arguing. I do try to make points by using factual evidince and the rules of logic instead of opinions, and when I see the opposite, I have no problem pointing it out.
I have no problem with interior operations including searching survivable spaces and offensive fire attack...when it is appropriate to do so. I have a big problem with trying to do that in unsurvivable spaces or in unsurvivable building conditions, because committing well-intentioned suicide is still committing suicide. I also have no problem with defensive operations in situations where there is no survivable space or when interior operations are suicidal.
That determination is not always crystal clear on scene, but when it is and interior operations are still attempted, that fits the definition of "suicide attempt", like it or not.
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Here's the best I could find in a two-minute Google search:
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-pizza-delivery-drivers-get-...
As an indicator, in Philadelphia in 2010, there were two pizza delivery guys shot and killed in robberies. Two in one city in one year is starting to make the 2.5 per state per year it would take to exceed the firefighter LODD rate look plausible.
I also found a long list of other pizza delivery drivers who die in car accidents and who are shot while being robbed. I can't give an exact number, but it appears that pizza delivery driver LODDs may indeed exceed firefighter LODDs. If that's the case, it begs some interesting questions.
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Permalink Reply by Nathan Henderson on
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Save a life...get carry out!
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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From my point of view here, I'm seeing too much of extremism as opposed to the the principle of such sayings. As already established, such acronyms, phrases, and so forth are just another tool to help remind about doing a proper size up......really that is it. It is not about saying every vacant building should just be surround and drown, nor should every vacant require a search.....because once again it comes down to a size up.
Now the conversation has digressed into an aspect of LODD and safety and once again extremes. Yes, the job is still inherently dangerous and there is the possibilty of injury or death.....and as the article alludes to , even in EMS, aspects too. However, this doesn't mean there shouldn't be size ups done, nor changes made to prevent LODD, nor should there have to be LODDs to justify the job. This doesn't mean we (fire service) need to sit outside every fire to ensure, or significantly reduce, the chance of an LODD.....but instead to look at the bigger picture. Take the example of the FDNY not putting crews on flat roofs of fire structures because of LODDs....we learn and can affect changes keeping FFs safer.
Personally, I feel the author of the article is wrong because it appears he took such phrases too literally. Are they really BS or are they more of a simplistic reminder for a proper size up? We also can not take a specific department's operations and incorporate the same tactics across the fire service. It is up to individual departments and even up to individual crews to train, know, understand, and operate within their resources and capabilities. In some cases, this may mean there is enough resources and personnel available to warrant operations another dept may not agree with. Does this mean one is wrong and one is right?
As for the "Risk a lot to save a lot or risk little to save little" stop looking at the damn phrases as some wussification of the fire service, but as a tool to size up and look at the bigger picture. Ironically the author mentions the Worcester Cold Storage fire and the 6 LODDs as an example of searching a "vacant" building. Yet, the author fails to apply the same priciples to the Battalion Chief physically standing in the stairwell saying "no more" to prevent any more FFs from going in and possibly never coming back out. How is that for a risk assessment? Shouldn't that example also be prevalent to such a topic?
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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"Guys will die in the line of duty. If you can't accept that then this really isn't the job for you."?
Like it or not, it's true. However, I really don't believe that capcityff means that we HAVE to die, only that it most likely will happen. The job is inherently dangerous. As is logging, fishing and high rise construction, to name a few.We can TRY and be safer, whether through NFPA standards or NIOSH reports, but the job is dangerous.
I think the issue here is that there are those that think that no matter the circumstance one has to run in. Superman, cape, hero, et. al. etc., ad nauseum. Yes, the stark reality is that there are going to be firefighters that will die. You can't have people working this job without there eventually being a death, or two, or 20.
But if we're going to try and stop LODDs, then maybe we should start looking seriously at who dies and why. Heart attack, stroke, ROLL OVER, POVs, these are what are killing us more often than actual fire ground death. Eliminate the above and the average LODD number of 100 is cut in half. And what of the other 50 LODDs?
Training, knowledge of building construction, risk/benefit analysis, IC competency and a wide range of other issues can drastically reduce the remaining LODDs but...it's still going to happen.
Shit happens.
Regardless of the department, run numbers, weekly/monthly training hours, academy, hiring protocols or any other criterion, shit is going to happen. And firefighters ARE going to die. Like capcityff says,""Guys will die in the line of duty. If you can't accept that then this really isn't the job for you."?"
This is NOT a hazard-free job and no matter the precautions, Murphy will show up. The BEST we can do is to try and be prepared for when the job goes south, fast and in a bad way, but let's face it, it does happen.
And comparing this job to delivering pizzas is at best, facetious and at worst, disingenuous. Pizza Restaurants can simply STOP deliveries and the rate of pizza delivery man death rate drops to zero. Is anyone suggesting that WE stop responding to fires?
I see two issues at play: On the one hand are those that continue to run a job like it was done in 1950, balls to the wall, expendable bodies, let god sort it out and; Safety Sallies who think that NO firefighter should ever be exposed to risk, must less actually intentionally put in harms way.
Running into burning buildings is dangerous. Searching for victims in a burning building is dangerous. Hells, responding to a report of a burning building anything is dangerous. We wear SCBA, seat belts, train to NFPA standards, toe the OSHA line as much as possible, learn as much as possible of how buildings burn, how fire burns down buildings and we will STILL die.
""Guys will die in the line of duty. If you can't accept that then this really isn't the job for you."?" It is what it is. We can lower the number of LODDs but we will never eliminate them. We can strive for zero LODDs, we can train for zero LODDs but the reality is, when you send warm bodies into burning building, some of them, at some point, for reasons that we simply can't control, will NOT come out alive. It is what it is.
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"Like"
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Jack, I love your reply. I have argued the numbers for a while and yes there are about 50% of LODD's that as I see it are "mostly preventable". Now on the medical side of things, no annual screening / sorry no PSOB. If we all had mandatory medical screening you would probably only have a few medical related LODD's that were truly stress or exhaustion induced. I suspect today many who are LODD cardiac arrests would have had a heart attack from their underlying cardiac issues riding the sofa or mowing their lawn at home. The difference now is their cardiac disease was never diagnosed because they either haven't seen a doctor forever or their personal MD has diagnosed the condition but the fire department does not have an annual medical evaluation. Some department's refuse to implement one due to money but others who are in charge know they would not be allowed to continue to be a FF if they were placed in front of a NFPA 1582 physical. But hey, it is called entitlement. These cardiac related deaths are preventable and should not be on the fireground to begin with.
The issue as I see with the "Safety Sallies" is they often are the ones who run in slower departments and have lots of time to think, "Safe-ish" They try to eliminate every possible hazard by the written rule, policy with pen and paper. And to be honest, they must have x-ray "exterior sizeup" vision to see a vacant is vacant from the street.
Are people going to die, I agree yes. Never ever going to see a year with zero LODD's. Just not going to happen. People die in every profession, some more than others. If you can't accept that for yourself, then you have choices. You can find a new "hobby or career" or if this is a career and you are torn maybe a transfer to prevention, public education, or an administrative desk job. When you mix safety sallies and operational calculated risk takers, there tends to be a conflict and that can create a "Safe-ish" hazardous environment.
Worcester was an abandoned storage building but it was far from vacant... how do you think the fire started in the first place... Mice with matches? The building had no power and a good sizeup by seasoned brothers would yield that the shuttered building was likely occupied.
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John, Jack and FETC- You all made very good points about the dangers of what we do and I agree with pretty much everything you guys said.
What we do is dangerous, and while we know that from day one we don't let that deter us from doing our jobs. It has always been dangerous and will always be dangerous. That's just how it is in the fire service.
That being said, it doesn't mean we can't work towards being safer and doing our best to make sure we all go home when the jobs done. I think the chances of having a zero LODD year in the fire service are so minimal just from outside factors we can't control alone but I believe that we can dramatically reduce the numbers that we average now.
FETC made a good point about roughly 50% of LODDs being mostly preventable and I agree with that. While we seem to notice the fire scene casualties more, they make up a small amount of the deaths we hear about each year.
I was looking at the numbers on the FEMA site and since 2002 there have been 151 deaths that occured on the scene of a fire (Not including wildland fires). There have been 970 recorded LODDs over that span. That accounts for about 16% of the total deaths in our feild.
Out of those LODDs:
Cause of fatal injury:
43 were due to FFs becoming trapped/caught (28.48%)
30 were due to structure collapse (19.87%)
50 were from stress/overexertion (33.11%)
Nature of injury-
52 from asphyxiation (34.44%)
46 from heart attack (30.46%)
Activity type:
76 from advancing hoselines/fire attack (50.33%)
26 from search and rescue (17.22%)
Property use-
105 in residential structures (69.54%)
These are just the numbers from on scene fire calls. They don't represent the overall percentages from all of the LODDs since 2002. Of which Trauma (47.71%) and Heart Attack (34.74%) were the two leading causes of death.
The thought of the fire service becoming a bunch of safety sallys is a bit silly to me. Sure there is more emphasis on being safer and doing more to ensure we get to go home at the end of the day but with the inherent risks we have in this profession we can only do so much to prevent ourselves from having something happen.
I believe there is a medium somewhere between the gung ho, balls to the wall at any costs attitude and being a safety sally where we can still be aggressive/efficient firefighters and do our jobs while reducing the numbers of deaths we have every year. If we can find that medium then I think the fire service will be in a good place.
There are too many things to list on how we can improve our overall safety and still be efficient and aggressive at what we do but it can be done.
Have a Merry Christmas and holiday season everyone!
Stay safe-Nate
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