Those who have heard me speak or read my columns about social media the last few years know that I rarely fail to mention words of wisdom from two people, Gerald Baron and Bill Boyd. It was Baron’s book Now Is Too Late2 that put everything I learned as a reporter about news coverage and the impact of the Internet and social media into perspective. The book also took me into the world of Bill Boyd, a fire chief in Washington State.
Since reading the book I’ve gotten to know both men and stay current on their thoughts of the evolution of social media in the public safety/ emergency management arena through emails, phone conversations, Tweets, Facebook posts and their blogs (Bill’s It’s Not My Emergency and Gerald’s Crisis Blogger).
Bill Boyd is one of a very small number of fire service leaders who “gets it” when it comes to the crucial role of social media in emergency management. More important, Chief Boyd is constantly looking at some of the every day practices of the fire service and public safety and how they must evolve to include social media, not only to get the job done, but to stay relevant to the people you serve.
If you are a leader who is still hesitant about making SM a part of your department, or one who is looking for guidance and trying to understand what you got yourself into with Facebook, Twitter and all of the other platforms, let Chief Bill Boyd be your guide. Chief Boyd, along with Gerald Baron and Agincourt Strategies, have produced this video training series to give you what you need to know to understand how social media is changing emergency management and how you can leverage its power to protect both the public and your agency’s reputation.
I am honored to team up with these two as part of STATter911 Communications continuing efforts to help fire service leaders and others communicate effectively, whether it is part of the daily routine of serving the public or during a critical incident. In addition to these videos, STATter911.com will be running guest columns on social media from both Chief Bill Boyd and Gerald Baron.
This video, from ALERTPAGE, is from a house fire on Sunday evening in the 11,500 block of Marjorie Drive in the Mitchellville area of Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Units arrived on scene to find a 2 story single family home with heavy fire showing from the garage area. Units on the scene were Engine 806(St.Josephs), Engine 818(Glenndale), Engine 833(Kentland), Engine 846(Kentland), Tower 843, Rescue Engine 833 and Quint 838(Chapel Oaks). Several command officers including the Southern Division Chief (Chief 833 Kelleher with command) were on the scene.
Click HERE to visit the ALERTPAGE website and receive incident notifications to your email or phone.
The December fire at a Crown Heights, Brooklyn brownstone that critically burned Firefighter Robert Weidmann is one of the reasons FDNY is studying ventilation techniques in residential buildings.
Will FDNY begin attacking residential basement fires from the exterior through windows rather than interior stairs? Is opening the roof in the initial stages of a fire in a row house a priority? Which is more important to do first, search and rescue or putting water on the fire?
The FDNY is hoping to find the answers to these questions and more as they start burning 20 rowhomes filled with furnishings tomorrow (Monday). An article by Joseph Goldstein in the New York Times, says the materials we now furnish our homes with has FDNY seriously questioning some of its longstanding tactics on residential fires. Goldstein writes the concern is that the use of plastics in things like sofas and mattresses has changed the way a room and its contents burn and that firefighters may need to change the way they approach such fires:
With more plastic in homes, residential fires are now likely to use up all the oxygen in a room before they consume all flammable materials. The resulting smoky, oxygen-deprived fires appear to be going out. But they are actually waiting for an inrush of fresh air, which can come as firefighters cut through roofs and break windows.
Mr. Cassano, the fire commissioner, acknowledged that “ventilation may be hurting people in the fire if we don’t ventilate properly.”
Goldstein interviewed Stephen Kerber from Underwriters Laboratories. UL is taking part in the experiments along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Kerber told Goldstein that firefighters always assumed venting meant cooling but they are finding ”that venting doesn’t cool and allows for things to get much hotter”.
And there’s more:
The experiments will test whether another approach, sticking a nozzle through a basement window, is more effective. The Fire Department has long been inclined to fight fires from inside residences, rather than through open windows, based on a belief that the outside method will drive the fire toward other areas of the house, where occupants might be.
The article cites two well known tragic fires related to modern furnishings and ventilation. One is the Sofa Super Store fire in Charleston that took the lives of nine firefighters five-years-ago. The other is the fire last year that critically burned Firefighter Robert Wiedmann at a Crown Heights brownstone.
One chief involved in the experiments told Goldstein he doesn’t expect the findings will lead to an abandonment of aggressive interior firefighting but will alter the way ventilation is done.
A neighbor captures a house fire Monday night in Brookeville, Ohio. Also shown is the occupant, being taken to the ambulance on a backboard, after jumping from the second floor to safety.
One person was injured in a fire at an apartment building Monday night when he jumped from a second-floor window.
Several other occupants who lived upstairs and downstairs were able to escape after neighbors warned them that the structure was on fire by beating on the exterior of the building, Brookville fire Chief Ronald Fletcher said.
Firefighters from the Westborough Fire Department, Westborough, Massachusetts, pull a victim from a car that was on fire and entangled in live power lines. Around the 1:00 minute mark, the victim is seen being pulled to safety. The incident occurred Friday at West Main Street and West Street.
We were on the road today, out of position, unable to post, when we got word from one of our former TV colleagues that an F/A-18D fighter jet crashed into an apartment complex in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Firegeezer.com and FirefighterNation.com have earlier coverage. On this page are various videos from YouTube, including pre-arrival video taken by those nearby.
AP:
Two Navy pilots ejected from a fighter jet Friday, sending the unmanned plane careening into a Virginia Beach apartment complex and tearing the roof off at least one building that was engulfed in flames, officials said.
Six people, including both pilots, were taken to hospitals, officials said. The Navy said both aviators on board the jet ejected before it crashed around noon and were being taken to hospitals for observation .
Bruce Nedelka, the Virginia Beach EMS division chief, said that witnesses saw fuel being dumped from the jet before it went down, and that fuel was found on buildings and vehicles in the area.
“By doing so, he mitigated what could have been an absolute massive, massive fireball and fire,” Nedelka said. “With all of that jet fuel dumped, it was much less than what it could have been.”
The crash happened in the Hampton Roads area, which has a large concentration of military bases, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world. Naval Air Station Oceana, where the F/A-18D that crashed was assigned, is located in Virginia Beach.
Three buildings were destroyed, and two more had significant damage, Virginia Beach fire department spokesman Tim Riley told WVEC-TV.
The fire had been put out, Nedelka said, and now crews were going through the buildings to search for anyone who may have been inside.
The Maryland Fire & Rescue Institute has been working with TRX Systems in the development of the Sentrix Tracking Unit. Science Nation reporter Miles O'Brien (formerly of CNN) takes a look at this system, which promises to operate deep inside a building where GPS will not work.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), electrical engineer (and CEO Carol) Politi and her team at TRX Systems are developing a portable device called the Sentrix Tracking Unit. It straps on like a belt and consists of a suite of sensors. "The sensors include accelerometers and gyroscopes. Those are sensors similar to what you have in your Wii for example–pressure sensors ranging sensors. It allows us to create a picture of what a user has done," says Politi.
"The sensors monitor the movement of the user," explains Ben Funk, vice president of Engineering at TRX. "So when the user moves forward or backwards, left or right, it determines how far a person moved in each direction."
I used to believe that being a tillerman was the best job in the fire service. My opinion may have changed after watching the video above. I now want to be the guy who operates the drone.
The quadcopters — square machines about the size of a laptop computer with a helicopter rotor and landing gear on each corner — are part hobby and part business for Portlanders Patrick Sherman and Brian Zvaigzne. Ideally, they hope to someday see the machines used by firefighters and law enforcement.
Saturday, for example, the quadcopters were able to fly into the smoke above the burning building and provide real-time video images of the fire. A public relations officer for law enforcement, Sherman also sees a number of uses for police.
On October 21 through October 23 I am heading to St. Charles, Missouri as part of a roving gang of fire service educators who make up Go Forward Training. Looking at the names of who will be there I am figuring they brought me along as the court jester to provide comic relief (or they just need someone to abuse).
Apparently they are going to use me in a couple of roles for the weekend (most likely sweeping floors and carrying bags) but my main purpose will be to teach you how to keep your fire department from being one of those "must see videos" or "must read stories" on STATter911.com. You know the type of stories I am talking about. Ones where the local news media or a citizen's video doesn't show the department in the most favorable light.
I proposed that the easiest way to handle this was for those attending the weekend show up with large check in hand made out to STATter911 Communications. The Go Forward corporate attorneys frowned upon that idea using words like terrorism and blackmail. Typical lawyerly response. They seem to shoot down every foward thinking good idea.
Instead, I am going to have to actually prepare something and teach you about the common mistakes that plague fire department after fire department, particularly in the age of social media. I think there is a lot to learn right from the pages of STATter911.com (he's so modest). The session is titled Don’t Be a STATter911 Headline: Reputation Management in the Digital Age.
Check out all of the other great hands-on and classroom sessions at Gateway Midwest Fire & Leadership Training, October 21-23, 2011 in St. Charles, Missouri. Remember, please tip the man picking up your bags well. And use the promo code STATTER when registering between now and September 15 for a 10% discount off the already discounted early bird rates (usually they charge more when they hear my name).
We have a new sponsor at STATter911.com this month: TURK. It’s an invention by Greg Turnell, a lieutenant and 25 year veteran with the fire department in our Nation’s Capital. Through his career Greg has been assigned to Engine 33, Rescue Squad 1, Truck 8, Engine 6, Truck 13 and Truck 11. TURK filled a need that had become evident in recent years for any company assigned to RIT on the fireground. But rather than have me explain I asked Lt. Turnell to provide a guest column about TURK. Besides giving you more info on TURK, I thought this might be helpful for any firefighter with a product they’ve come up with, or is thinking about it, to hear first hand from someone who has been in their shoes.
TURK
“There’s got to be a better way Lieu!” ………Those words were expressed more than once when my men had to deploy the RIT basket to the front of a burning building. And generally there were a few more colorful words added to the statement. Watching four of my five man truck team navigate this 150lb basket down the street, sometimes a couple blocks, seemed impractical for several reasons:
Manpower. A one person device could free manpower to run other equipment such as ladders.
Fatigue. I’d much rather have my men conserve their energy and stamina for an actual RIT deployment than exhausting themselves while hand carrying a basket down the street.
Safety/Injury. In one incident we had a firefighter lose his footing and fall, subsequently bringing the basket and a few of his comrades down with him.
Our new SOPS thoroughly explained our new RIT procedures and the equipment we had to have at the ready in the event a MAYDAY was declared. How we got that equipment to the building was up to us. Identifying a capability gap is an easy thing to do; it’s done every day in the sitting room of most firehouses. However, filling that gap with a viable solution is the challenge. We toyed with different methods but they all proved to be problematic and inefficient. We had to come up with a solution that was simple to put in operation and fast to deploy. Being an avid kayaker, I remember while shark fishing at Assateague one summer, spotting a fellow pulling his kayak down the beach with a device made of PVC pipe and two tires. It appeared the device was binding with the kayak holding it in place while the unit rolled down the beach atop a set of tires. It was a simple concept that I felt with a few adjustments could be emulated and applied to a stokes basket.
Several prototypes and months later I came up with a device that I patented and named the TURK. Some thought the name derived from the 1985 movie “TURK 182”with Timothy Hutton and Kim Cattrall but it was much simpler than that: Turnell. Universal. Rescue. Kart. The TURK was evaluated by the local 36 safety committee and was accepted as a practical device to be used by the DCFD. It was during the TURKs 90 day trial period that it was put to use on the METRO train accident on June 2, 2009. Faced with the dilemma of having to move heavy hydraulic tools down the track to the train, RS-2 squad wagon driver along with T-6 technician loaded 500lbs of hydraulic tools into a stokes basket. With the TURK the two were able to move the equipment approximately 1000 feet down the track bed to the train. The TURK continues to be a proven asset on the fire ground, mass casualty incidents, and just recently in underground mines. The TURK has been a welcomed device among many fire departments and mine rescue teams because it possesses two important attributes: it’s fast and simple. The fact that firefighters continue to discover different uses for the TURK beyond the initial intention of what the device was designed to do is testimony to its simplicity. Today, watching a team deploy the RIT basket with the TURK is uplifting. However the greatest pleasure I receive is when a firefighter or miner comes to me and says, “Hey, thanks for doing this, it makes it a lot easier”. That makes it all worthwhile.
My friend and former colleague Scott Broom at 9NEWS NOW in Washington, DC bravely let the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department run him through the paces yesterday on the department’s new Mobile Mayday Simulator. Scott did a nice job and gives the public a feel for what this is all about.
I imagine if I was still at the TV station the bosses would have made this my assignment. I would have been hiding and cowering in a corner somewhere refusing to go. Do you realize just how many people in PGFD would have loved to pull the lever with me above a trap door? Oops, sorry Dave. We forgot to put the mattress in this time. There would have been two people leaving the firehouse on stretchers (see the story). Photographer Greg Guise, after he got his laughing under control, would have been forced to take over the reporting role.
Reminds me very much of being invited by the late IAFF Local 1619 president, Ron Milor to the annual MDA softball tournament more than 20-years-ago and being told to bring a bathing suit. I ended up doing a stint in the dunk (notice there is no “r” in that word) tank alongside then fire chief Jim Estepp. Who knew that many firefighters had such good aim after a few beers?
The Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department made the video above to show off its Mobile Mayday Simulator. The simulator was developed in part as a reaction to lessons learned from a report into the April, 2009 fire at 87 Herrington Drive in Largo that left a firefighter critically injured. PGFD PIO Mark Brady issued a press release with details on the simulator and its development. Here are excerpts:
The Technical Services Battalion, under the command of Major Adon Snyder, has developed a mobile “mayday” simulator, accompanied by a classroom lecture, which can be easily brought to any Fire/EMS station or training facility. A 40-minute classroom session with power point presentation and practical evolution comprise this training program. The practical portion starts with participants raising their heart rate to about 140, a rate consistent with response and initial activity at an incident scene. It is also the heart rate where decision making could be adversely affected. Raising the heart rate is accomplished by participants donning full personal protective equipment (PPE) and self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) then carries a stand-pipe pack for approximately 5 to 10 minutes. The firefighter then places their cloth covered face piece on and begins to breathe air. The firefighter, with no visibility, is then instructed to follow a 100 foot section of hoseline. The firefighter follows the hoseline and is led up a ramp and then up steps to a simulated second floor and then experience a sudden floor collapse.
The firefighter, following General Orders and valuable lessons learned in the classroom portion of the drill, must then demonstrate the correct survival skills and mayday procedure.
The mobile mayday simulator was constructed inside of a fire department utility box truck. The conversion of the interior box of the utility truck includes elements required for participants to ascend steps onto an upper floor landing and a collapsible floor which will allow participants to feel the unexpected jolting experience of a floor collapse. The firefighter has been previously instructed to ensure their SCBA and PPE are still in place and then transmit, by way of their portable radio, a correct MAYDAY message.
The drill is designed not only for firefighters but also incident commanders that will receive the radio mayday message and act accordingly. Scenarios can be modified to include non-working radios, dislodged facepiece, etc. The mobile mayday simulator has been used at select stations in order to collect data and evaluate the program. The program has received very positive feedback from both evaluators and participants. A train-the-trainer program is now being developed and will soon be made available to all personnel.
Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department Acting Chief Marc Bashoor vowed to complete the Candidates Physical Ability Test (CPAT) and he did. That promise came a little more than a month ago when, a week into his new job, Chief Bashoor visited the test site as candidates competed for a job with the department. Today was the day that the chief returned to the test facility in Anne Arundel County and went through the course. In addition, he did so as Chief Spokesman Mark Brady followed him with video and still cameras.
Brady’s spin on it as PIO is that the chief kept his promise and completed the course. Now, does the overweight, out of shape, washed-up reporter writing this focus on the fact that a 47 45-year-old man who already retired once from PGFD is showing great leadership stepping up to the plate to even attempt this test of his physical agility? No, the has-been journalist, who would likely need AED intervention after each station on the course, writes a headline saying the Chief Bashoor failed because he finished one-minute and seven-seconds over the allotted 10-minutes and 20-seconds.
From Brady’s press release:
The Fire/EMS Department’s Health and Wellness Coordinator Bill Bussing stated, “It’s not unusual for a participant to not complete the course or not complete in the prescribed time on the initial try, which, is why we allow the candidates several opportunities to practice the course before the actual qualification test. I was impressed with Fire Chief Bashoor, he did very well for his first time on the course.”
So, congratulations to Chief Bashoor for getting through the course and leaving the facility in the chief’s car and not a medic unit. Knowing the man, I am sure he will finish within the allotted time on his second try. Now that the chief has set this standard, I would love to see a competition between the area chiefs. I will be there with the camera for that one.
On YouTube jlenz167 has been posting 1950s and 60s films from the Baltimore area. Previous ones were from pumping contests in Anne Arundel County. This is of a Baltimore Fire Department 1965 recruit class.
When Steve Roth sends me pictures from Southern Pennsylvania they are usually hot. But generally not like this. The picture above is promoting Steve’s 911-photography.com calendar. Steve tells us the proceeds benefit the Adams County Volunteer Firefighters Association. The group is kicking off a fundraising campaign to build a training center burn building.
By the way, if you are trying to figure out if they are real or not, I must inform you those are just models. But the fire trucks are real and I am sure that’s why most STATter911.com readers will be making this purchase.
Steve will be glad to take your check or money order so you can get a closer look at those rigs. It can be yours for a total of $13:
Steve Roth
911 Photography
20 Chinkapin Drive
New Oxford, Pa. 17350
In early March we told you about the February 5 fire in Spotsylvania County, Virginia where 43-year-old Sandy Hill died. Sandy Hill was on the phone with 911 when the first firefighters from Chancellor Volunteer Fire & Rescue pulled up to the scene on and for many minutes after their arrival. Unfortunately, despite a relatively small amount of fire, the crews didn’t get to Hill in her second floor room until it was too late.
As reporter Dan Telvock of the Free Lance – Star started asking questions about the lengthy delay in finding Hill, county officials ordered an internal investigation of the fire. That report was presented tonight to the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors. According to a press release, County Administrator C. Douglas Barnes has sent “the entire internal review report has now been submitted to four outside experts/agencies from around the country, for their additional close analysis of what took place.”
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) along with the the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Fire Chiefs Committee unveiled the subway system’s new battery-powered, portable response and recon vehicles today. The emergency management types at WMATA have been telling us for some time about this new capability and their efforts to train area fire departments on the use of the new carts.
We have posted four videos showing and describing the Mobile Emergency Response Vehicles (MERVs). Below, are clips of the vehicle being assembled and a ride on the rails photographed by 9NEWS NOW’s Greg Guise. At bottom, is raw video of the press conference with Arlington County Fire Department Chief Jim Schwartz.
At top, is the story for 9NEWS NOW by Bruce Leshan. That story includes Vito Maggiolo video and 911 calls from an April, 2000 incident where a train filled with 250 pasengers was sent to check out a report of smoke in a tunnel. They became trapped by an electrical fire. Bruce also wrote the article that follows:
Firefighters from across our region are showing off a new battery-powered rail cart that could make all the difference if there’s another Metro crash.
The $20,000 carts were designed in Britain to speed firefighters to emergency scenes deep inside the London Tube. The DC region is the first in the U.S. to get them.
Firefighters say there have been many incidents when they could have used the carts in Metro.
“We can’t breath!” a desperate passenger pleaded to rescue workers 10 years ago, while hundreds of passengers were stuck in a stopped train in smoky Metro tunnel.
“It took about an hour for the firemen to get there,” Susan Little told 9NEWS NOW.
Firefighters say the 26 “Mobile Emergency Response Vehicles” will help them speed into crises far faster.
“The other day, they put it together and had it going down the tracks in one minute and four seconds,” said one Arlington firefighter, as he watched the cart zip down a rail line at a Metro Yard in Alexandria.
Firefighters have carts now, but you have to push them. Loaded down in turnout gear, it can take them an hour to get to a scene. With the cart, they can go twelve miles an hour and get to a scene in minutes.
After the Sarin gas attacks 15 years ago in the Tokyo subway, British security officials asked rescue workers to invent a vehicle to get passengers out from deep under London in the tube.
The carts were used extensively after the terrorist attacks on the London subway in 2005.
Arlington Fire officials say they sure could have used one in a drill that had a train stuck under the Potomac between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom.
“In that one, it took 45 minutes to an hour to get to the victims,” says Arlington Battalion Chief James Daugherty, who’s been leading the project. “With a cart like this, five to ten minutes at most.”
In London, firefighters are actually drilled on driving the subway trains, so that if the operator is incapacitated in a poison gas attack, the rescuers can pull up in the cart and drive the train passengers to safety.
The carts were paid for with a $860,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
NIOSH has issued its report in the May 7, 2009 explosion at the Penn Mar Shopping Center in Prince George’s County, Maryland that left eight firefighters and a gas company employee injured. The blast, fueled by natural gas, was captured on a camera mounted on the dash of one of the rigs parked near Side A of the structure.
Here is an excerpt from the reports findings:
NIOSH investigators concluded that, to minimize the risk of similar occurrences, fire departments should
ensure that standard operating guidelines for natural gas leaks are understood and followed
contact utility companies (natural gas and electric) immediately to cut external supply/power to structures when gas leaks are suspected
ensure gas monitoring equipment is adequately maintained and fire fighters are routinely trained on proper use
ensure ventilation techniques are conducted after ignition sources are mitigated
ensure that rapid intervention teams are staged at the onset of an incident
ensure that collapse/explosion control zones are established when dealing with a potential explosion hazard
Although there is no evidence that the following recommendations would have prevented these injuries, they are being provided as a reminder of good safety practices.
provide manual personal alert safety system (PASS) or tracking devices to locate potentially missing fire fighters when SCBA are not utilized
ensure standard operating guidelines for communications are understood by dispatch
ensure adequate staffing for emergency medical services and rapid intervention teams (RITs)
ensure training is evaluated for rank and skill levels across the combination department personnel
We have a winner! The very first entry into our top stories contest for 2009 correctly guessed the top story of the year. Even though the rest of that person’s top five weren’t on target, it gave me hope for you people and this contest. Once again, Statter was wrong.
Many of you were blinded by our extensive coverage of PGFD and one man in particular, who at last look was still in the Prince George’s County Detention Center. You will have to scroll way done to number 14 to find his picture on this page. Other entries, including one from a person who should know better, focused way too much on our coverage of the District of Columbia Fire & EMS Department. Only one DC story made the list (but it was a big one at number two). In fact, only eight of the top 20 were local stories from the Washington, DC area. Remember that for next year’s contest. We are global in scope here at STATter911.com (yeah, right!).
To get a winner we had to go deep down to someone who guessed two of the top five. While he had the two top stories in reverse order, author and fire service veteran from Baltimore County Chris Hawley was the only entrant to get more than one out of five. The good news is the two Baltimore boys should have lots to talk about when this one buys lunch.
Our rankings are based on the number of pageviews between January 1 and December 31, 2009 according to Google Analytics. If a story had multiple postings we only counted the top one for our list.
The interesting thing is that the bottom two stories and the 21st story were just nine clicks apart. Their rankings kept changing up until the closing hours of 2009. In the end, a somewhat odd, but newer story from Montgomery County, Maryland moved up, knocking off one of my personal favorites from earlier in the year. Number 21 is the story of Alexandria Fire Department (VA) veteran Doug Townshend who, while off duty, rescued his brother Mike from a burning home. Click here for that story.
Click the Popeye cartoon to see what used to pass for a year-end review at STATter911.com.
By the way, I did this type of year end review, rather than the more humorous (at least I thought so) version of the two previous years, because I thought it would be easier to manage. I am writing this at 4:00 AM on New Years Day, so now I am not so sure. If you miss the old one, here it is (I am sure most of it is still true today anyway).
Obviously isn’t just us taking a look back at 2009 and ahead to 2010. Other fire service sites beat us to the punch. Paul Peluso at Firehouse.com says 2009 was the year of the video (look below for proof). FireRescue1.com has a host of characters writing lots of words under its year in review banner. Billy Goldfeder has a message for the new year at FirefighterCloseCalls.com. Paul Combs has a great thought in his December cartoon at FireEngineering.com. I am sure Bill Schumm will have something to help bring in the new year Firegeezer style and so will many others who share the FireEMSBlogs.com site with this rag. .
And Rhett Fleitz at The Fire Critic, who is a great inspiration and supporter to all of us who blog, has a contest that is better than mine. Rhett is looking for the Fire/EMS Blog of the Year 2009 (now you know why I said those nice things about him). Rhett’s is better because he is promoting it as the contest with the prize where you don’t have to sit across the lunch table from Dave Statter.
Thank you to all who entered our contest. Thank you to all who read and comment each day. Thank you to all who link to STATter911.com and carry our stories. Most important, a happy and safe 2010 to all of you and especially those out there protecting us each and every day.
So, drum roll please! We present our 20 most popular stories from 2009:
This was the story that dominated 2009 on STATter911.com. Not only did the posting on May 30 (our fourth posting on the topic) bring in 43 percent more pageviews than our number two story for the year, three other stories on the confrontation would have taken places two, three, and four. When you add up the clicks for the almost 20 stories we posted on this topic they account for about five-percent of the overall traffic on the blog for 2009.
There have been more than 700 comments (actually a lot more than that, but many we couldn’t publish). A couple of comments still arrive each week.
I think the reason for the high numbers, besides being a hot topic, is that we apparently reached way beyond our normal fire and EMS service audience on this story. It helps that the YouTube video above, which has more than two million views, has our link in its description.
As much grief as I get for carrying too many negative stories on the blog, the only reason the world knew about this one is because I was trying to do a good deed and post some positive news. On Wednesday, October 7 there were two sprinkler demonstrations scheduled in the National Capital region. One at Gallaudet University and the other at the University of Maryland (at MFRI). My goal was to get to both of them, but the Maryland one was the priority because of the release of a study about Prince George’s County’s mandatory residential sprinkler law. I never made it to DC and no one said anything to me about a problem during that demonstration.
As I was about to leave work the following evening I was feeling guilty the DC sprinkler video didn’t get any play in my story the day before (there had been a photographer on the scene from LNS, the local news service run by my station and two others in Washington). I pulled the video up with the intention of editing something for the blog and possibly WUSA9.com. Of course, as I watched the video, I immediately realized there was a little bit more to this demonstration.
This entry had 128 comments. More comments came in after Chief Dennis Rubin, when talking about what he saw, used the term “comedy act”.
Firefighter Will Gregory exits the home with his PPE on fire. Photo by Brian Haney, The Daily Record.
This was a late entry for the year. It came about because FirefighterCloseCalls.com first put out the story of the close call based on the newspaper article by Brian Haney at The Daily Record in Dunn, NC. Figuring that there might be more than one photo, I called Mr. Haney and he told me he had shot 210 images from that fire. Brian sent a bunch to STATter911.com and gave us permission to use the photos.
Until a day or two ago, this was in the number three spot for the year. In my heart I wish it was number one. I was blogging away on the Friday afternoon that Ladder 26 wrecked trying to keep up with the developments from Boston. Later in the evening when we learned that Lt. Kevin Kelley was the firefighter killed, it didn’t take long to find his appearances from Firehouse USA on the web. How can you not smile when you watch these?
While I get a lot of stories and videos from your tips, this is one I found all by myself. Going through fire related YouTube videos on a Sunday evening I happened upon this clip. I usually don’t run controlled burning type training exercises, but this one looked different. After picking my jaw off the floor upon seeing the unusual PPV via the leaf blower, I decided this was one worthy of a wider audience.
You have to admit this one was different. The 160-foot Spirit of Washington squeezed the 72-foot John H. Glenn Jr., putting a big gash in the Glenn’s hull and sidelining the boat for many months. The collision also crushed a small FBI boat at an adjacent dock.
This is a rather simple story of a rescue in that it was popular despite there being no video of the event. Firefighters saving the day when it looks like that might be impossible.
Here’s how WZZM-TV’s Lambrini Lukidis described the story:
Kelysse LaBelle is full of energy today. But when fireman Scott Campau rescued her from the bottom of Fisherman’s Landing in Muskegon last week, Kelysse was purple, her eyes were gray and lifeless.
“The stroller was actually sitting up-right on its wheels on the bottom of the lake and she was unconscious,” said Campau.
“She wasn’t breathing, no heart rate,” said Battalion Chief Ken Chudy who lead the team on the call. “She was lifeless when we pulled her out of the water,” said Fireman Kevin McMillan also assisted by firemen Chad Horn and Scott Hemmeslbach.
Eight Prince George’s County firefighters were hurt when an explosion occurred while they were investigating a natural has leak at a shopping center in Forestville.
Truly one of the great stories of the year. John and Joel Rechlitz received national attention for their off-duty rescue of a young boy from a burning car. Their efforts didn’t stop after the rescue. The firefighters remained close to D.J. Harper and his family. Click here.
In December, 2008 Continental Flight 1404 ran off a runway and burst into flames at Denver International Airport. This was the audio as the airport tower controllers directed firefighters to the scene.
The fireground audio provided by Erie County Fire wire was very difficult to listen to as these two men responded to a call for help inside the burning building on Genesee Street.
Layoffs and budget cuts were THE story of 2009. We saw a lot of stories like this one, but for some reason the Flint fire got more attention than the others.
What more can I say about this frequent subject of STATter911.com stories. In the interview Jerry Engle told us all about an arson ring involving firefighters. Later in the year Engle and another former volunteer from Riverdale were both charged with the fire Jerry told us about. If you haven’t read enough about him, click here for our Jerry archive.
A touching tribute to firefighters who were lost 50-years earlier. The incident is believed to be the first time the term BLEVE was used to describe the rupture and rocketing of a flammable liquid container during a fire.
It took teamwork and a lot of guts as a dispatcher and engine company worked to save a woman trapped in an apartment fire started thanks to a neighbor’s meth lab. Video shows Chad Meyer from Engine 26 basically walking through fire to bring out Nikki Cain.
This entry from Montgomery County had to be one of the more unusual stories of the year. A firefighter’s date spent the night at the firehouse and got lost on the way to the bathroom.
What this means is that, even though Kyle Wilson died in a house fire in April, 2007 and the report was released nine-months later, firefighters are still interested in learning from this tragic situation. Enough people searched, found and apparently read that entry in 2009 to make it part of our top 20.
Baltimore 2nd alarm (and rally info): This fire on Ostend Street Friday morning left one firefighter with minor burns. Firefighters point out the closest engine company, Engine 55 in Pigtown, was closed for the day. The rotating closures and the budget cuts are behind today’s rally as firefighters march from the Baltimore City Fire Museum (old Engine 6 on Gay Street) to City Hall at 5:00 PM. IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger is scheduled to join IAFF locals 734 and 964 (officers) WJZ-TV has the story.
VIDEO ADDED – DC & Sarasota officials signed ageement to allow new Florida chief to remain District employee: STATter911.com now knows what happened to allow Sarasota County Chief Kenneth Ellerbe to stay on the rolls of the DC Fire & EMS Department in able to enhance his retirement pay. We even know a DC assistant fire chief and the city’s head of human resources approved Kenneth Ellerbe’s leave without pay status. What we don’t know is why this was allowed to happen, especially since Chief Dennis Rubin originally declined to sign the deal. We are also trying to determine the benefit for the city to engage in a formal personnel exchange arrangement to fill a fire chief’s slot in Florida. The DC Fire & EMS Department and the DC Department of Human Resources aren’t exactly filling in the blanks on a lot of unanswered questions. One question from a STATter911.com reader is one we hadn’t thought of: Will the DC Fire & EMS Department now offer this arrangement to every firefighter who may be almost a year short in reaching retirement age? Click here for the latest, including Wednesday’s 6:00 PM report for TV.
Also in Sarasota County, Florida, a 911 problem causing a 20 hour delay: Listen to the audio and read the details on why help wasn’t sent to a man later found dead in North Port, Florida. Click here.
Construction workers make rescue at Beltway vehicle fire: Raw video from the air, pictures from the ground and the story from Scott Broom on yesterday’s save after an SUV crashed and burned on the Capital Beltway near College Park, Maryland. Construction workers pulled a woman from the burning vehicle.
Rape charges dropped against Bourne, Massachusetts deputy chief: Paul Weeks is eager to go back to work and his bosses want him on the job as soon as possible. The rape charge against the deputy chief has been one of many dramas involving Bourne’s fire department in recent months. While the papers say they don’t identify rape victims, the victim in this case declined to prosecute citing “marital privilege”. Read more.
NEW – Developer on home confinement after off-duty firefighter shot: We were a little late in telling you about the arrest in the off-duty shooting of a Milton, Massachusetts firefighter in an apparent road rage incident. Read about the charges against a well known developer.
Anthropometry, a word Dave has never heard before: Ann who? Dave showing his ignorance on reading an interesting press release from the Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service. MCFRS will be working with NIOSH in using anthropometry to to “improve the fit and performance of equipment that interfaces with the body”. Anthropometry “is the science of measuring the human body”. Read the release.
Fire chief and city sued by landlord: Readers in Utica, New York alerted us to this story about a fire in September that killed four people, but Firegeezer already had this interesting case well covered. Click here.
Firefighters replace money stolen in Salvation Army robberies: IAFF Local 660 in Charlotte, North Carolina has donated $6000 to make up for some men going around to Salvation Army kettles trying to steal Christmas. Read the story.
Theresa Cusick is the former general counsel for the DC Fire & EMS Department who yesterday went public with the details of her lawsuit against the city. Cusick, who was the department’s lawyer for nine years, was let go within three months of the arrival of Chief Dennis Rubin in April, 2007. Cusick believes her dismissal was retaliation for telling Rubin one of his assistant chiefs interfered with a cheating investigation.
In a video deposition by Rubin, provided by Cusick’s attorney at the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the chief claims he got rid of Cusick after she went on an expletive filled tirade about his command staff. Cusick denies such an incident occurred.
Chief Dennis Rubin deposition from the Government Accountability Project.
A STATter911.com reader reminds us that Theresa Cusick was once on the other side of a complaint by a former fire department employee and according to news reports didn’t like it one bit. It was a very controversial episode in the history of the fire department.
It began with the death of Tyra Hunter in 1995, a transgender woman who died in a traffic accident. A lawsuit over Hunter’s care included an agreement that the department will institute diversity training. Kenda Kirby was brought in to handle those duties. Kirby herself ended up in a legal dispute with the department claiming she was fired because she is a lesbian.
In a March 5, 2004 article in the Washington Blade, reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. recounted a confrontation between Kirby, her lawyer and Theresa Cusick. Portions of that article are below. The entire article can be found here.
Contacted today, GAP spokesman Dylan Blaylock, does not believe the 2004 incident is relevant to Cusick’s suit and claims against Chief Rubin and members of his command staff. Blaylock makes his case in an email to STATter911.com that you can read here.
A lawyer representing the D.C. fire department yelled at Kenda Kirby, who was hired by the department to increase diversity awareness, during a Feb. 9 fact-finding meeting by the city’s Office of Human Rights into Kirby’s complaint that she was subjected to anti-gay harassment on the job, according to Mindy Daniels, Kirby’s attorney.
Daniels said Theresa Cusick, the D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department’s general counsel, leapt to her feet, leaned across a conference table toward Kirby, and screamed when she learned that Kirby had named her as a defendant in a discrimination complaint that Kirby filed against the department last September.
Kirby’s complaint charges the department with violating the D.C. Human Rights Act by failing to adequately respond when firefighters posted a series of derogatory messages about Kirby on an Internet site for firefights. The complaint charges department officials with retaliating against Kirby by curtailing her job duties when she reported the discrimination to her supervisors.
“Look at you! Look at you!” Cusick screamed at Kirby, according to Daniels’s account. “How dare you accuse me of anything!” Daniels quoted Cusick as saying.
Kenda Kirby from the Washington Blade.
Daniels said a stunned Kirby sat in silence as Daniels and OHR compliance officer Julio Matta tried to calm Cusick. Cusick continued to shout at Kirby for nearly five minutes, Daniels said, before agreeing to Daniels and Matta’s suggestion to end the meeting and to reschedule it for at another time.
“She was outright abusive and uncivil,” Daniels said. “It was the most unprofessional thing I’ve experienced in over 20 years of practice.”
Cusick, when contacted Wednesday by phone, declined comment.
“I cannot discuss this at all,” she said. “I cannot talk to the press.”
Katherine Friedman, a spokesperson for the department, said the department considers proceedings such as the Feb. 9 OHR meeting to be confidential and never comments on them.
The department hired Kirby, a former volunteer firefighter in Oklahoma, to help run the department’s diversity training program, which covers gay and transgender issues. The department decided not to renew her one-year appointment, which ended last month.
Kirby charges in her complaint that Cusick failed to adequately investigate a series of anonymous, online postings by firefighters on an unofficial firefighters’ Web site that poked fun of Kirby’s appearance. The postings also questioned Kirby’s competency as a consultant for the department’s diversity training program. Someone placed a printed copy of the postings in Kirby’s office mailbox, her complaint says.
One of the postings denounced Kirby for wearing a uniform normally worn by male battalion fire chiefs, calling her “some no-nothing running around dressed like a fireman.” Kirby has said department officials selected the uniform and required her to wear it.
Another posting said, “I thought the dress uniform for women was a skirt!!!”
A third posting criticized Fire Chief Adrian Thompson for hiring as diversity trainers new battalion fire chiefs who “cannot figure out if they are male or female.”
In addition, the complaint says Kirby was informed by a deputy fire chief that department officials had deliberated in private over whether she should be required to use the male or female bathrooms at the time she was hired. The officials eventually decided, “I was not allowed to use the men’s room,” Kirby said in an affidavit accompanying her complaint.
Kirby charges in her complaint that the department’s failure to take adequate steps to identify and reprimand the department employees who wrote the online messages undermined her ability to effectively carry out her job, defamed her character, and caused her to suffer emotional harm.
The complaint says at least one of the postings shows it was sent out on a Fire & EMS Department computer server, indicating that the sender wrote it while at work.
Daniels said Kirby has since amended her complaint against the department to charge Cusick with a count of retaliation for Cusick’s behavior at the Feb. 9 OHR meeting.
“The basis of the complaint is the department acted improperly toward Kenda because of her personal appearance,” Daniels said. “Now you have Cusick shouting ‘Look at you, look at you’ at Kenda. That gets to personal appearance,” Daniels said.
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