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64. Are You Ready? Training, Culture, Policy & The Moment of Truth - Terrell Thomas
75 Plays6 days ago
What does it really mean to be ready?
In this episode of The FireDawg Podcast, we explore the moments that test more than skill — they test judgment. The moments when your training is pushed, policy isn’t perfectly clear, and culture either empowers you… or makes you hesitate.
Our guest, Terrell Thomas, a nearly 20-year Air Force leader with experience spanning operational response and executive leadership, shares powerful response stories from his career. Together, we discuss autonomy on scene, deviation from SOPs, organizational accountability, and how leaders build firefighters who are prepared for the moment of truth.
Because readiness isn’t proven in routine calls.
It’s proven when everything is on the line.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of the Fire Dog Podcast is supported by AOS Services, the one-stop shop for firefighting equipment compliance built for the DoD. At AOS Services, they help military fire departments stay mission-ready with customized programs that bundle everything from SCBAs and compressors to hoses, ladders, PPE care, rescue gear, and more. Their teams work worldwide, so whether you're stateside or overseas, they've got you covered.
00:00:21
Speaker
For all your firefighting equipment compliance needs, visit aosservicesinc.com to learn more.
00:00:29
Speaker
This episode of Fire Dog Podcast is supported by Roll Call Coins, founded by 24-year Air Force firefighter veteran. They understand that a coin represents more than just an event. It represents a story.
00:00:39
Speaker
Using 3D modeling and custom textures, Roll Call has moved beyond generic designs to create premium standout coins. Whether you're honoring a department or branding a business, they make the process effortless. Start your design today at rollcallcoins.com and let your coin stand out in the stack.
Episode Introduction and Theme: Readiness
00:01:00
Speaker
This is the Fire Dog Podcast. The views and opinions presented on today's episode are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Army.
00:01:12
Speaker
Welcome, my name is Matt Wilson. and Thank you for listening to episode 64 of the Fire Dog Podcast. In this episode, we're asking a question that every firefighter and leader should wrestle with. Are you ready? Ready for when you're on a tough response and you're the one who has to make the call?
Guest Introduction: Terrell Thomas
00:01:25
Speaker
Ready for the moment that tests your training and the policy behind it? And you're standing there with the responsibility. Today, we're joined by a leader who has served in the Air Force for nearly 20 years.
00:01:35
Speaker
He shares powerful response stories from his career and challenges us to think differently about autonomy, accountability, and how we prepare our people for the moment of truth.
00:01:46
Speaker
It's my pleasure to welcome to the podcast, Terrell Thomas.
Terrell's Career Journey and Future Plans
00:01:50
Speaker
All right, Terrell, good morning. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, Matt. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, glad to have you on, man. You're one of the few that reached out when I know put a post up. And i say few, there was a handful. of people I was going to say a few.
00:02:05
Speaker
There's a handful of people, you know what I'm saying But ah not too many people are excited to, you know, put their face, put their voice out there. Maybe share some vulnerability, you know, share some mistakes and talk through what they did right or wrong and, you know, help people out. But you're one of those that did, man. We appreciate that. Look forward to the conversation.
00:02:24
Speaker
But before we get into what we want to talk about, I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, where you've been stationed, where you're stationed now, kind of ah a brief career path.
00:02:37
Speaker
All right. No, sweet. Well, again, thank you guys for just having me on here. I know ah there's a lot of passionate folks out there that have a lot of topics they want to talk about and being selective is pretty cool. um So I'm glad to be here. But yeah, my name is Master Sergeant Terrell Thomas Jr. Right now I'm currently stationed at Sotocano Air Base down here in Honduras. Been in about 19 years, actually. This is actually my last hoorah before i ah I hang it up on the Air Force side of things. um As far as bases I've been to, man, I've been all over the place, back and forth overseas. So this is actually my seventh assignment. And I've gone from anywhere from both both bases in Korea, Andrews Air Force Base, Shaw shaw Air Force Base, where was with Perry there for a while.
00:03:21
Speaker
And then... ah Let's see, Hickam. So I just, I've been jumping around all over, and plus many deployments in between. So lot of its experience just seeing things from different ways that different match comms operate different bases. So a pretty good career, in my opinion. you know I love it.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, man, a broad career, a lot of experience. And I don't know why I thought this, but when you hit me up, man, I was thinking that you were at ah at a, a lower tier you know what i'm saying,
Challenges in Firefighting: Readiness and Decision-Making
00:03:50
Speaker
a company officer level. I didn't realize that you've been in for a while and that 19 years and you're serving as a deputy fire chief right now.
00:03:56
Speaker
Oh, yep, that's right. I'm the deputy fire chief down here Sotocano. So first time being an official deputy, but I've been in this capacity for temporary purposes couple times throughout my career, but first time full time in it here. And yeah, just been rocking out as best as I can. you know what mean?
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah. Sweet. Weren't you in Florida for a little bit too? I was. um After Shaw, um I went to Herber Field, and there I was there for about five years. So seeing that AFSOC mission was a was pretty cool, pretty unique, seeing how that all works and operates. What are the plans after?
00:04:31
Speaker
Well, let's see. When I decide to promote to civilian, I'm going to see if see if I can try to get a nice GS job, still do fire because it's my passion. I've always wanted to be a firefighter.
00:04:41
Speaker
I've been since before the military when I was just a wee knee biter, right? And now I kind of want to still continue down that career path, maybe do like investigations, fire investigations, inspector, or if I can get back to my heart, which would be like the AC of ops type thing, because yeah I just love riding ops and being with guys.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, being on the operational side, man, I'm right there with you. Well, that aligns a lot with what we're going to talk about today. So Introduce us to this topic that you wanted to chat about. You had mentioned a specific call and I think you said you wanted to mention maybe a couple of calls that you'd experienced where you're essentially on your own for whatever reason as a company officer, ah on an engine company.
00:05:24
Speaker
or any kind of just single resource apparatus. Nobody's coming. Maybe they're tied up in another call. Maybe there's a train on the train track, and you know they can't get across. You're by yourself, and it's a serious situation. it Walk us through why you hit us up.
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, so again, my biggest passion is always the people that I work with, right? And ensuring that they are ready for those tough calls and then not just before and during, but truly after for the long haul. um So, you know, that resiliency piece where sometimes it can get lost in translation, how we're preparing for that, especially with the young company officers. And, you know, I kind of want to just put it out to the group, like the question that we really ask ourselves, like,
00:06:07
Speaker
Am I, like insert your name, truly ready for the tough call under high stress? And do I believe that the training I've done has prepared me enough for that and not just for the incident itself, but for after.
00:06:20
Speaker
Are we teaching these guys and getting out there and preparing them for like, hey, after this tough one happens, this is what we need to do to keep battling after the fact, right? i'll so I'll say this, man. Going back to the call, sorry, I had to take take a little break on it. just ah So there was a couple calls. I'm a reference some of them from Shaw, but the first one I kind of want to open up with is at Shaw Air Force Base, I'll never forget, ah Austin might notice one Being on the rescue company, right, I was a pretty seasoned staff sergeant. He was actually my driver.
00:06:52
Speaker
And we had a call to a elderly patient, run-in-the-mill, just medical call, right, where somebody was difficulty breathing, chest pains, all that. So run-in-the-mill call, the senior fire officer didn't come out with us for that one. He was like, hey, you guys can handle it. Company officer level, like, yeah, we got this, right?
00:07:08
Speaker
And as we're responding to the call, and We get the notification thrown, dispatch that the guy just stopped breathing, went unconscious and pretty much cardiac arrest in that moment, right?
00:07:19
Speaker
So of course we went into high gear, ready to rock and roll, right? Then once we get to this call, Right. Same thing. Everybody's panicking at the scene. We've called for the resources. I've called for the resources, what we're going to need at the scene immediately. Right. And then come to find out as we're working this guy, the ambulance broke, broke down, couldn't get there as quick as possible.
00:07:41
Speaker
the
Real-Life Rescue Challenges (Q&A)
00:07:42
Speaker
commanding officer, the AC on duty that day, who was the temporary fill-in, he didn't show up. He didn't come out for it because he didn't hear that it was transforming into a higher level emergency.
00:07:53
Speaker
People are getting in the way of me and Perry working on this person, man. I'll never forget, like, just trying to work this guy and communicate over the radio. And there was somebody trying to, saying they were trying to help and they put their finger down his throat while we're trying to help this dude out, right? And It's like, shoot, here I am. And is just the two man company.
00:08:12
Speaker
Right. Trying to coordinate all this, give instructions to a younger fireman to be able to execute their tasks, do command and control, requesting additional resources after the fact something else has gone down. Right. Like a truly high stressful situation where someone's life was on the line. Right. I'm not going to lie to you.
00:08:31
Speaker
my My little spirit was feeling the burn on that. When I was feeling the challenge on that, I was pushed to the most maximum stress you could think of in that situation. But at the end of the day, we ended up saving that person. He actually was saved and I'm grateful that I had Perry there. He was a great fireman. He listened to instructions and executed, right? And I'm glad that he had trust in me to be able to make the calls and follow through with all the execution, right, in order to do what we needed to do. It was a great experience and and learning opportunity for me. But at the end of the day, I also said to myself, could someone else do that that I'm riding with?
00:09:07
Speaker
If I was to go down, would Perry be able to do that at that time? Would somebody else be able to execute? And then I put that into myself where I want to make sure guys are prepared for those high stress situations and be ready to execute when the next person up or the next resource that you think is coming may not show up.
00:09:27
Speaker
So that's why I really wanted to talk about this topic. And then I'm go also share some other situations ah as we go along where it wasn't as successful. And, you know, the adverse effect of that and how that can affect people.
00:09:38
Speaker
Awesome. What was your perspective on the call? here I was just going to piggyback on that. And it's kind of funny to hear that side of things and kind of go back into thoughts. Mine and kind of like, because at that time, A1C Perry, the perspective is so different for me because my so my field of view is smaller. And I think that was my second time ever doing CPR. But just like, and I've been kind of doing a little bit of a deep dive on this one as well lately.
00:10:06
Speaker
of this, like, we don't realize how much stress we're being subjected to. Because my point of view, like, I would just have to, like, even go back and try to remember was like, was Chief 2 not there?
00:10:21
Speaker
Like everything gets distorted in those high, high stress situations. I remember like, okay, I remember you telling that lady to get out of here because she didn't know what she was doing.
00:10:33
Speaker
And then i remember shocking the patient And then I remember driving the ambulance. And that's my that's essentially my my so memory of that call. And so but now that you say that I, you know, that those chunks are kind of coming back. But it is interesting to hear that side of things, especially now me being a company officer of like understanding those things to deal with. But at that time, that wasn't on my radar. I was just thinking about pumping chest and delivering a shock.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. and And, you know, for the next person to have to step up, like when you're used to it, I'd say in Air Force fire, we're kind of spoiled with a lot of that. We get that quite often where those resources are right there and they're going to come most of the time, right? But in those situations, and I'm not saying Chief 2 didn't show up, but it was like way late into the call. Like we had already completed rounds of CPR on this person and then we got them back. And now it's about sustaining this dude, waiting until something gets there. And then Finally, the paramedics were able to get there after changing rigs. Right. And then, of course, of course, after that, that's when ah Perry actually drove off. But at the same time, again, would a younger member be able to handle all that pressure? What is that?
00:11:44
Speaker
Like, how are they going to be able to think about those things? And it makes me think and I always want to try to test my company officers like that is like, hey, it could just be you. Or, heaven forbid, it could be the next person next to you because that crew chief or that lead firefighter may not have the experience, the same experience as a senior airman. You know i mean? So being ready to take over that call.
00:12:06
Speaker
um That's why that's why i believe this is just a true topic that we need to highlight every single time when it comes to our training versus experience, right? Being ready for default and being able to take control of the situation. Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Man, what a great reminder of the heavy responsibility that we have day to day that we probably take
Preparedness for High-Risk Events
00:12:25
Speaker
for granted. ah We talk about on this podcast, high risk, low frequency events. Any event involving a person in cardiac arrest, a fire is a high risk event.
00:12:36
Speaker
And for us in Air Force fire, most of those events are low frequency events. And we, some of us may be complacent day to day because we don't see those events, but when they, they slap us in the face, what an incredible reminder it is that it's like, this could happen at any time. And in the most unlikely of times in the middle of the night, when you're woken up and maybe the assistant chief doesn't realize that it's a tough call. he's like, Hey, I'm, I don't want to get out of bed. So go handle it.
00:13:05
Speaker
Um, it, i love I do love this topic as well. I think that it's something that we could talk about at nauseam. It's a problem as old as time. We're a collectively young force as firefighters in the Air Force and in the Federal Fire Service, especially for those departments that have military members. So it's easy to forget how heavy the responsibility it is as a firefighter, like at any moment.
00:13:30
Speaker
You could be asked to do the hardest things, right? You could be asked to put out room of contents fire, take a pilot out of a cockpit or perform CPR on a loved one. Like at any moment right now, that could happen. Are you ready right now?
00:13:43
Speaker
It's not about getting ready a month from now. Like, oh, we'll figure it out as a crew eventually. No, you have to be ready right now. And I always like to use the example when I was an assistant chief to the crews, it's like my family is a mile and a half down the road.
00:13:57
Speaker
Like my kids, my wife are a mile and a half down the road. I sometimes have grandparents, aunts, and uncles visit. Are you capable of handling it?
00:14:08
Speaker
an emergency involving them, right? A seizure, a cardiac arrest, because that's my family, like you know, and my expectation as a customer is that you can handle that. I don't think that the firefighters or the fire department can handle an event like that. I know as a customer, like, oh yeah, of course, I call 911, they solve my problem, right? So are you ready to meet that responsibility, that obligation?
00:14:32
Speaker
Absolutely, man. and I'm glad that you said that because you said a key word with complacency because we run the low risk ones. Right. Most of the time, whenever we respond to stuff, that complacency sets in so fast and so quick. And then we forget that the severity of how serious this the nature of our our profession is.
00:14:51
Speaker
And I'll tell you now, i did it I did a quick study on this, right? just Just looking up data and information of how serious complacency can hurt us, right? Like i I looked up this peer-reviewed article. It's titled The Hidden Side of Trust Supporting Sustaining Leaders, right? I'm sorry.
00:15:08
Speaker
Supporting and Sustaining and How Leaps of Faith Among Firefighters, right? And in that study, it highlighted that in 2016, like 15 firefighters passed away, right? But then they said, and that was on fire grounds, I'm sorry. But then they said that across the nation for that year, fire calls only made up 4% of the call. So when you look at the data on that, when you look at the details, folks were getting hurt. And there's probably more more into it, like, right, the intricacies, whether it was a department that runs frequently or department that gets fires more often, right? However, when you look at that as a statistic, you had people passing away at these scenes on the lowest end level.
00:15:48
Speaker
of the spectrum at the moment, at that time for that year, actual fire calls. And I always say to myself, like, you want to pay attention to the small details because did complacency cause cause that?
00:15:59
Speaker
Were they even fit to fight fire? Were they training to prepare themselves for that? Or were they just coming to work, doing the daily details, eating good food and sleeping, right? Knowing that this job is a job that's physically and mentally demanded.
00:16:14
Speaker
So I paid attention to that and I was like, man, that's crazy. And then digging deeper, like outside of fatalities, when you talk about injuries, 32% of the injuries at firegrounds were caused by either improper training or not knowing procedures on what they would have to do. Like that was just a quick synopsis that I grabbed from the NFPA.org website and they talked about firefighter
The Dangers of Complacency
00:16:38
Speaker
injuries, right?
00:16:39
Speaker
So it's it's important that we stay on top of that and we train these dudes to prepare and for that. Because again, at the end of the day, not just for the community that we serve, which we should take pride in serving it, right? But also for our guys to ensure that, hey, I'm not going to let complacency take out my people, right? I'm not going to let lackadaisicalness decide on whether not my crew gets to go home to their families, right? If it's a freak accident, it's a freak accident. We are in a career where It's dangerous, hands down, right?
00:17:08
Speaker
It is 100% dangerous. We know this. We signed up for this and we move on with this. And we know that we're going to be putting our lives on the line. But we're not going to do it without any kind of sense. We're not going to do it without thinking, right? And we're going to train our bodies and our minds to be able to handle these situations to the best of our ability. And that's how I feel we should be addressing this. We shouldn't be people that just come and collect paychecks. We should be folks that are trying to change and make things better so that we can operate more efficiently.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, there's an inherent risk to it, right? You said it's dangerous. Nobody's saying you have to manage risk. That's what it all comes down to. Nobody's saying to avoid risk. I think that that kind of that's kind of a different conversation. But when people bring it up, like, you know, there's an inherent risk. Well, yeah, people are going to die. Like, well, okay.
00:17:54
Speaker
Maybe. There's an inherent risk, right? Firefighters might die. They're putting themselves in risky situations, right? Of course, you have PPE. You have all these risk management tools and techniques. And, of course, you everything in your brain, what you know about firefighting is going to help manage that risk. But, yeah, there's an inherent risk, and sometimes accidents happen.
00:18:13
Speaker
But that's no reason to be complacent. I think Chris said it on a previous podcast, and I've heard it said before, and maybe it was even Austin, that, um you know, you firefighters are – like equivalent to professional athletes and they should approach the job that way because the demand is so incredibly high and challenging you know if you're expected to go fight a room and talk contents fire especially in like warmer environments and where you're putting on ensemble that doesn't breathe and you know under a high stress situation with no time to think it through you have to know exactly what you're doing so your body has to be physically prepared mentally prepared
00:18:49
Speaker
um you know, I love that comparison. You really should approach the job like a professional athlete approaches their sport. I got one thing on that too. I think that's why doctrine is also super important. Is your doctrine tactically sound? Sometimes our SOGs and stuff, they get very vague and it's kind of to cover ourselves. So like in case somebody messes up, but there's this one group that I pay attention ah attention to a lot and it's They talk about always endeavors operating and Operating in always and nevers doesn't really apply to us because, you know, the nature, the dynamic nature of our situation. But there are a lot of routine emergencies that we go to on a regular basis and not having a plan A for those things or a best plan for those things is also foolish. So I think that like having those things lined out gets everyone on the same sheet of music and they know their positions
00:19:46
Speaker
is it's imperative to our job. Man, listen, y'all speaking from my own heart right now, because I believe doctrine should be sound. I do believe that we as leaders, especially me sitting in this position, I need to equip my guys the best way possible to handle whatever emergencies that they have, empower them to make decisions on the fire ground, but also give them the guidance to say, this is what we need to be doing. And then at the same time, execute it.
00:20:13
Speaker
ah think I think over the years, right, especially with manpower manning across the force, a lot of administrative stuff's getting done, and we're trying to make up for it with the less bodies that we have.
00:20:23
Speaker
However, a lot of things get lost in transit, like the follow-up procedures to make sure that this stuff is working because doctrine is good and all, but we should be evaluating it every year. It shouldn't be like a pencil whip thing or it shouldn't be like, yep, nothing's changed, sign it off for the next year.
00:20:39
Speaker
Like, we really need to evaluate if this is working.
Evaluating Doctrine and Effectiveness
00:20:42
Speaker
Because if we don't, and with the ever-changing environment in the fire and emergency services career field, not just us, but for law enforcement and EMS, trying to continue to do the same thing the same way every single time and telling our guys to go out and do it the same way every single time.
00:20:58
Speaker
It's not feasible. That's not real. You what mean? Heck, the way fires are nowadays and when we we look at how long it takes for a room to go from its incipient stage to fully engulfed, it's changed. So the ways that we have to move and operate is going to have to change, right? And it's no different than how we're going to have to respond, how our mutual aid agreement is set up. Like it's going to have to change on how we're going to operate and move. So, man, I don't know, man. I just think that I get passionate about that really, really a lot.
00:21:26
Speaker
um especially because I've seen injuries. I've seen people get hurt. I've dealt with people that have passed the away in the fire service right next to me, right? So we definitely need to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to do. I do have a question though. Whenever we do come across those situations, right?
00:21:42
Speaker
and we're doing doctrine and we're following it to the T and someone still gets hurt or somebody gets injured severely, like how how are members bouncing back from y'all's perspective? Like, have you seen how members actually bounce back from that and what that actually looks like whenever they think they're doing everything the right way in a high stress situation and it doesn't turn out? What does that look like to y'all? Because I can tell you now from what I've seen, there's one of two things that happen, but I want to hear what y'all's perspective is real quick on that before I continue.
00:22:11
Speaker
I'll take it. So that is ah that's a pretty difficult question. And the the quote that comes to mind or the, um I guess, idea, I think I got it from D. Jay Bonifield, he was talking about his anatomy of a push class, the and it's a perspective thing. Basically, there was a captain. They get a report of a car fire with somebody trapped, right? The captain ducks in there real quick to try and make sure to try and make a ah like a grab high risk kind of situation. Didn't put his mask on. It was just an in and out kind of thing. He gets written up for not using proper PPE. okay
00:22:49
Speaker
Same exact situation at a different department. right Two guys show up on the ambulance, car fires. Somebody is trapped. They don't put their SCBA on or anything. They get they go in, pull them out, and they they get medals. So what the difference between free thinking and freelancing is outcome.
00:23:10
Speaker
So I think understanding that and understanding what those people were trying to accomplish, even though they might have you know gotten hurt or whatever, has a lot to do with that rather than just trying to come down on somebody because they didn't follow the follow the textbook rules.
00:23:27
Speaker
Man, that's a quote right there for a bumper sticker. That was great. Man, I agree with Austin. I think it's a multivariate thing. And know the question was, you know, how do members react or bounce back? I think it really goes, it comes down to the organizational culture. How does the organization handle mistakes? And it's funny that you bring this up, man, because I just wrote a paper about it for my executive fire officer course.
00:23:50
Speaker
And I too was like reading into some studies into, you know, what, i don't know, some different opinion pieces on what people think about this topic. It's one of those, again, another...
00:24:02
Speaker
topic or problem is old as time. It really comes down to what is the standard operating procedures and the protocols in the department? What's the leadership culture? What's the overall culture? How do you handle mistakes? There's a multivariate thing. And to start from the top, i to start from the executive level, the fire chief, deputy fire chief, and assistant chief, battalion chief, section chief levels, it's important to have, for my in my opinion, to have a solid protocol, a solid foundation of Solid documentation for procedural things. Wear your gear right.
00:24:35
Speaker
Buckle your seatbelt on fire engines. you know Use your equipment right. We don't want cowboy firefighters. But you want firefighters that have autonomy to act in those moments where someone's life is on the line and they don't have time to think it through. So it's finding the balance between those two things. And if there was some kind of injury on the fire ground, if I'm um the fire chief in that scenario that I described in that kind of culture that I described,
00:25:04
Speaker
okay, somebody got hurt. Are they okay? Let's make sure that we notify their family. Let's make sure their family's good. make's like That's first step for me. Number one, are they okay? Is their family good?
00:25:16
Speaker
Then I'd want to look at every single variable in the equation. Instead of just like throwing the book down and saying, you didn't have an SCBA on, like let's evaluate this. What was the scenario? What did they do?
00:25:30
Speaker
How fast did they do it? Et cetera, et cetera. But I think that if you have a culture that's established like in the way that I described, that it's easier for the firefighters to...
00:25:45
Speaker
weather that kind of circumstance. I love both y'all's answers because you're very true. And you were both speaking on the same thing and answer the question in well. And I'll say this is that, yes, like SOPs and guidances, well-written ones, and allowing for mistakes to happen where people aren't getting criticized and destroyed, but at the same time not allowing like the freelance and the cowboy ship, it's important.
00:26:10
Speaker
Because i I'll tell you my answer to that, right? Because there's no cookie cutter answer to that. But you both had different views on it. And I bet you the listeners are also going to have different views on what that looks like because it is a complicated, compact question, right? at Each organization and whatever that culture is. But I kind of boiled it down from my answer to two
Dealing with High-Stress Outcomes (Q&A)
00:26:29
Speaker
factors, right? um When high stress situations...
00:26:31
Speaker
what the desire to succeed will generally lead to one of two outcomes, right? One, success that gives the crews great experience that can build trust for for their teams. And then two, failure could lead to doubt and capability in oneself, their team, and the organization they work for, right? And whenever you add in whether life is going to be lost or saved, it increases it dramatically.
00:26:52
Speaker
So with that being said, what does that look like, especially if they follow s SOP and guidances and then things still go wrong? Or the scenario that I'm about to share, what if you vary it, if you deviate from that, which could look like a cowboy scenario and you try your best to save someone and then they still end up passing away?
00:27:11
Speaker
Right. It's a heavy topic. and And I want to share this one because this one is something that sticks with me for it's stuck with me ever since that day. And, you know, and I go and talk to people about it, which I always highly advocate. Like we're in a career field where where 70 percent of us are going to experience a traumatic type of call.
00:27:30
Speaker
Right. And maybe 25 percent of those folks are going to have to seek help. So I always say, hey, go go talk to somebody. But with that being said, I want to share this call that happened at Shaw. I won't forget we were undermanned and we were riding ah what we called the unit back then. We had to go with the ladder truck and ah the rescue company because something happened something would happen to our engines at the time, right?
00:27:51
Speaker
um And our manning was so bad that we had to pull both units because the rescue of you company would have to bug out to other calls sometimes, right? So what ended up happening was a bad... ah windstorm came through and of course it knocked power out for a little bit and then we had the routine fire alarm activations all over base right so we're riding all over i was on the rescue company and I was the lead company officer at each one of these emergencies that we were going through um We get the call from the county asking for Rescue 3 to respond to a tree that had collapsed on a trailer and it had pinned a three-year-old boy underneath the tree. The boy was alive, but it was causing him where he couldn't get full inhalation in. He couldn't get full breaths of air and he was slowly asphyxiating, right? We are, at Shaw, we were one of three rescue companies at the time in that whole county.
00:28:45
Speaker
Right. That will respond to anything. We had our little area where we were just if we got toned out, we were riding out. Right. So here I'm at this scene and I'm like, OK, right now I'm at a scene before I can be committed to go out there. i need clarification from my assistant chief on whether or not I can bug out from this call and go out there. Right.
00:29:03
Speaker
I remember coming over the radio, shooting messages to him, and I wasn't getting any feedback, right? I wasn't getting anything. And again, he wasn't at the scene with me. So here I am hearing them saying that they're sending units down to Lowe's to get chainsaws when we have everything on our truck right So I'm sitting there with my driver. We're both feeling anxious at this time. Like, hey, man, we got to do something. We got to do something. I said, I'm going to make this call on my own.
00:29:27
Speaker
Right. They had called for us. We said that we couldn't make it. They didn't. They didn't try to call for us again. I just said, bump it. We're leaving. Ain't nothing happening at this building. The latter company, they're going to have to just figure it out.
00:29:39
Speaker
um It's just a fire alarm activation. No harm, no foul. Nothing smoke and fire. We already did the investigation piece. So I bugged out. I made a call. We get to the scene. And of course, everybody and their moms out there trying to save this little boy, right?
00:29:52
Speaker
So we get the chainsaws out. We start cutting. We are able to get him out. He did go unconscious for a while. He had stopped breathing, but we were able to get him to breathe again. However, unfortunately, he had Asphyxiated himself for so long that he eventually became a vegetable and that little boy had to be pulled off life support.
00:30:11
Speaker
A lot of things came from that emergency for me where I had doubt. I had doubt in my capability. I had doubt in my decision to make the call. And it stuck with me for for years just thinking about it. What if I did make the call sooner?
00:30:27
Speaker
What if I would have left a little bit sooner? What if I would have deviated from ah SOGs on that line a little bit sooner? Would that boy still be alive? I got to give myself a little grace, right? Maybe, maybe not, right? But at the same time, the question that I kind of want to just transition into is basically when the decision needs be made and the authority figures are unavailable, will you be able to make the call? Are our company officers equipped and and feel like they can trust the organization to say, hey, I made a tough call.
00:30:56
Speaker
No one was around. I know I deviated. i know I put us in a tough spot. But I made the call. Are your leaders willing to accept that? Or are they going to be the ones that say, well, you deviated from s SOGs and s SOPs. And this is why i said it's important that organizational leadership gets involved in that and says, hey, maybe we need to rewrite something where it gives them a little more leeway versus it being vague, right?
00:31:23
Speaker
But yeah, man, that one, that call has been the toughest. And that's the one that really spearheaded me into wanting to train a whole lot harder and give real scenarios. Yeah, that's a tough one, man. I don't think there's any easy answer.
00:31:37
Speaker
I'm going to continue to foot stomp on organizational culture being the most important thing so that there's no fear of repercussions if you know you're making a good and right decision, right? Or it's based on legitimate things.
00:31:56
Speaker
But let's say that alarm activation had turned into something worse, you know, and yeah, it gets, it gets really murky. It's not black and white. There's a lot of gray area. And so I think there's an algorithm of priorities and this is a tough to say, but when you're on a military installation, your first priority and responsibility is that military installation. So,
00:32:23
Speaker
Now there's a kid trapped under a tree and you know that you have the capability to get them out and maybe, you know, they're at Lowe's getting equipment. Yeah, of course you want to go split to take care of that problem.
00:32:35
Speaker
But I think, I don't think that Shaw should shoulder the burden of responsibility for that, you know, for that incident.
00:32:45
Speaker
That to me, that's a multivariate one, but the county should be introspective in their capabilities too. Like how do we not have airbags or chainsaws or, you know what I'm saying? And maybe it's a money thing. Maybe it's a political thing. Maybe it's a manpower thing. I get that it's really complicated and that's a rare incident.
00:33:07
Speaker
And so we don't expect it to happen, yada, yada, yada. But that's that's a great example, man. I think it's also important to to talk about like national consensus. It's it's important to talk about litigation too.
00:33:19
Speaker
that's That's an important element to this, right? When we're talking about protocols, national consensus standard, what's right, what's wrong as a firefighter, what am I expected to do? And i've I've looked into several lawsuits just through my studies, you know, my undergraduate, my graduate degree, because it was required of us to look into these things.
00:33:37
Speaker
And there is some, and I encourage people to go out there. and and look this kind of stuff up, there's this one chief out there that just like, he's ah also a lawyer. He's a firefighter and he's a lawyer, but he goes through and he interprets these lawsuits that they're out there. A lot of them are like on overtime, pay and pay and discrimination. There's a lot of stuff like that, but there's also like a lot of traffic related stuff.
00:34:00
Speaker
Did they park right? Did they not? Did they use their sirens and lights, believe it or not? Like there have been firefighters, litigated for not using sirens and there being a car accident and people dying and that firefighter being found liable, right? So you could you could look into those kind of lawsuits and see like what is the law saying and what is happening to these fire departments? These fire departments are paying or these cities, municipalities and counties are paying multi-million dollar lawsuits when firefighters don't follow the protocol that they said they're going to follow, right? So it's important to have that in the back of your mind as well. So a multivariate event, I think it comes down to having sound protocol, following that protocol, but at the same time, Austin brought it up earlier, enough giving company officers autonomy in that protocol, in those SOPs to make those hard decisions, right?
Balancing SOPs and Autonomy
00:34:55
Speaker
So that we're not tying our own hands if it goes to court. I said a lot there, but those are my thoughts.
00:35:00
Speaker
No, and you're on it because, yes, Air Force comes. That's what we're here for. That's what we're paid as Air Force firefighters. This is our jurisdiction where we're this is what we're supposed to be supporting. Mutual aid. Yes, we have that agreement. So, yes, we want to support you. But at the same time, we got to take care of what's ours, just like they would do the same thing. Right. If they can support, they can support. They can't. They can't.
00:35:22
Speaker
um And I'll say this, and I'm not beating up Shaw at all, because at the end of the day, once that call was made, I had nothing but support. They said, I'm glad you made the call because I would have told you to go.
00:35:33
Speaker
Right. And you followed it to the to the T up until that point. And you you had to make a decision. and And like I said, the crews had already did the investigation and they found out that the cause of that activation more likely it was just from the lightning or not the lightning, the windstorm knocking out power for a little bit, which sent the system into alarm. So educated decisions on that part. And that's where I will say is that these company officers are young company officers. They got to train and they have to actually know what they're doing.
00:36:01
Speaker
and train in these scenarios where they're able to investigate. They know what they're looking for. They've utilized all the tools and resources. So when those calls do happen, they're able to make those tough calls. And again, just like you said, the organizational culture and how it's structured, the SOGs, SOPs, F&P, right? They give that leeway for them to make those calls. I've been in departments where the SOPs were very strict. And if you deviate it, that's you. They they said full liabilities on you. And then I've also been in departments where it's very lax, where it's like,
00:36:31
Speaker
Well, here's what, this is how we respond to these. However, situation dictates. Literally, that's what it'll say, situation dictates. And then it's up to the company office. But then again, that's where you get into that gray area, that muddled area, where are you using full judgment before you make these decisions? Are you making, taking proper risk assessment protocols where you're thinking everything through? And that's where people can get more trouble, right? Sometimes if we're not careful.
00:36:57
Speaker
So I think as organizations grow and as years go on, it's very important that we keep reevaluating and we use these case studies from across the nation, not just our own department, but from across the nation and say, hey, we can come across this type of call to probably slim, but we have the capability and the ability for that to happen. So maybe we might want to adjust on that. Right. So you're absolutely, absolutely right, Matt. Like those case studies, those litigations, all that's important to look into whenever we're building these things.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, case studies would, I mean, it's ah it's a way to dive into the complexities of these scenarios you're talking about and like what was the outcome. And it's firelawblog.com. Kurt Verone is the is a gentleman who runs that. And again, it just, I mean, I think he makes, let me see the last post that he made 15 hours ago, two days ago. Albuquerque paramedic staffing lawsuit ends with settlement, yada, yada. ya a lot of manpower,
00:37:55
Speaker
stuff, injuries while on duty. There's a lot of that kind of stuff, but there's also, you know, emergency events, how firefighters made decisions during those events and what the outcome was in litigation. And you would be surprised to see some of this stuff like, oh, that he was trying to do the right thing, right? That kind of stuff doesn't hold up in court there to a degree it does,
00:38:20
Speaker
But I mean, at the end of the day, when you're talking about someone's life being lost in a family seeking damages or maybe an organization seeking damages, man, they get into the weeds of the law. And what does the law say?
00:38:35
Speaker
What does the fire department say they're going to do? They do that as well. And what does the national consensus standard say? So national consensus standard would be NFPA or, and whatever consensus standard that department adopted for most departments, it's NFPA. There's some nuances out there. Phoenix doesn't follow NFPA.
00:38:53
Speaker
So it's important listeners and anybody who's willing to listen that to to understand how important SLPs and protocol is. But for ah you executive level leaders,
00:39:07
Speaker
to give autonomy. And I think you had mentioned it, like it says that the crew chief has discretion, the assistant chief has discretion to also include that within your s SOPs. So in the event of those tough decisions, like they have the autonomy to make the right choice or make a choice.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, so with this whole situation or subject, but and this will be the last thing on tactical doctrine, I think it's important to understand that the situations that we're going to are ambiguous and uncertain environments. And there's just really no way that you could possibly have everything lined out that you're going to experience.
00:39:45
Speaker
So empowering your people to be able to pivot when necessary on those things is very, very important because when you create a culture that when people deviate outside these lines, that it's a bad thing. You're causing those people to be indecisive in these uncertain environments because they become afraid afraid of what's going to happen afterwards. I see it all the time, people being afraid to make decisions because they think dad's going to get mad at them.
00:40:18
Speaker
That's not the way to operate. We want people that are going to think freely and make those decisions or try to make the best decision in that time-compressed, high-stress event.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, and you just highlighted the delicate balance between we have like a dichotomy between what you and I are saying a little bit, like strict protocol laws, you're going to be, there's going to be a lawsuit.
00:40:41
Speaker
But at the same time, you don't want people that are afraid to make decisions and afraid of lawsuits and afraid of going to jail, prison, you know, the worst case scenarios.
00:40:51
Speaker
So yeah, finding in that balance between those two things. That's why it's important to be well read. I think to read these laws, these lawsuits, these case studies, as Terrell mentioned, it's an under, it's important to understand those things, but also important to empower people to make decisions and not, you know, slap their hand every time they didn't, you know, as an executive officer, fire chief, slap the hand of the person when you didn't like what they
Improving Emergency Response: Reviews and Analysis (Q&A)
00:41:18
Speaker
did. Like, tell me what your thoughts were.
00:41:20
Speaker
Tell me what you were thinking. What's the protocol? And to be thorough in that review process. And Terrell, you brought up a, I think you brought up like a review process, after after action review. This is another thing I mentioned in something I wrote recently.
00:41:33
Speaker
I think that it's a good practice and it hasn't happened in an apartment that I've served in, but to periodically review calls, not just serious calls. So we do after action reports anytime something serious happens, right? Some kind of large scale mishap.
00:41:46
Speaker
commanders are asking, right? And here, okay, here you go, sir, ma'am. Here's the whole portfolio on what happened on this event, right? So that makes sense. Obviously we want to do those after action reviews, but having some kind of like randomized after action for something relatively simple, a pipe break, but we saw all the time at all Ielson, right? Walk us through, like, let's, let's dive through every single detail of this. How long did it take us to get to the truck? How long did it take us to get to the scene? What did we do? Who did we call? How long did it take the person that we called? So we can maybe review our protocols, change them if necessary, talk with external stakeholders like, hey, dude, why did it take you 45 minutes to get to this?
00:42:25
Speaker
Well, you know, he lives this far away. Like, can we update the protocol to get somebody closer quicker? Do we need to put people on standby? Yada, yada. So I say all that to say that I think that a randomized kind of review process is a good practice in fire departments. And if I were fire chief for a day,
00:42:43
Speaker
you know, in the future. It's something that I would implement. be honest with you. You want to take that one step further, have both shifts do that same thing because the way one shift operates and another ship operates half the most of the time, they're two polar opposite things. That's great point.
00:43:02
Speaker
Man, you hit that right on the money. Both of you did. Because I think that's something, again, I haven't seen it too often either. Like where we're reviewing our own calls. Maybe it's because it seems like it's so mundane and small, but yeah, we'll do the big ones. But the little ones where time was lapsed or something didn't work for some reason, like we're not looking at it. And then both shifts only hear about it from word from mouth, right? But none of them actually are going through the motions and then putting themselves in that same scenario. Like how would we react, right? Like To see, well, maybe we aren't too far off either. Like, we think we got it.
00:43:36
Speaker
But and then that goes into that complacency piece, right? Like they messed up. We know what we're doing. That ain't gonna happen. Right. I think it's important that we look at ourselves internally. always say that.
00:43:47
Speaker
How are you going to react? And then, Matt, you said something that I've said my entire career since I've well, not my entire career. I'll say since I was an NCO. I always ask guys this question.
00:43:57
Speaker
Whenever they do something and it seems like they mess up, walk me through your thought process.
Challenging Decision-Making in Training
00:44:02
Speaker
Why did you do what you did? I need to know because I need to know, was it just a breakdown that you just didn't know what you were doing? We need to do more training.
00:44:09
Speaker
Or was it you were confused on how stuff is written, right? Because if that's the case, then maybe this needs be rewritten. Maybe we need to look into it, update the SOGs, update protocols, right? Maybe we don't have the proper tools and you were just improvising, right? I say that because a lot of my drills that I throw in, I throw in scenarios where it makes them think on their feet because I want to build. it We don't get a lot of experience because we don't get a lot of fires. We get a lot of medical calls like the routine ones. But as far as the real stuff where stuff's going to hit the fan, right?
00:44:43
Speaker
I throw scenarios like hoarders. Like there's a good chance, it's very slim, but there's a good chance you can come across a hoarder household on base. And the main thing that the way that we train on base, usually we try to go in through the front door of a structural trainer.
00:44:57
Speaker
And then if it's on the second floor, we're going through the front door and then walking up the stairs, right? I would throw scenarios out there where the door blocked. Like i would throw a particle board and all that stuff or plywood and throw stuff in front of behind that plywood so they couldn't even open the door.
00:45:11
Speaker
And I said, the fire's on the second floor. You got someone in there. What are you going to do? And then as they're going through, like they're trying to figure things out. Like, what are you going to do? Are you going to keep doing this? Are you going to stand still with ah like a deer caught in headlights? Or you going to improvise type thing?
00:45:25
Speaker
And how are you going to improvise? And then walk me through your thought process on why you made that, right? Because I think that's something that needs to be done all the time. Cut out the root at the check the box scenario just to say we did the training. Like make this make this complicated.
00:45:41
Speaker
Make it stressful. Matter of fact, after the senior fire or the senior company officer out there goes down, ask the next man up, what are you going to do? Put them in the hot seat. always believe that as if you're on the engine and you're crewing that truck, I'm going to take you out eventually.
00:45:56
Speaker
I want to see what the the next man up is going to do. And I'm not talking about just a Mayday. They went down and then they pulled him like five feet through the door. No, I'm talking about before you even went in. Like, hey, dude had a heart attack. He just passed out. What are you going to do now? Fire's still going.
00:46:10
Speaker
You still got a body in there. Your buddy's laying right here. What's your priority? The next engine is not going to be coming in for like another three or four minutes. What are you going to do? And make them think. Because that's something that is lost in translation until you actually get the experience and go through it.
00:46:25
Speaker
And again, how many times are we in the Air Force Fire Service since we have to PT all the time, right? How often are you seeing guys fall out? Not too often, but you can go on a mutual aid response and the next thing you know, that's it. It's happening right there, right? So company officers, man, like there's a lot on their shoulders and the young ones that probably never received that training, and they're thrown into these positions and they've never actually had to figure that out. so I strongly believe case studies, talking cross, seeing how we reacted, having the young company officers and the senior fire officers actually talk, the executive officers actually talking how they would walk through it if they were in that seat. I think that's something that we should be doing. And Matt, you you hit that on the head, man. I like that response.
00:47:08
Speaker
And you made a great point. in Austin, I don't know, I can sense that he probably wants to hit on this too, but you should make training harder. than what you are going to potentially face. I don't know if Austin, you've said that before, but probably have. I've i've certainly heard it before, but I think that's a great point that you brought up, Trill. Blocking the door, making things complicated, not to haze or...
00:47:31
Speaker
You know, show them how tough it is. You know, there's there's some folks out there that do stuff like that. No, I want to prepare you for the worst case scenario. And so I think those are great. That's great advice. And to go back to your point on bringing someone in in the event that something goes wrong and...
00:47:47
Speaker
The approach is so important at the executive level. It's not, you should never approach it with the intent of retaliatory action. It should be, talk to me about this. What do we need to fix? Were you not trained well enough? Were you not equipped well enough? Is the procedure tying your hands? Are you afraid of repercussions? You know, something that I need to address at my level, are people afraid to make decisions, right? Like, so really it's it's an investigatory kind of practice so that you can make the department better and so that you can,
00:48:17
Speaker
you know, make sound firefighting practitioners. Yeah. So I'll, I'll touch on the training thing real quick. Um, so I took this class, it was called a training for performance last year.
00:48:30
Speaker
And it kind of got into some of the neuroscience of like what's actually kind of happening happening in our brains and like basically just how to overall improve improve ah performance, especially when it comes to training, um especially because throughout our careers or throughout our departments, there's a very very varying levels of experience, skill, all these different things.
00:48:56
Speaker
And so there's, um I'm going to butcher this. It's like the Yerkes-Dotson bell curve of, it's like stress, um stress basically. And there's good stress and bad stress essentially. And there's a sweet spot for that. But there's also a you can take that same bell curve and it's between like how hard something is and how easy something is, there's a sweet spot for that as well. Because if you take a new guy and he's trying to cut, you know, say brand new guy and you put that piece of plywood up there, that's going to stress him out to the point where like, he doesn't have a frame of reference for that. There there's the chief that put this on. There's,
00:49:38
Speaker
Basically, you have to be able to scale up and scale down your training, depending on who you're training at that very moment. So there should be a JV drill for the new guys, right? Get them the sets and reps, let them get comfortable. But this, you know, say the drivers, the five levels, the company officers, the guys that have been been around for a while, if they're just continually doing the same boring drills over and over again, they're not gaining anything from that. Because you're exactly that to your point. They're not having to use their brain. They already have the muscle memory. They already have the frame of reference.
00:50:13
Speaker
But those are the guys that benefit immensely from when you do put that that prop in or when the fire does take your plan A away and they're forced to pivot because 90 percent of the time in real life, like you were speaking to, your plan A is going to go out the window.
00:50:29
Speaker
And so are you are your tactical objectives pliable enough to be able to mold to that situation and be able to pivot? Or this is it too rigid that it's going to become brittle?
00:50:41
Speaker
Man, you brought up an excellent point about kind of having tiers of training. Tier one, two, three, one being the basic tier and three being the, you know, a more advanced tier to challenge those seasoned company officers. And, you know, let's let's be frank, incident commanders, they need to be challenged as well. Those people who are expected to coordinate and call for resources and et cetera.
00:51:06
Speaker
ah But that's, I think that's a, i want I want to hit this because, you know, I feel like we, you know, I i have have a sense that I'm kind of sitting in an ivory tower. Like this is how it's supposed to be done. Like i I understand and I've made mistakes and I understand the challenges that Air Force fire departments are up against. Like you have this constant influx of brand new folks and you're constantly doing tier one level training because I'm always doing the same thing over and over again. That's ah that's an incredibly tough challenge that we have. But it's it's important to find time for those more complex trainings too. And maybe i always like to use percentages, but maybe we're hitting 70, 80% basic level stuff and we're, you know, 20, 30% of the time hitting the advanced stuff and also bringing the basic level people along with us.
Tiered Training for Skill Progression
00:51:55
Speaker
Like, hey, you know, grab onto my coattail and follow along with this, right? Not expecting you to do much, right?
00:52:02
Speaker
But you're going to be there with me in this event. So you need to be there as well. So, yeah, i love that point. Yep. And Austin, you hit the nail on the head, man, because with that type of training that I mentioned with testing them, right,
00:52:17
Speaker
ah I was told this a long time ago, you always got to crawl, walk, run. So you always have to start off to see where their baseline is before you throw any kind of scenario like that. Because again, I wouldn't throw something to block the door if they don't even know how to pull a hand line out, right? They need to figure that portion out first. But once they get down to those basics and we see it and we're watching them as a assistant chiefs, as crew chiefs, as other senior firemen, right?
00:52:44
Speaker
And we're giving these guys his training. We need to ka continue to elevate it. Don't stay in the same place though, because now, hey, you can pull this hand line off quick, but now can you breach this door? Now can you do this? Now can you do this and just keep on building it?
00:52:57
Speaker
And then another tactic that I've seen is some guys will, they'll do the shock and awe factor, especially for those that been around for a while. And what they do is they throw a tough scenario out before you start crawling, just to show them like how serious it can be. And then you crawl from that point And then you build from that point because what it does is it opens up a sense of reality. like Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am at this point. Maybe i've I've been missing out. Maybe all the stuff that I learned, I can still keep going. And then when you start including those new things, they're more in tune to want to study. They're and more in tune to want to listen to what they're receiving. Because I've come across so many guys in my career that, and it used to piss me off real bad. um They would say,
00:53:39
Speaker
I'm pretty good. I got this. I've been doing this for a while. I know what I'm doing. And then as soon as we go on a real call, they're messing up. And like, why are you messing up on on this? This is something that should be basic to you by now.
00:53:52
Speaker
It's like, oh, we don't do that enough. So, and they start making excuses. I can't stand that. I'd rather you be honest, humble in this profession and know I can still learn something new. And, or I haven't done this in a while. Maybe I need to go and practice this. And like you said, have people grabbing onto the coattails and bringing them along to learn this stuff. Because from what I've been seeing, a lot of times that's not happening.
00:54:14
Speaker
Guys get down with done with the basics. They finish their CDCs. They finish their training. And then it's kind of just floating. And then next thing you know, they're forgetting things. It's easy to forget stuff in this career field. It's so easy.
00:54:26
Speaker
I think I've seen so many guys, they'll forget how to breach a door or they'll forget to bring tools to the door. And like, that's a basic thing to do. Like that shouldn't even, that should be so second thought, like instantly, like you're just grabbing tools, but they keep forgetting. And it's because they don't do it enough or they'll forget, you know?
00:54:41
Speaker
Well, Terrell, man, great points. And what an excellent episode, man. We hit some great stuff. always like to try to end with, you know, action items for listeners. i'll I'll allow you to give you an opportunity to, hey, what should listeners walk away? You know, what can they do moving forward? if I'm a crew chief, if I'm an assistant chief, what can I do moving forward to address this issue that we're talking about?
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah, of course. We've talked about it, but maybe we just summarize, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. All right. So if I, if I had to talk, if I was talking to the young assistant chief me or the young crew chief me, I would say, hey, be honest with yourself. Are you truly ready for the unknown? Are you truly ready to react to something that you've never experienced?
00:55:21
Speaker
And if so, or if not, what are you doing to prepare? What are you doing to get ready to ensure that your guys are prepared and that they're going to make it home the next day? Because at the end of the day, your brothers and sisters are going to be out there with you.
00:55:34
Speaker
Are you ready to tell somebody, I'm sorry, I didn't train them enough? Or I'm sorry, i didn't prepare them enough? Or are you ready to say they're one of the best firemen or firewoman that I know, and it was a freak accident that should have never happened, but I know dang on well they were the best at what they did?
00:55:52
Speaker
Yeah, man, I think that is the underlying and most important point of the conversation today, making sure that you're ready, make sure that your crew's ready. I'll also add that at the executive level, and maybe I'm speaking to my future self, and you know, an ideal organization. I've served as deputy chief, but, you know, I aspire to to go higher or whatever. But so maybe I'm giving advice to my potential future self.
00:56:12
Speaker
And this is something Gordon Graham highlighted in, you know, several of his keynote speeches and podcasts and things things that he talks about is making sound protocol, number one, but highlighting within that sound protocol, those high risk, low frequency events that firefighters may encounter. And he, I mean, he took it as far as to color coding, color coding, maybe in a red border, these pages, firefighter, I want you to focus on these pages because as a fire department, these are the potential events that we can encounter that are high risk, low frequency. And this is what I want you to do in this moment, in these moments with a little footnote of autonomy, right? So I think an executive level action item is to review your protocol, make, you know, and maybe find those things and maybe color code. And, you know, that's an an administrative burden. I get it, but I've always liked that point. Austin, do you have anything?
00:57:05
Speaker
One last thing on training, just because we're kind of talking about the subject of how to make some of these younger guys a little better and if I could go back. and And we kind of do it without knowing that we're doing it, but just to highlight it because it is such an important thing. There's one factor, that a human factor, that we don't really think about or...
00:57:25
Speaker
necessarily maybe train and that's what pressure is. Pressure on the fire ground, pressure during training. So there's a skill progression, right? So you can take some of the, and what pressure does is it allows you to start feeling those sources of friction where the seemingly easy becomes hard and because it's a real thing, right? And there can be pressure from internal, there can be external pressure. So you can have the internal of like not wanting to mess up and not wanting to fail in front of people or let your, you know, let your crew down or you can have, you know, external, other external pressures from the scene itself.
00:58:02
Speaker
But I think it's a important to start training that, right? So if I could give any company officers, training people, or training chiefs, right, there's a
Pressure in Training Environments
00:58:10
Speaker
progression, right? So doing a skill, and it's skill acquisition, doing a skill slow, doing a skill at speed, doing a skill under fatigue, and then doing a skill under fatigue with pressure, And how, you know, if you just simply gather a group around, it's going to add pressure. If you just simply start a timer, it's going to add pressure. And watch how the person could do a rep perfectly, but you just add those tiny little things, it's going to change the game. But we start training that when you get these external pressures on the fire ground, you're going to see results.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, competition is another great pressure. Competing, when people compete against each other, you always see it. They go faster every time, right? They're a little bit more focused, a little bit more less lackadaisical.
00:58:59
Speaker
Great advice, Austin. Terrell, man, this is a great episode. Appreciate all your insights and showing some vulnerability. That's another important element too. and We could do another podcast on that alone. And Austin, you highlighted a little bit, not being afraid to fail and being afraid to fail in front of people and being willing to share your mistakes too. It's just so important to learning and getting better and helping other people learn get better too. So Terrell, thank you so much. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap it up?
00:59:23
Speaker
I do. Didn't make it to everything I want to say, so hopefully I get to come back again and be on the podcast. But something I just want to say, especially when it talks about resilience after these type of calls and training and looking back through, right? I just want to leave with this quote that resilience is not what happens to you. It's how you react to, respond to, and recover from what happens to you. I'm from Jeffrey Gitmer.
00:59:43
Speaker
Because we can go deeper into it. That being said, we're talking about company officers being ready, assistant chiefs being ready, executive officers being ready. By the end of the day, the resiliency piece to bounce back is important from all these calls, from all these scenarios, and being able to continue to fight long after whatever calls that we get on is important.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. Great way to end it. And the invitation is
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:00:09
Speaker
open, man. Uh, love to have you on again. We'd love to dive into another topic if it's resiliency or something else. Um, I've just learned that that one hour target is about when listener start to follow off. You know what saying? Cause all of it, we only have so much time, you know what Each one of us, we can't all sit around and listen to a five hour Joe Rogan podcast. You know what i mean So, The lizard brain starts to kick in.
01:00:32
Speaker
Exactly. yeah you Oh, for sure. sure So open invitation. Thanks so much for coming on and you have a good one. All right. Have a one. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fire Dog Podcast. You find more episodes like this on our website, firedog.us, wherever you listen to podcasts. We're also on social media. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at the Fire Dog Podcast. That is the Fire DAWG Podcast. This episode was supported by Roll Call Coins, telling the story of fire departments and teams through premium custom challenge coins. Learn more at RollCallCoins.com.
01:01:02
Speaker
It was also supported by AOS Services, helping fire departments stay mission ready with worldwide firefighting equipment compliance. Find out more at AOSServicesInc.com. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and follow to stay plugged into every new episode. We'd appreciate it if you'd share this podcast with your friends and coworkers, whether on social media right there within your firehouse. This is Matt Wilson and Austin Perry with guest Terrell Thomas.
01:01:24
Speaker
Until next time, stay safe.