The Rookie Turnout Throwdown

Also known as “Mel’s Big Humiliating Day”.

We had an OSHA refresher class at my department today. We had great attendance and two other departments were also invited.The morning started out innocently enough; we covered our SOP’s and the newly mandated Rehab Standard, then moved on to Blood borne pathogens, and finished up the chalk and talk portion with an overview of PPE and SCBA’s.

The OFPC officer then announced that we would be heading out to the apparatus bay to practice donning and doffing our turnouts and to get a little more hands-on with the SCBA’s.Someone in my department then piped up from the back of the crowd…”Hey, let’s have a little contest with donning the turnouts” (mental note to self---find that guy…and kill him) …and I started to sweat. I can get everything on in the proper order, that’s not an issue. However, SPEED is still a major sticking point for me.

We all pull all of our gear out and place it on the ground in front of us. Then I see the Asst. Chief from my department and the Chief from one of the visiting departments in some sort of confab with the OFPC officer and all three are grinning and looking at me and two fellow newbies. “This can only end badly” I thought to myself.

The visiting Chief then spoke the dreaded words…..“Folks, we’ve decided to shake things up a little bit. Since our hosts have three new recruits, and our department has three new recruits, we’re going to have a Rookie vs. Rookie Turnout Contest. We’ll be timing them for proper attire, individual best time, and overall team time”.

They cleared the floor like it was some sort of twisted American Bandstand spotlight dance contest, and lined us up facing each other. The firefighter I was facing looked like he was 15…..and he grinned at me as if to say….”Sayonara Sister, I’m going to bury you”. I began chanting (in my head, I was already going to look like an idiot, no need to look like I was Looney-tunes on top of it) “boots, pants, suspenders, hood, coat, helmet, gloves….no problem….boots, pants, suspenders, hood, coat, helmet, gloves….I’m screwed….boots, pants……”.

A hush fell over the assembled crowd….the OFPC officer stood in the middle between the two lines, and started a 10 second countdown to begin.Boots, no problem……Pants (and snaps), no problem……..suspenders up and hood on….I’m cooking now and still on par with my teenaged nemesis across the way……..coat…..damn it…..my hands are shaking and I’m having trouble with the snaps…….I start sweating profusely……..AARGHHH…..I lined up the snaps wrong………damn it……..The Junior Mint is almost done…….then I start hearing “done!”….”done!”…….crap…….ok, got the snaps straightened out….now I have to hook the clips……..please God, I’ll be a nicer person if you just get me out of this without making a complete ass out of myself…….FINALLY, the clips are hooked, helmet on, dragging on the gloves as my team yells “done” almost as one, but I’m pretty sure I was dead last.

The Rookie Throwdown turned out to be a Rookie SMACKdown. At least I had my gear on right.If there’s one thing that’s more certain than death and taxes, it’s that I’m going to be marching myself down to my department to practice those damned snaps until I can do it in my sleep and in nano-seconds. In the dark. Blindfolded. With gloves on.

I did pick up one small tip…..grab that hood and jam it on while you’re down there grabbing your pants and suspenders.I suppose in fairness, and in a feeble attempt to save face, that I mention that our visiting department’s turnout coats feature zippers and Velcro, not a row of snaps and a row of clips. My theory is that if I can shave my time down with snaps and clips, when it comes time to add the SCBA, I should do significantly better time-wise. Right? Right?????

Until next time…stay safe.

Unused Resources, Lost Opportunities

I’ve been struggling with something for a bit, and decided rather than trying to be politically correct, or trying to avoid sounding like I’m giving a good friend a shameless plug…..I’m going to give a good friend a shameless plug for all the right reasons, and if you don’t like it…..too bad; Freedom of Speech and all that.

Have you been to http://www.tigerschmittendorf.com/ ? No? Why not? If you weren’t aware of the existence of the site, I’ll give you a free pass, providing you march yourself over there to check it out. Do it today.

If you know about the site, but haven’t checked it out, then I’m going to assume that you and your fire department or ambulance squad or firematic organization have none of the following issues:

• Recruitment---got all the volunteers you can handle? Are you drowning in new recruits? Are you drawing younger members by the dozens?
• Retention: --are your drill nights attended by 90% of your members? When the automatic alarm call comes, are you fighting off eager firefighters or dragging them off the truck based on seniority? Do your members show up in droves when you have a (pick one) car wash, blood drive, pasta dinner, equipment fundraiser etc. And are they all there for setup, event management and breakdown/cleanup? Or is it more like my department, where the same 8-10 people show up for everything but you don't see the others until you get an "exciting" call?
• Funding: --Don’t need more cash? All your members are properly outfitted (leather boots for everyone….hooray!!!) , you’re all driving in brand new or late model apparatus, you have a rescue boat, rescue snowmobile, brush truck and you have plenty of dough to keep the lights and heat on? You’ve never applied for a grant or thought about it because you have more funds than you’ll ever need?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.See, there’s a member on http://www.firefighternation.com/ who has dedicated years of his life to helping out ailing departments. Tiger Schmittendorf (http://www.firefighternation.com/profile/Tiger5) has almost 30 years of fire service experience coupled with a career background in sales, marketing and public relations. He has the expertise, unique fresh approach and brains to back up his promises.

Are Tiger’s services free? No. He’s an educator and leader, not a privately funded philanthropist, but he does deliver.

Show me the money you say?Sure, not a problem—Here are just a few of the grants that he wrote and obtained for some folks who decided they needed his help:

• $1,000,000 - Wrote narrative that helped eight (8) local fire departments secure grant awards for interoperable communications systems as member agencies of a communications coalition in Erie County
• $275,000 - Department of Homeland Security SAFER Grant to cover advertising campaign, tuition scholarships and training reimbursements to recruit and retain volunteer firefighters for the Doyle Hose Co. #1 Volunteer Fire Company

And that’s just a sampling.If you are experiencing any of the difficulties that most departments are now facing with budget cuts and reduced staffing, then do yourself a favor and go to http://www.tigerschmittendorf.com/ , contact him and ask him what he thinks.

It’s not going to cost you a dime to check out his info and initiate a conversation.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): My First Drill

Driving snow? Check.
Visibility Zero? Check.
Icy Roads? Check.
Arctic Temperatures? Check.

Drill Night Game Plan...tapping hydrants in the village? Check....brrrrrrrrrrrr........

"Drop your ____ and grab your socks newbies....we're going out to practice tapping hydrants....right NOW...you've got two minutes to get your turnouts on"....And thus began my first drill night.

Trial by fire? Yup. Worth it? Oh hell yup. Did I love it? YES!!!

There must be something wrong with me.

Am now on a first name basis with the spanner wrenches, and have figured out the fastest way off the truck and WHY wrapping the hose around the base of the hydrant is so important.

I would, however, like to talk about rolling hose....this is about as much fun as a root canal. And we rolled a LOT of hose tonight. I can see me having a love/hate relationship with the hose.

The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): The Fit Test and Physical

First things first....I passed. (a barely stifled YIPPEEE!!)

Received my Class A certification card which will accompany me to my swearing-in.
There were some aspects to the physical and fit test that I found.....disconcerting:

1.) The eye test: after a rather frustrating several minutes with my face jammed up against what appeared to be a Fisher-Price Movie Viewer, and telling the examiner that I couldn't SEE "A-1" because it was missing....turns out that there was a big black dot of ink or something on the viewer (mascara?, not mine)that was obscuring the upper left corner of the screen. Calamity averted. Test passed.

2.) The Hearing Test: After holding my breath in that sound-proof booth for almost three minutes because I couldn't tell if I had actually heard a tone or just imagined it, and the sound of my exhalations was becoming a distraction...I started to feel like I was on "Win Ben Stein's Money".

3.) The Breath Test: Oh Yessss....THIS is just a barrel of laughs. I take my big deep "from the diaphragm" breath....whoosh it all out as instructed until I'm of the conviction that there is NO AIR left in my lungs or anywhere else in my body, and the examiner pats me on the back encouragingly and says...."c'mon....just a little bit more....keep going, keep going, keep going..." I'm looking at her and thinking....Lady...what is it that you want me to accomplish here? Aspirate my eyeballs? Then I finally get the beep and she says perkily...."Great!! Now you only have to do two more just like that" ...TWO MORE?? My lungs are on the FLOOR....wtf???

4.) The mask fit: Ok, this WAS fun...although the whole thing had a kind of Monty Python quality to it. I got a good seal on the first mask (small---thanks for the tip Kenzie)--then we started up with the silliness....nodding up and down....turning my head side to side....bending over again and again....then we got to the "try to dislodge the mask by making faces" ...and I got the giggles. Perky test examiner wasn't anywhere near as amused as I was at the "demonstration" grimacing she was doing....Me? I was almost on the floor. Our rapport kind of went downhill after that.

5.) The physical: I've had extensive physicals before, and this wasn't one of em. 15 minutes to hook me up to the EKG monitor to run five seconds of tape. We're done? Really? Alrighty then....
Next up: The Swearing In and Gear!!

The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): Unofficially Official

Well, props to my chief, he didn't want me to have to wait another week or so to get the arson check back and then have to wait for the letter from the department, so.....drumroll.........
I'm unofficially officially IN !!!

I'll be getting sworn in at the next department business meeting (first Tuesday in February), that is, of course, as long as my arson background check comes back clean.

They can't count that time my sisters and I set the garage on fire when I was eight years old...can they? I think that requires a short explanation: The backyard was knee deep in those fluffy powderpuff things from all of the trees in our yard...and somehow my sister Cathy figured out that they went up like a Roman candle and then blazed out just as quickly if you lit them with a match. It was a boring afternoon, all five of us were home and in dire need of a diversion before we started picking on each other, and next thing I knew....WHAM!!!!!!!! Those fluffy things practically blew up, and then they set fire to the dried out creeper vine that was growing all over the garage. If Mr. Paul next door hadn't sprinted out with a fire extinguisher, I think my parents might have packed us off to that girls school in the Canadian Rockies they kept threatening us with.

Right, where was I?

So once I get my letter, I'll go get my physical, bring back the proof, attend the business meeting, get sworn in and geared up, outfitted with a pager, and then it's off to FF1 for about 15 weeks. In the meantime, I can respond to calls and develop my traffic safety skills. :) This is, hands DOWN, the single most exciting thing I've ever done in my life, and I have NOT had a boring life.
Stay tuned...I'll post pics of the swearing in and me attired in my fetching turnout gear when I get them

The Chronicles of the FNG(irl): Intro

My name is Mary Ellen. Those that know me fairly well call me Mel. The short story behind my nickname is that I used to cook professionally at one point in my life (among other occupations) and had a nasty habit of burning the bacon I was charged with cooking off on a weekly basis. As this was becoming an expensive habit, the chef in charge of the kitchen decided he needed to shorten my name; the thought process was that he had at least a shot at saving a couple of trays of porcine fatback if he used a shortened version of my name to screech at me that the convection oven was on fire....again.

I'm the state-wide training coordinator for the Firemen's Association of the State of New York (FASNY) and I spend approximately 50% of my time criss-crossing NYS running firefighter and EMS training seminars in hundreds of fire departments in every county. The other 50% of my professional time is spent setting up the logistics and ancillary details surrounding the seminars, and then reconciling the classes in terms of the financials and certification. I like my job, I LOVE being out on the road with the classes, meeting FASNY members and listening to the "war stories" and talking about issues facing the volunteer fire service.

I decided not too long ago that instead of talking about firefighter safety all the time, I'd practice firefighter safety and finally get off my rear and join.

So I walked the quarter mile down the road to my local fire department, talked to the chief, filed an application, and next up? (cue the Phantom of the Opera music)..."The Interview". As in tomorrow night, as in I'm sweating bullets, as in my type-A personality brain is actively attempting to second guess how the process is going to go. In general, when I obsess about something, the reality tends to be one million times better than my overactive imagination has portrayed. Take a peek inside my cranium...'What if they don't like me?" "What if they ask me something that I don't know, but should?" "What if they think I'm some weak girl and can't do the job?" ---the list of questions racing around my medulla oblongata is ENDLESS.

I know the following: I want this, I'm ready for this, and I'm physically and mentally prepared for this. I haven't been this excited about ANYTHING in a long, long time. I can't wait to start training, and my most fervent hope is that a.) I don't do TOO many stupid things and that b.) I don't do something so stupid that someone else gets hurt as a result.

My game plan? thanks to some sage advice from a friend...Shut up, listen,don't take any crap, train hard, stay safe, and try not to make too big a fool of myself (I'm a little klutzy).
Stay tuned...I'll be back with the results of my interview.