An advantage of interviewing 180 Newark firefighters is the experiences & wisdom they have accumulated is passed to the interviewer.

One of the questions I ask concerns LOD deaths which are unfortunately part of our profession.

How have guys dealt w/firefighter deaths in the past? Not everyone gives a direct answer, but it is easy to read between the lines.

Some rationalize the events, over thinking the causes of the tragedy. As if an explanation will somehow assuage the pain. Others go through extreme self-criticism, taking responsibility for factors that were totally beyond their control.

There are those who accept that firefighting is a dangerous profession that will inevitably result in firefighter deaths. No one who took this track was in a command position at a fire that resulted in an LOD death.

We can beat ourselves up w/second guessing. I have seen & done it to an extreme.

Each of us is aware of our relationship to the lost firefighter.

Captains have a view & firefighters have one. Chief officers have another.

Each ties into what happened on the scene from their point of view.

There is the firefighter whose captain took his hook & sent him back to the rig to get another,

only to have the building collapse on the captain.

Or the BC who ordered all the companies in his battalion not to enter a building, only to have companies from other Battalions rush in. Both where at the same fire & felt a responsibility for what happened, but each in their own way.

Decisions are made based on the information given to us. If that information is false.

The decision is questionable, not the decision maker.

More often than not, it is the policies of the past not the action on the scene that caused the tragedy.

You cannot ask yourself, “If I had this information, would I have made the same decision?”

That is the road to insanity.

Ask instead, “With the information I had, would I have still made the same decision?”

All of this does not ease the doubts or pain. Firefighters connect w/each other in such a familial way that there is little others can say to help.

When Mike DeLane died, people from outside the fire department went to Rescue to debrief them.

They were asked politely to leave. They were strangers. Then F/F Clint Reynolds showed up.

Clint was an ordained minister. He led the company in prayer. He was family.

So, how can a captain at the Academy twist himself into feeling guilty about an LOD?

Lawrence Webb was separated from his company when they bailed out of a bad situation.

He went down, but his PASS alarm was not on. They did a head count, found he was missing, and went in after him. But his device wasn’t sounding. If it had been, they could have found him sooner & maybe he would have made it.

He was scheduled to respond to the Academy the next week for refresher training on masks & use of the PASS. I wrote the schedule & helped teach the class. If he could have been scheduled the week before, maybe he would have remembered to activate his device. Is that extreme? I can’t say. But it is a thought that I live with. “If only I had” is one of the most loaded phrases of the English language.

It will eat you alive if you let it.

 

Just to remind everyone, this post comes from an old, retired fire captain who spent a good part of his career either training fire personnel to operate safely or helping w/the fight for safety while in the Union office.

An unusual career that gives an unusual perspective. That perspective leads to an extreme feeling of frustration about what happen over the last 2 weeks. For all active members of the NFD, a reminder of a simple truth.

𝗬𝗢𝗨 never stop being a firefighter. The brotherhood extends beyond your retirement date.

I’m writing this for the young firefighters. Over the next couple of months, what happened to our brothers is going to be dissected.

Safety experts are going to investigate what happened moment by moment. People who may never have seen the inside of a fire building, let alone a burning ship, are going to assign blame & recommend change.

Change? After the collapse on Pennington & Orchard Streets in 1972, there was a push by the City to tear down abandoned buildings.

After Harry Halpin died in 1980, there was a similar effort.

After Jimmy Murry died in 1984, the City gave us PASS devices.

When Lawrence Webb died in 2001, his PASS device wasn’t operating.

Reviews & recommendations only go so far. Let’s not lose sight of the horror our fallen brothers experienced & become complacent after the “smoke” clears.

The active guys are often riding one & two. This has been happening for decades, but 20 years ago it was only a few companies per tour.

18 one & twos is an emergency safety issue. What happened on that ship can happen at any fire.

We’ve all been there! You stretch in, you’re lightening up a line, you hear a noise & go off the line to check it out, or the water is delayed, or you’re on a truck doing a search, or - - - - the situations where things aren’t perfect in any given fire are endless (and I was only in the field 7 years). But the end result is you become disoriented.

Unsure of how to get out.

Think of that feeling. It may have lasted for a few seconds until you got your bearings. It may have lasted for a couple of minutes as you crawl through the stucco ceiling that came down on you.

Maybe it’s a few moments of doubt that you’ll get out alive when the room you’re waiting in for water flashes over.

Empathize w/that feeling.

That’s what Augie & Bear felt.

Use that feeling to inspire yourself to learn your craft that much better.

Their lose should not go to waste.

Because in the end, you can only depend on yourself, on the firefighter w/you.

What people say afterwards will not help you out of a dangerous situation. Only the skills you have attained will get you out.

Photo Credit Millburn FMBA Local 32

 I went to Newark to say farewell to Augie and Bear yesterday and today. Saw many familiar faces, but even more new ones. For many of the new faces, this is their first experience with a L.O.D. death. 

Unfortunately, for the older guys, seeing the fire department traditions playing out was too familiar. What I heard about present day conditions on the department made me worry that those traditions observed will become too familiar to this next generation.

 When I was appointed, there were over 700 firefighters employed by the City of Newark. At retirement, that number had dropped to 500. Yesterday, I was told Newark’s firefighters number 400. There were 18 companies riding with one officer and two men. With the two in two out rule, that means two companies have to arrive on the scene before a line can be stretched into a building. Does the public know this? Are there no political leaders who will advocate for the NFD?

 All of this makes no sense. The population of the city is growing. There are so many more buildings that areas of the city are unrecognizable. How can the fire department be shrinking? 

Politicians are elected to manage our cities. The quiet guardians who man the firehouses ask only that they be given the manpower and equipment to do their job. That job is to save lives and protect property. When they fall short because of a lack of personnel or equipment, people die. Those who die are usually ordinary folks, but the odds are that sooner or later it will be one of our own. It is so unnecessary.

 Today we begin to say goodbye to F/F Augusto "Augie" Acabou & Wayne "Bear" Brooks Jr.

Some will tell us to celebrate their lives, but their lives were too short. Others will say celebrate their accomplishments, but they could have accomplished so much more. We should celebrate their love. Yes, but they had so much more love to give.

Celebrate their spirit - - - I have no “but” for this. It is their spirit we should celebrate. The spirit that called them to become firefighters.

That spirit is unique in this world. Across the globe, all who follow the call of this spirit fight a force of nature to protect innocent lives.

Bear & Augie were not showmen. They were quiet guardians of

the innocent & those in danger. They were exceptional human beings.

Their spirit is possessed only by humans. No other creature runs towards fire. Even then, only a chosen few run into the flames, challenging nature out of control.

These two quiet guardians were taken from us suddenly. Their families & friends had no time to begin adjusting, no time to say goodbye.

The only thing that can fill the void left behind is their spirit.

The spirit of the quiet guardians of the innocent we call firefighters.

Farewell brothers. May God watch over your families & all those you left behind.

May your spirit inspire all the quiet guardians who continue to protect the innocent.

 There has been so much chatter & so many Monday morning quarterbacks that I think we have lost sight of an important point.

Firefighters Brooks & Acabou were not probationary firefighters. Each had a number of years responding under their belt. They had been to countless car fires. As all firefighters know, modern cars are rolling petroleum products. They burn easily & they burn hot. Bear & Augie knew this.

When they pulled up to this car carrier, they were confronted w/a 700 foot long, 12 story behemoth filled with cars. Cars that had been driven onto the ship. Cars w/gas & gas vapors in their tanks.

They could also see in their initial size-up that there were no windows to go to if they were trapped. There would be no quick raise of an aerial or ground ladder to get them out.

They knew they would have to cover a large distance just to get on board the ship. This was not a fire they could compare w/the one they had last week & say, “Hey, we got this.”

These were experienced firefighters. They were not ignorant or foolish individuals.

They knew the dangers they were facing. Anticipated the intense heat, the exploding gas tanks,

the restricted operating space,

& the darkness. And yet - - - yet, they still went in to do their job.

Why? Because uncontrolled fire is dangerous to any community

& bringing it under control was their profession.

They did not believe they would die that night, but in the back of their mind they knew it was possible. And still they had the courage to do their job.

A job they felt was the greatest job in the world. Don’t let all the noise make you forget that simple fact.

 

In Memory of F/F Augusto Acabou & F/F Wayne Brooks Jr.

There is a special kind of pain that is experienced by the family & friends of those who die serving others.

Their loved ones sacrifice themselves for the good of the communities they serve.

It is a conscious choice made when they take the oath of office. All firefighters know that the ultimate sacrifice may be asked of them.

When it happens, the community is shocked. The quiet guardians are noticed for a moment. Then the news cycle changes & the family and friends are left w/a huge void.

The fallen brothers can never be forgotten by those who have experienced fighting fires.

Rest peacefully my brothers.

May your sacrifice be acknowledged by the city you served.

May your family be cared for by the brotherhood you belonged to.

 

There's a reason I haven't posted for a while. Mid April I woke up w/an abstract painting floating in one of my eyes. This sent me to the optometrist, who told me I had a floater which sent me to an ophthalmologist who concurred & felt it should be monitored. Seems these things usually resolve themselves in 6 months, but...the cause of this condition: Too many birthdays. I'm really not doing this aging thing well.

Five weeks later, I returned to the ophthalmologist, who gave my retina a good look over & then scheduled me for retina detachment surgery ASAP. (I'm not going to say emergency surgery.) Idea was to save as much of the sight in my eye as possible.

On the mend now. Vision in my eye is kind of like looking through a fish bowl with cloudy water, but I'm assured in a month things will return to my new normal & I'll be able to write again. (Can't type properly, so I have to see the keyboard.) That's my tale of aging woes which ironically leads into my latest novel (written over the past year) about a couple of firemen dealing w/aging:

My latest “just for fun” book is now available on Lulu

etcetera in time for the summer reading season.

“Staying Relevant” is about retired firefighters. I wrote it to illustrate that life goes on after you leave the NFD, but the job never really leaves you. The camaraderie & the shared experiences reside inside. Friendships formed last a lifetime. The fire department family remains to give support when things get rough.

I also try to highlight the universality of the fire service experience. All is seen through the eyes of a retired Newark firefighter who is struggling to make sense of a changing world. How do you deal w/the hoped for gains of life after 60, as well as, the inevitable loses of this last stage of life.

Being relevant in the world is never an issue for a firefighter on the job.

How do you stay relevant after you retire?

Click link for book info:

https://www.lulu.com/.../paperback/product-e9yngd.html...

FYI:

Get 15% off printed books on Lulu through 6/16.

Just type in code

CREATORGOALS15

when you check out.

Lulu is the only site that gives discounts occasionally. My wife will try to help post any discount offers. She'll pin this post & put a flagon top of it indicating 10% discounts & a flag w/sirenfor 15% off. 20% is a Black Friday thing.

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