Everyone Goes Home and the 16 Life Safety Initiatives are a program put forth by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to try and help reduce the number of line of duty deaths in the fire service. The group at Iowa Firefighters Resource are trying to be out there on the ground and promoting and educating folks in the fire service about these initiatives.
Like with most topics or ideologies there are typically 3 groups of people...there are the people that buy into the idea and support it, there are they people that disagree or are against the idea and then there are those in the middle that are either indifferent or on the fence about the idea. Obviously we want to gain support and buy in from all three groups and get 100% support for the movement. Realistically, thats not always possible. No matter what you do there are always going to be nay sayers that want to do nothing but disagree or argue with you. Most times we are not going to change the minds of these folks. I think we can make the most difference in the middle group. We have a greater chance of bringing these folks on board and educating them in what we are about. They probably don't have strong feelings either way so its usually easier to sway them. Its like an election, most candidates know they aren't going to sway the folks in the other party so they focus a lot on the undecided voters. Its typically the path of least resistance. Why waste your time and effort to sway the folks that most likely won't be swayed. It makes sense so why beat your head against the wall trying to change something that won't be changed.
With all that being said, I do want to get up on my soap box for minute and send a message to all the nay sayers that think Everyone Goes Home and the 16 Life Safety Initiatives are a waste of time. How can you sit there and say that wanting to prevent LODDs is a waste of time. How can you say that it is acceptable to average 100 LODDs each year. I don't think it is acceptable to have any LODDs. I am not naive, I know this is a dangerous job. I am not saying we shouldn't go into buildings and fight fires. I know we cannot eliminate all of the risks involved in a fire. Being safety conscious does not mean you are a bad firefighter. I think it is important to be a smart and aggressive firefighter but there is a difference between being aggressive and being dumb. Not every fire is the same and not every fire warrants an aggressive interior attack. You need to read the situation, read the building construction, the fire conditions and the smoke condition and then make a calculated decision on how to attack the fire. Its not easy, this assessment needs to me made in a matter of seconds. As an incident commander this is a tough task and a lot of responsibility falls on this person's shoulders. There are a lot of arm chair incident commanders out there that want to second guess what you do. You can't worry about that. If you feel you made the right decision and you can back that up, then you made the right choice. There is no reason to unnecessarily commit crews and risk lives for a building that is already lost. I couldn't live with myself knowing I sent someone into a building that was already gone and they were injured or killed. I don't think I am less of a firefighter for thinking this way. Lets take out the fire aspect of things and discuss responding to calls. I see people who refuse to wear their seat belts or who are driving entirely too fast. What good do you do if you cause or are involved in an accident on the way to the scene? You do no good and in fact you created another issue that crews must now be committed to which can take away from the original incident. Its stupid. Not wearing a seatbelt is stupid. First of all its the law, and second of all, maybe you should have taken the time to get dressed before you got in the truck. Nobody can justify to me why it is okay to not wear a seatbelt. If you think you can sway my thinking on this issue you better go find a brick wall because you will have better luck convincing the wall its okay.
Okay, I am down off my soapbox now. I said my piece for you nay sayers. I will go on way and continue to try and promote and educate firefighters about the 16 LSIs. You all can have your opinions and can think the way you want to think but I believe in this mission and these initiatives and will do what I can to help prevent LODDs. I know in my heart that at the end of the day, the mission I am on is the right mission for me.
Be safe and I hope you ALL go home safely at the end of the day.
