The Sadness of Coincidences

I've been writing this blog plus another for several years now. I don't write every day or every week, and usually, not every month. But as it turns out, I'm writing this post one month after my last. So, what would bring me to this point?

Some of you may know that under our Twitter handle of @DalmatProd. All too often, my Tweets begin with the hash-tag, #LODD (Line Of Duty Death). I send out the info only upon confirmation of the loss and it includes the person's name, age, department, date of last alarm, and a compressed URL with details of the notice.

Sadly, all four of the line-of-duty-deaths that have occurred over the past five days have been health-related. No one died while battling a massive blaze; no one died in a collapse. Apparently, all four of our brothers were lost due to medical causes. And this is exactly what I wrote about in last month's column. For goodness sakes, just a month or so ago, we lost a firefighter who was 22 years old, to a health-related cause. 

Last week I was watching, "The View," and actor Kevin Sorbo, who used to play Hercules in a show of the same name, was appearing as a guest host. And during his segment, he mentioned that near the end of the show's sixth season, he suffered  several small strokes, due to a ruptured aneurism near his shoulder. He talked about having to relearn to coordinate his motor skills so he could walk again and speech therapy to help him re-tune his speaking ability. He considers himself one lucky guy and has even written a book about what he has been through, "True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal & How Nearly Dying Saved My Life."

For at least a decade many of us connected with fire-rescue and EMS, along with many in various specialties of the medical community, have worked hard to promote stroke awareness through the re-phrasing from "stroke," to "brain attack." And the reason is simple. Almost everyone older than 13 knows a little about the symptoms of a "heart attack." However, ask them, "What is a stroke?" and many will be lost. However, most of the time, a stroke is exactly the same medical occurrence as a heart attack, except that it happens in the brain, to wit, a blockage of blood flow to the organ. 

Now in Sorbo's case, his stroke was caused by an rupture in an artery near his shoulder. When the artery ruptures, it allows blood to escape its normal path. When that happens, the blood cells don't have the "flow" behind them to push them along. The cells start to "crowd up" and eventually, like the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill, a mass of these loose cells get sucked up back into the blood vessel. The problem is that the vessel is built to handle a certain size cell, the like lanes on a highway. When this "clump" of cells re-enter the vessel, the clump is too big for the vessel and stops it up, like your bathroom seek. That stoppage, interferes with the blood flow the brain needs and BANGO! you have a "brain attack!"

While aneurisms can occur on their own due to a weakness in the blood vessel's walls, they are often the by-product of HTN or "hypertension," which we know is a curable and preventable medical condition. You can't walk into most supermarkets or pharmacies and not see one of the blood pressure machines. While they are not always the most accurate readings, they can provide you with a range that you may want to advise your doctor of. Additionally, brain-attacks are often a sign of CAD (Coronary Artery Disease). But all too often, people often relate CAD to heart disease, not brain disease. 

Worst of all, too many of us, male and female alike, still suffer from this "macho" image that we are invincible and that the only danger to us is on the fireground. Do you still fight a fully-involved car fire without wearing SCBA (Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus)? Or a dark, smoke-charged 2nd story window  of an apartment building? Why are you willing to take care of yourself on the fireground, but fail to care enough about your health to do so off the fireground?

If you have a family, do you make sure your kids get their shots? Take their vitamins? Do you call the doctor if their running a fever and complaining about ear pain? If so, why? Because you want the best for your children, the best for your family. Are you not a member of that same family? Are you not one of its very leaders? Then don't you owe yourself the very same diligence for your own health that you demand for your significant other and children!

It's time for us to put on our "big-boy" pants and schedule a visit with your family doctor or the department surgeon. Find out what your blood pressure is; learn what your total cholesterol is and if you need to change your food and alcohol intake, as well as salt, exercise, etc. to get it under control. If you are already on blood pressure or cholesterol meds, you owe to yourself, your family, and your colleagues, to do what you need to do to clean up your physical act and get as healthy as you can!

I never want send a Tweet about you!

"In Sickness and In Health..."

There are several subjects I wanted to address in this post. First of all, we finally have the additional video that we shot in early spring at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Fire & Safety. I've reviewed it a few times and looks like it will add some better explanations, voice-overs, etc., to what we shot in San Francisco last year. I might be overly optimistic, but I could see the new "teaser-reel" being reading in the next 4-6 weeks. We'll be sure to post some snippets on the web site or Facebook in the near future.

(If you have an interest in the fire service and you're heading to South Florida, you should make a point of stopping by and visiting the museum  http://bit.ly/p5VA0U)

Whether active or retired, the four letters that no firefighter wants to hear, are LODD - Line of Duty Death. When this tragedy happens on the fireground, as happened in Worcester, MA, Pompey, NY, and Charleston SC, to name a few, the stories are usually spread all over the media. From the live reports of "Eyewitness News," to large, dark headlines in daily newspapers, the news of a firefighter or firefighters dying "in the line of duty," is all-too-often understood to mean that they died from the fire, or a collapse, entrapment, etc.

However, that understanding is actually a misunderstanding, for the majority of firefighter LODD that occur in this country often happen no where near a fireground or rescue scene. Instead, they happen in the firehouse, at home, at the gym, and other mundane locations. For many of these tragic losses might have been prevented if the person/people concerned had taken better care of themselves.

Look, we all agree that those of us in the fire service are the crazy ones - we run into a building everyone else is running out of. And we're also the ones ready to rush to someone's - anyone's aid, at the drop of hat. But who rushes to our aid? Who takes care of the firefighters who do not take care of themselves?

One of the leading industry magazines is "Firehouse," under the terrific leadership of long-time editor, Harvey Eisner. Each month's issue contains one dedication to firefighters who died in the line of duty and a second and separate listing of firefighters, rescue personnel, and affiliated civilians who died in the line of duty. And in almost every dedication or listing, the smallest number is attributed to an actual occurrence on the fireground. The rest are often either road accidents and/or personal health issues. And with nearly 70% of this country's life and property protect by volunteer or paid-on-call firefighters, the men and women dying are our neighbors and, God forbid, our family.

So, how are these deaths attributed to LODD? The actual standards are developed by government and professional organizations, such as the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association). Thus, if a firefighters dies on the way to a call, on the way home, during the night after a call or a strenuous training exercise, etc., the death is classified as LODD. In a recent issue, a rescue responder, who had developed Hepatitis as a result of performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation more than a decade ago, was declared an LODD. But those type of attributions are few and far between. All too often, it happens either on the way to, or subsequent to, a training exercise or actual call.

And we, the firefighters and rescue personnel, are our own worst enemy. Because we will always make time ti help someone else, but we're too damned busy to take care of ourselves! We're told we have to lose weight, improve our conditioning, stop smoking, reduce stress, etc., but we're too busy to do so. And if today's American fire-rescue crews do not start taking better care of ourselves, our families, neighbors, and communities are going to suffer. Being a firefighter is not the once glorified job it used to be when I was a kid, or even ten years ago after 9-11 and the loss of our 343 brothers. Weeks later, fire departments across the country were swamped with applications. Yet today, with civil cut-backs, loss of benefits, both union and personal, and the ever-growing need for the heads-of-households to work two jobs each, the "job" isn't as attractive as it once was. And please, visit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation at www.firehero.org

It's time we take care of number one or we'll all be stepping in "number two."

Speaking of 9-11, it's hard to believe that the 10th anniversary is almost upon us. The pundits and "news" stations are already rolling the videotapes of that terrible day and it seems that after what this country just went through regarding our debt crisis, we should be ashamed of ourselves to look back and see our "loyalty" after that tragic time; flags fluttering from almost every vehicle and flying from homes and buildings. No "red"  or "blue" states, just one country of Red, White, and Blue!

Is history bound to repeat itself? Are we all going to be Americans for just one day, again and then return to our bickering and squabbling? Are we not greater than this? What will it take for us to join hands as a country again, and come together to govern and lead our country?

With that in mind, what are you going to do on September 11, 2011? There's a national organization you can check out, http://bit.ly/nx53vA or check with your own communities to see what they are planning. At the very least, visit a local firehouse, whether it's on a shaded, rural road or in the heart of "Da Bronx," and say, "Thank you." Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if you also added, "And please take care of yourselves, too!"

A brief post-script here: A big "hello" to a great friend of mine from my early firefighting days in Guilford County, NC, Roger Brooks. Roger was one of three, rotating duty-men, who worked the 24/48 shifts. He's a great guy and was a terrific mentor to me. We were able to get together for the first time in nearly 20 years, a couple of weeks ago. He retired as a Captain, from the Greensboro Fire Department about three years ago. At his home, he showed me a beautiful "life-line" plaque, with every badge, stripe, and bugle he earned in his career in the fire service. But he also told me about a new project called, "The Thin Red Line." While it started by promoting the NC Fallen Firefighter Foundation, it has grown way beyond that. The thin red line represents us, the firefighters of your community, who always show up to face the "thin red line," and hold that line to the best of our ability, for as long as we can. Roger was kind enough to give me my first "Thin Red Line" wristband, and I've been wearing my own and passing new ones out to other firefighters or telling them about the project. For more information, visit www.ncfff.org. Thanks, Roger!

Till next time....