By Burton A. Clark
Seat belts are a window into the professionalism, or lack of professionalism, in the American fire service. Seat belts are also, an example of the dysfunctional nature of the American fire culture.
Seat belts have been important to me for a long time. I wrote my first seat belt article in 2003, “To Be or Not to Be a Tattletale.”
It is the first essay in the seat belt chapter in my book “I Can’t Save You, but I’ll Die Trying. The American Fire Culture.” There are 12 essays in that chapter the most in of the book’s six chapters.
I started the Brian Hunton National Seat Belt Pledge to get firefighters to sign their name to a promise to wear their seat belt in memory of Hunton, an Amarillo, Texas firefighter and National Fire Academy graduate who fell out of his ladder truck responding to a fire and died two days later.
The goal of the seat belt campaign was and still is to get 1 million firefighters to sign the pledge and 30,000 fire departments to get their 100 percent compliance certificate from National Fallen Firefighter Foundation’s Everyone Goes Home campaign.
I spent two years at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Injury Research and Policy researching why firefighters don’t wear their seat belts.
Most recently, I was at a national meeting writing a white paper related to firefighter health and safety. The host fire department supplied vans to transport us from the hotel to the fire department training center.
I arrived a day late so when I got in the van no one knew who I was. I told all the passengers to put their seat belt on, they did.
Some admitted they had not use the seat belt the day before. The fire service spends a lot of money on white papers related to safety, but we still have not gotten the seat belt behavior correct 100 percent of the time.
Why we bend rules
We all watched in horror the video of Capt. Pete Dern fall through the garage roof at the Cortland Ave. fire in Fresno Calif. He survived. The Fresno Cortland report is a telling assessment of our fire culture that is mostly true in the majority of fire departments in the country today.
The Fresno Fire Department has not had an occupational fatality since 1979. The issue is addressed in its Courtland incident investigation report. It is a good bet that your fire department could have the same experience because the following statement can be applied to most of fire departments in the country.
“The majority of the department personnel have never experienced the impact of such an incident, or the review process following an extended incident investigation. All of these factors have helped contribute to riskier behavior and a developing culture of consistently ‘bending the rules’ without correction by department leaders,” the report read.
The simple rules that were bent are identified in the memo Chief Donis put out after the incident. She focused on these three issues: directing the department to use personal protective equipment, tell the department to use radio communications equipment and give clear expectations that seat belts are to be worn during responses and any time the apparatus is in motion.
The reason for these three simple directives is obvious.
- Firefighters were not doing them 100 percent correct 100 percent of the time.
- Company officers were not enforcing them.
- Chief officers were not assessing compliance.
- The problem was invisible to the fire chief.
- Civilians and elected officials believed they had the best professional fire department in the state.
This falls to the fire chief as there is no state, regional or national entity, either governmental or nongovernmental, that has the legal authority or responsibility to audit fire departments’ professional competency. In fact, several states still exempt firefighters for wearing seat belts.
Lessons from a tragedy
To protect my sources of information, I will not identify the fire department or firefighters involved in this example of why seat belts matter.
We all have some level of responsibility when tragedy strikes; it could happen in any fire department.
Remember, the fire service disciplines more personal for attendance — being late for work or not attending meetings — than we do SOP violations related to safety. We will terminate you if you are late for work enough times or post something stupid on Facebook.
This incident involved an engine and truck that crashed into each other at an intersection responding to a fire. The engine officer and driver were ejected; the officer died.
No one on the engine was wearing a seat belt. The driver had a history of not wearing his seat belt or enforcing the seat belt policy. The driver had been previously disciplined, with time off without pay, for seat belt policy violations.
The discipline failed to correct the behavior and his new officer enabled the deadly behavior — resulting in the officer’s own death.
The wife of the officer sued the engine driver. The case went to the state supreme court and was dismissed. The court ruled her husband would have been eligible for worker’s compensation, which shields firefighters from suing each other for negligence.
To me, this seems like society gives firefighters permission to kill each other with no consequences or responsibility.
How Orange Co. fixed seat belts
On March 31, 2013, Engine 61, Orange County Fire Authority, hit a tree responding on an EMS call. The driver and a firefighter wore seat belts, while the captain and another firefighter did not wear seat belts.
The captain was ejected and the three firefighters sustained minor injuries. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the seat belt alarm system had been disconnected and covered with duct tape.
Within a month, the fire authority found eight more fire engines and trucks rigged by firefighters in the same way — with disconnected sensor and covered alarms to muffle the sound, officials told the Orange County Register.
How many firefighters, drives, officers, chiefs and mechanics had to know about this willful disregard for life safety, safety equipment, SOPs, law, ethics, our so-called brotherhood and the family members of the entire fire department?
The Orange County Fire Authority conducted a thorough crash investigation. The investigation results were used to create an education and enforcement program to help employees learn from this experience.
A letter from the chief made it clear that seat belt use was not optional and that they must be worn at all times and that the policy would be enforced. This was followed up with department-wide training to ensure the message was carried to all.
Additionally, the fire captain involved in the crash made an appearance on the department’s video newsletter to discuss his actions and the possible consequences. His testimony was probably the most influential part of the program. Members of the department were able to see one of the guys reflect personally.
Some discipline was carried out as a result of tampering with seat belt alarms to reinforce the lesson. The importance of seat belts and their use continues for OCFA today as a constant reminder to take every opportunity to ensure safety.
How to change behavior
Dr. Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says you cannot change culture, you can only change behavior. Schein says a three-stage process must be used for each behavior change to arrive at a new culture paradigm.
The first stage is unfreezing. This is where the individual, group, team or organization realized that their present behavior is not working or is detrimental.
The second stage is cognitive restructuring. Here, the person or group come to believe they can change and know they must change their behavior. The new behavior is what defines them as a good or a professional person.
The final stage is refreezing. This is when the person practices the new behavior with positive reinforcement from others and the organization until the new behavior becomes the norm.
All the rhetoric today about safety, being aggressive, hit it hard from the yard, real firefighters must go in to save people, we have to be willing to die for the citizen, are just words and talk.
When it comes to fire service professionalism or culture, form the rookie to the fire chief, it is always about behavior. If we as an industry cannot get our seat belt behavior correct at the 200 percent level of proficiency, who are we kidding?
If you don’t believe me, ask the more than 300 families that have lost their firefighter to no seat belt in the past 30-plus years. We can all do better.
California only has 38 fire departments that have taken the seat belt pledge — Fresno and Orange County are not listed. The unnamed fire department has its 100 percent seat belt pledge certificate, as does Amarillo. Each paid a very high price.