02/06/01

I just got back from a week at a Fire Training Officer conference. I was away for a week and had the opportunity to help teach a course on Firefighter rescue and self-rescue. This was a course that focused on the special considerations we need to deal with when specifically searching for and carrying out rescues on Firefighters.

I've said it before. I LOVE teaching FFs from other departments. There is always as much to learn from them as they learn from the instructors. This was no different. we worked with students from large and small departments from all over the province. We had a great time, there were a lot of laughs, and lots of learning.

The best part of training Firefighters is helping them to overcome the impossible. Each and every one of us look at things and declare them impossible without trying them. One of my favourite things is letting them think something is impossible and helping them discover it isn't. Case in point:

Walt Eastermann is a deputy chief of a small FD in the Northern part of BC. He's a hell of a good man, and dedicated to his profession. His Dept is a fully volunteer outfit with thirty men and women. Not all FFs are the adonises you see on TV and in the calendars. Walt is most of 300 lbs. He's a BIG man in both heart and body. He's confident, he's knowledgeable and he's skilled.

Part of our program was a practical evolution called a "confidence course" This simulates a FF who has become separated from his partner and lost. He has to follow a hose line out of the building he's in. This is a house-sized maze with a number of challenges built in that test their knowledge of the techniques we taught earlier in the day. These challenges are carried out in complete darkness wearing full turnout gear and air pack. These challenges also are done in small spaces with wires to entangle them, and confusing turnarounds etc. It's quite a workout. I know, I designed it and had to demonstrate it to the students before they were turned loose.

Walt was one of my pupils, like all the other pupils he had a blanked-out air mask on to blindfold him im the maze, like all the other pupils he had one of us coaches with him. He could hear us if we talked but couldn't see us, touch us, or use us in any way. We were there to advise and to act as a safety person. Pupils sometimes let the pressure of claustrophobia, or entanglement get to them. They need us there sometimes to call off the exercise and get them out when things get too intense for them.

Walt was doing very well, like I said, he's a BIG man. Some of the spaces he had to crawl through and negotiate were pretty cramped. He's not new to the Firefighting game though, and his skills are very good. He was using his knowledge and experience to his advantage. That is, until he hit the last challenge.

The last challenge is a 16 inch square hole cut in a wall. It simulates any small opening a FF might need to use for escape. Walt was following the hose line out of the building, it led directly through the hole. What a FF has to do to get through a hole like this is to remove his air pack, but not his mask, keep the big bulky pack withthe air bottle still attached to his face, crawl face-down, flat on his belly and backwards through the hole, put his pack back on on the other side of the hole and continue, all while completely blind. Simple eh?

Walt crawled up to the hole. He felt the tiny opening, ran his hands around it, felt all over for another way, but no, the hose led through the hole and that was the only way. He knew how big he is and he knew how small that hole felt. I was crouched beside him and I heard him sigh deeply, defeated.

"I can't get through there" he said, knowing I was there.

"You haven't tried Walt" I said

"There ain't no way in hell" he said, low, angry.

"You know any other way out Walt? You know as well as I do that if you stay here,  you die, you get through that hole and you live, simple as that."

Walt knew it was a training exercise, he knew that he could get out any time he wanted by pulling off his mask and walking out. But Walt also knew that quitting was quitting. He reached up for his buckles and started stripping off his pack in preparation for trying to wedge himself through that opening.

This is one of the things I love the most about this job. The people who make it in this job are the ones who recognize something is impossible but go ahead anyway. They know that if you try it might work, but if you don't it sure as hell won't work.

I'm a realist as well, I looked at that teeny hole and Walt's bulk and mentally started planning the removal. I figgered we could bust up the wall fairly easily to get him out when he got stuck. He started to wriggle through backwards, his feet disappeared, and his knees. His thighs hung up a bit, but he grunted and swore some, before long his butt was through and he lay there panting and gasping. I could tell he was near to quitting. His head touched the floor ready to call it off.

"Walt, all you need to do is get your chest and shoulders through and you're home free, keep working at it, go slowly and I think you can do it"

He tried again, gaining an inch here and there, squeezing bit by bit..

"Walt, there are three of your men outside, if you pull this off, you'll be a legend before you get home"

He was at his armpits now and I thought he was beaten. There just wasn't room.

"Put your arms straight above your head! Make your elbows to meet, I think it can be done!"

He was right at the critical point, his arms were above his head, he was squeezed past the point of discomfort and was well into pain. He was hovering there right on the ragged edge of failure. I leaned down to his ear and whispered;

"Now think really small thoughts Walt"

He popped through at that instant. The rest of the evolution was anticlimactic. He lay for a minute and gathered himself, put his airpack back on and followed his hose to the door. He removed his mask and the sweat poured off him in rivers. He walked through the door to his men like a king holding court. They all looked at him and asked "Did you make it through the hole Walt?" they said.

He looked at them with an expression of mild confusion.

"Of course" he said and carried on with stripping off his gear.

They looked past him at me and I nodded smiling.

I spent the rest of the week basking in that moment. There is nothing better as a Fire Training Officer than helping people to amaze themselves with their own abilities. There is nothing better than encouraging people to do the impossible.

At the end of the day when we were packing up to head back I walked through the house and saw Walt there, in the room hunkered down and staring at that hole.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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