Realities of the Job
Are firefighters blind to the realities of the job; the physical, mental, and emotional. Will they uphold the oath to the citizens by overcoming the friction and challenges of the fireground? Will they handle the stress of the environment before work has begun at an expanding incident?
Physical
We can start with the physical aspects of this job. What are you doing to be physically ready? We can dive down a rabbit hole with physical fitness, but we will stay on the surface for now. Per a post by “Data not Drama”, on August 31, 2024 on their Facebook page, from 2001-Present time there have only been two years that the leading cause of firefighter LODD’s was not due to health-related issues. First being 2001 (Due to 9/11), and 2021 (Due to the COVID pandemic, which could be medically related). Doing research shows that the majority of firefighter LODD’s in all other years are related to medical issues, majority being “heart attack”.
So how can we combat CAD or Heart Attacks to reduce our chances of death or LODD’s? Per the Mayo Clinic, #1 preventative is to stop the use of smoking or tobacco use, #2 is to “Get Moving” Aim to achieve 30-60 minutes of physical activity DAILY. Are we really doing what is best for ourselves and the citizens if we are not preventing CAD or Heart Attack? Are we living a healthy lifestyle to prolong our careers, and live a healthy life after the fire service? The answer is no, and if we cannot do that for ourselves, we are not at our best for those we swore to serve. Physical activity translates to better battleground performance, achieving the ultimate task at hand, which is to dominate our objectives.
Mental/Physical
Building mental resiliency is a foundational block to be prepared for the job. Mental resiliency allows us to build a foundation in the brain to control ourselves in high stress environments, leading to controlled breathing, in turn controlling our heart rate. When the mind becomes overwhelmed or stressed, motor functions and things of the sort start to fall away. We are most efficient at a heart rate of 115-145, but we lose fine motor function. As our heart rate increases, we slowly start to lose more functions, at 145 BPM we start to lose complex motor skill function, at 150-175 BPM we start to experience “Tunnel Vision” and “Tunnel Hearing” and cognitive process deterioration. The deadliest position we can be in is 175+ BPM, this is where irrational “fight or flight” takes over and decisions are not being made, or they are irrationally made. Per “Understanding the Human Physiological and Mental Response to Critical Incidents” Lt. Darin M. Clay and Dr. Kleine (2001).
How do we combat stress, and build mental resiliency? First, we must put ourselves in uncomfortable situations on the training ground, let ourselves get stressed. This is the “safest” environment to do it in. While we are stressed, we use this time to problem solve with training skills that we have learned. Think of a low air situation, a way to combat the stress and continue to lose more air is to pause, reset and tactically breath. We can also read, learn, critically think, and have challenging conversations, these are all forms of training that strengthen the mind. You have to be willing to put yourself in stressful situations, and do the hard things, building mental resiliency and a strong mind. As my brother states, “These conversations are important with close friends. To me, this falls into the realm of “The Theatre of Combat” and going past the skills of the fire ground.”.
Emotional
The combination of these two topics can slow the emotional drain that a person experiences over a career in the fire service. The more emersed we are in the job, training, and learning, the less time we have to bitch about others and sit around the firehouse. These are all negative faucets that we should not be wasting our time on. Though, it is hard to stay on the positive side of things when the fire service is sadly full of so much negative, we should look at changing the narrative. It only takes one spark to make a large fire, one spark of positivity can change a person's attitude or outlook. This could in turn, change a crew, a shift, or an entire department overtime. There is a quote that states “10% pressure 100% of the time is better than 100% pressure 10% of the time”. If we are dropping little nuggets of positivity over time, things will eventually change.
In Summary
The best part about this job is, once you understand it you will never want to go back to your old ways. Being a part of a crew that is rock solid, gets shit done, and goes to work is a dream come true.
Work on yourself, do hard things physically in the gym, not only for yourself but for the citizens and your crew that you serve with. Build mental resilience, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Mental resilience will physically transform you as well, controlling your breathing, and controlling your heart rate will allow you to notice major changes in life. Do not get involved in the bullshit that is the fire service, avoid the negative people and conversations. Instead, get out and train, get in the gym, or build your mental fortitude.
The realities of this career can be hard, days are hard and calls are hard. Doing hard things will harden you, make you better, and gives you a true understanding of what it’s like to be a fireman.
Data and Research:
https://www.cji.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/darin_clay.pdf
https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/firefighter-fatalities/
https://www.facebook.com/datanotdrama August 31st, 2024