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Carbon Monoxide Incident with Rescue · B Shifter

• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone and welcome to the B Shifter podcast.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: We've got John Vance here.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Today is December 16th.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: We are a week away from all the holiday festivities of Christmas and this time of year we tend to get more carbon monoxide and gas-related emergencies.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And on the last podcast, or a couple podcasts ago, we've been covering this, talking about our SOG how we would respond as blue card departments to carbon monoxide incidents.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: And then boom, an incident comes up where I think it's a really good lesson for all of us, with some incident audio on a carbon monoxide incident that escalated with an actual rescue and clearing a building of multiple occupants.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: So we'll get into that.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Today on the podcast we have John Edichico John's full-time job as a fire captain at the Loveland Sims Fire Department outside Cincinnati Ohio.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: He works part-time as an assistant chief at the Lachlan Fire Department, again outside Cincinnati Ohio, and also joining us today is Blue Card Program Manager Josh Bloom.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: We are glad you are here today.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It's right before the holidays, guys.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: How are you doing Y'all set for Christmas and everything else that comes along with what we've got coming up?
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: the next week or so Very, very busy out here.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know personally my department, my hometown department here that I'm on.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: We have been rocking and rolling.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I was gone for a couple of weeks teaching and missed two structure fires and got a duty chief shift tonight, so I'm looking forward to probably some holiday-oriented runs, which is kind of what we're talking about today.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: How about you, Josh?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: How are you doing?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: All good, yeah.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: Adult kids are coming home for a week.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: That's good, I'm going to hang out with them.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: And then we've been working on pushing out and going back and forth on a bunch of stuff.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: We're going to push out after the first of the year some new curriculum stuff and some CE modules and ARF module and so on.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, we ARF module and so on.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: So yeah, we got our last trainer going on and then we jump right back into it the 6th of January.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, looking forward to 2025.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Busy times.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: You know, lately we've been talking a lot about these seasonal emergencies, whether they are carbon monoxide incidents, where we're getting a carbon monoxide alarm, and what that looks like, especially as far as the deployment and natural gas emergencies.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And today, on the podcast, we wanted to talk about an incident that Chief Edichico went on where you know.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It came out as a carbon monoxide alarm inside a multi-unit building and then it ended up escalating to the point where some victims were actually found.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So, chico, if you wouldn't mind just kind of setting the stage of the audio that we're going to play back and what led up to this incident that you had just a couple weeks ago.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we actually got called on our active 911 dispatch.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: It was a smoke odor indoors with a CAD note of odor of gas on the interior.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: It came from apartment three of the dispatch address, which we'll kind of talk about in a little bit about the building layout and how that really impacted our deployment.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: But that's what we got dispatched for.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So typically we send two engines to that.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Our staffing for that day allowed us to actually bring a medic unit as well with our own engine and a mutual aid engine.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: So once the chief got on scene he gave us an on scene report.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: You know, hydrant across the street.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, typically with our uh deployments for those we follow the uh DOT ERG, you know 300 feet away.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Um, they actually pulled past the incident and you'll hear that on the audio in the beginning.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Um, we want to stage those units outside that blast zone.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of where we started.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: So when they started investigating they were led around back into the basement and they started metering with four gas meters.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: And they started metering with four gas meters.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: We carried two on our engine, one as a primary and a backup to make sure that we're getting correct readings.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: So they reported 25 parts per million off the get-go.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: So as we continued with our investigation we kind of got complacent a little bit, which that's one of our lessons learned.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: We did an after action report on this.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: We used the blue card after action reporting system to do that, as well as having that conversation with our crews that were on scene, that conversation with our crews that were on scene.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: So as we go through this you'll hear probably that engine that was level one stage at a hydrant.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: They got turned away and returned to quarters.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Once we started clearing the building, the medic unit dressed out and actually got a third gas monitor from my vehicle to assist with clearing the building.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: They went to another apartment on the second floor and found 96 parts per million and the call was to evacuate the structure.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: So from there we wanted our guys to mask up, get proper PPE on and protect them as much as possible.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And almost immediately after there was a call for a victim on the second floor, which put us behind the eight ball a little bit, because we now had both our medic unit and engine company working and know on decks reserved there to help clear the rest of the structure and eventually they ended up getting 499 parts per million, which that's where our meters top out at.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: So once they get to that level, it doesn't matter, it doesn't go any higher.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: It says it's dangerous, we need to get all life out.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: So they removed the victim and we had to get those EMTs and paramedics back available to the medic unit to transport and treat that patient, which we were very lucky again to have that availability of them on scene.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Typically, you know our deployment, we wouldn't have that, we would just have all of our personnel on the engine company, but that day we got lucky.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: So we also pulled out a little Chihuahua.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: We had a cadet on scene that was giving that oxygen Chihuahua.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: We had a cadet on scene that was giving that oxygen and we called the dog warden for that to take care of that pet.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Good news is that that victim was rescued, transported to the hospital immediately.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Very next day the guys go out there to ensure that nobody was living in the space and actually go through the building and look at it, get another set of eyes on it, because it is quite a unique setup.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: The victim was standing outside gathering his personal belongings.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So he was back at home the next day, which was a huge success for us and you guys had had some experience with this building before with CL incidents, and maybe some of the hardware and what they had to keep the building maybe wasn't properly vented or they had some issues with that at some point, and also they had some illegal units in the building as well that you guys found right, correct.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: The building itself.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: If you look at it from the alpha side it looked like a typical two family.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: You know, one address on the right, one address on the left and it then was modified into three separate units with some really weird and unique entrance areas.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: So the first floor you enter on the alpha side.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: The second floor, for the Bravo side, you entered I'm sorry, yes, the Bravo side, you entered in on the Bravo side.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Go up to the second floor.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: The basement level apartments were on the Charlie side and the Delta side apartment on the second floor.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: You actually entered in on the Charlie side.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: It was a covered up patio area where they added a stairwell to get and modified a stairwell to the second floor from the first floor.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Very unique setup.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: All the utilities, the gas utilities, were in the basement.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: We had made a run there in April for a gas leak and Duke Energy red-tagged both the hot water heater and the boiler.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: So that boiler was said to have been repaired and put in service that morning.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: We got called out at 1648, so almost five o'clock in the afternoon.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: So whenever that boiler was put into service and the exhaust ran right up the middle through the chimney, uh, middle of the building and it looked like it exhausted into a uh, either a crack or a blockage of some sort.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: So which caused the?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: The CO?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: alarm.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: We talk a lot about best practice and really what we should be looking for.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: At what point, before we play this audio, should we be having that trigger to say, wow, this is a CO incident, this is an excessive parts per million, because we're kind of all over the place in the fire service, on on, when we either trigger and say, hey, this is a larger incident, I'm going to get some more resources out here.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And then at what point do we evacuate the building?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: To what?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: What should we be looking for on our meters?
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: So before I get right to the meters, you know their dispatch, you know, for this wasn't great for them.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: It kind of put them behind, maybe even a little bit right, because it didn't even come out as carbon monoxide.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: So it did come out as odor of smoke, and then you know odor of gas maybe, and then they're, you know, so they're treating it initially like a gas.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Response was was fantastic, following best practice, because we want to make sure we're doing everything right, and that's what they did.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: And then, as they investigate, they found the carbon monoxide.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: So when they got into a space and found 25 parts per million, that really leads us right to the.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: If there's 25 parts per million right here where we walked in, we should check every single inch of every bit of that space to make sure where is the gas.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: So if I'm in the basement of that building and it's a boiler system and it doesn't have pressurized air, it's using more like a radiator system, it might not be moving air around much if it's radiator, but there's still air going to be moving around somewhere.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: So, knowing what we know about carbon monoxide, that it's about the same weight as air, right, but it does.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: It is a little bit lighter, so it is going to rise but it mixes really well.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: So we always have that air movement.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: So, understanding that as you go into the basement, 25 parts per million, well, I definitely need to check above it and in this case, you know when they went up.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: You know, regardless of how the CO got there, getting to the top of that is a priority and that is where they found, you know, the most carbon monoxide.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: But you know, so often we look at what we really have right in front of us, that is, you know law, I guess if you will, if we look at OSHA, like permissible exposure limits and so on, it's very specific and you know our meters are usually set up to alarm based off of that.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: But when we go out and really start looking around, like what does the World Health Organization say?
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: You know, because it's general public, these people aren't workers, so the general public might be in that building for 24 hours.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: So you know, 35 parts a million for eight hours, okay, well, what could they should they be exposed to for 24 hours?
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: So you know, 35 parts per million for eight hours, okay, well, what, what?
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: What could they should they be exposed to for 24 hours, or it is the holiday season.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: People might be home for five straight days.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: So, like, what is that carbon monoxide doing?
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: What's 15 parts per million of carbon monoxide doing to these people for five, seven, 10 days, if they're, if they're at home and they're not leaving?
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: So and we know what is a cumulative like it continues to take its toll on you and the carbon monoxide continues to connect to you know the hemoglobin which blocks the oxygen which you know starts to give you.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: You know confusion and not a good sense.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: And then you know, cardiac patients and elderly people and young people are affected differently as well.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: So you know exactly what they did at this incident was, you know, spot on there's, there's some carbon monoxide there.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: They made some decisions and we have to check every single bit of this to make sure that this space is cleared.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: And you know, in this case, nobody watching this or listening to this would probably have thought, oh well, they're going to find more somewhere else because, like natural gas and so many other things we go to, oh, it's BS, right, and it's not a fire.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Well, in this case, it's still something that will kill you.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: I mean 500 parts per million of carbon monoxide in a very short period of time is lethal.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: You will be dead right.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: So I think it's well.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Kudos to the fire department for doing what they did and following best practice and taking care of the customer and doing what we're supposed to do.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: The World Health Organization back to that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: You know they really say nine parts per million inside of a building.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: You know you can find things that from energy companies that say you know seven to 15 parts per million.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I've been on plenty of incidents with our energy company and you call for carbon dioxide because I'm not saying that there's not a problem If there's carbon dioxide in the building.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: I'm calling them and then at three o'clock in the morning they're pissed off at you because they found 20 parts per million.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: They're like it's not a big deal and it's like, well, for me it is a big deal.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: And now it's not on me, it's on you because you said that it's not a problem.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: So I think there's a consideration for us to understand what will we, the workforce, expose ourselves to, or should we or could we be exposed to, and then what is safe for the citizen?
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: That nine for eight hours is what the World Health Organization says, and then they say no more than 25 parts per million for one hour.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Well, I've been on plenty of incidents where the gas company was like it's under 35.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: We're not doing nothing with it and it's like, well, what is that doing to them long-term, right?
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: I'm not a physician, I'm not you know whatever.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: But I do know that you know a little bit about carbon dioxide, what it does to you long term, right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: And it doesn't go away, right, it's going to as long as you're continuing to be exposed to it.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: It's going to continue to pile up in your system.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: And then you know the 150 to 200 confused, disoriented, you know, for you know a short period of time, but you know this is maybe sometimes based off of, like healthy people too.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: So oftentimes our customer base, our customer base when they're living in, you know, oftentimes subsidized housing, elderly folks, you know, maybe they're not in the best health either.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: So we don't really know.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: It's not our place to decide what it's doing to them.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: It's our place to say there's a hazard here and do something about it.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: And in this case that's exactly what the fire department did.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: So, again, you know, good for them and I'm really happy to hear that they had an incident.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: They dealt with the incident, there was a good outcome from the incident, but that they still ran it through and did an after action on it, because there's always plenty to learn and in this case, you know, a piece of plenty to learn is, as John said, disregarding a company, and then you need them.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It doesn't hurt a thing to leave them there until we know that we don't need them, but you know we do that because it becomes the well, we're the fire department and you know, oftentimes you know newer, younger company officers that don't understand are like ah, this is bullshit, I don't really want to deal with this.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: It's carbon oxide and, uh, this is a lessons learned thing that one incident can, uh have a big impact on.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Well, people watching this, you know 20, 30,000 people.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Well, let's roll into the audio.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you want to say?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Well, listen to the audio.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: You can hear how it escalates, and then we'll come back and talk about the after action review and the lessons learned 5901's on scene.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Got a small two-story multi-family of command on the office side.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: Hydrant's going to be in front of the property across the street 159, level one Go ahead 159.
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: We're level one in front of the structure.
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: Do you want us to investigate?
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: Go ahead and stop right there, two houses short of the structure.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: Send your crew up, or go ahead and pull past the house.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: It's already up here.
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: Pull past the structure.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: Send your crew up or go ahead and pull past.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Now.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Since we're already up here, pull past the structure two houses down by me.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Send your crew inside and check the interior.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: Engine 59 is clear on all Entering the structure.
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: Full text Engine 502, level one.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: Clear O2.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: You can come up to my car if you want.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Engine 59,.
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: Once you get your stuff off, make sure he pulls past the structure please.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: Agent 83 is level one.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: I got the orange tire down on Patterson.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Command to Medic 59,.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: Why don't you guys shut the street off so these cars can stop coming around?
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: Command to Medic 59.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: Go ahead.
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: Were you clear to park your medic across the street so the car stopped coming now.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: A for a medic 59 to command.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: We're doing it now.
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: That's clear, and a 59 to command.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: I'm getting 33 parts per million of CO in here.
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: No LEL.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: After 33 parts per million of carbon dioxide negative on LEL Affirmative Engine 89,.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: That's clear.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: Can you check the remaining departments as well?
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: Do you have any need for Engine 83?
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: Negative.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: We're trying to find the source right now.
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: Would you mind having Medic 59 dressing out and clearing the upstairs departments?
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Medic 59 is clear.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: We're on our way now.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: Command Engine 59, is your second monitor, still on the truck.
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: Negative Jack has it outside.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: All right, that's clear.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: Medic 59, you can get a second meter or a third meter off of a 5902's vehicle.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: Meta-59 is clear.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: Command engine 83.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You got it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: We have a CO issue, not natural gas.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: You guys can cancel our things, that's clear.
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: Returning META-59 to command Parks and Rear are going down.
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: They said they just turned on the boiler recently and just fixed it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Clear Parks and Realtors are going down.
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: We're going to have the medic switch, check the rest of the building and I've got Duke Gas responding as well, you're clear.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Medic 59,.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Take command, Go ahead.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Medic.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Medic 59, 6th man.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: Go ahead, Medic we're getting a reading of 96 on the second floor apartment 2.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: All right, Command that Medic and all companies operating go ahead and evacuate all occupants from the building.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Medic clear 59 is clear Agent 59, clear Medic 59, second main.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I've got a patient up here, unresponsive.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: Alright, up there, you've got a patient upstairs, unresponsive Engine crew is coming up to give you a hand.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: Medic 59,.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: Make sure you're on air, please.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: Clear Command 5902.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: Go ahead.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: I'm going to go ahead and make you bravo.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: I'm going to go ahead and get another fire company dispatched here to help us with evacuation Any additional needs?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Right now.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: No, I have a at least one patient.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: They're moving the medic unit up to the scene.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: A medic unit crew is coming out to command that.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I also have a dog here that's unconscious.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Copy.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: The medic has been brought up to the scene.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: You're removing one patient and we're going to need to make sure we have a thorough search for the rest of the building.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Search complete on the rest of the cycle floor.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Was that search In Division 9, back step on cycle Division 2, meters are showing 499.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: 499 on CO.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Copy 499 on CO.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Copy 499 on CO.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Was that a all clear?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: On the second floor, secondary search is underway right now, looking like it's all clear.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: You're clear.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Bravo to command.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: Command go ahead.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: One patient's been extricated on the Bravo side.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Moving on to the COD, going to the ambulance, Secondary searches are being underway.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Copy the 499 on the CO.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: That's clear.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: I copy you Patient has been extricated from the building.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: Moving to the squad, at this time you are confirming primary searches on all three floors.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Affirmative Primary search.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: All clear.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: We're going to continue on through the rest of the structure.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: Clear Primary searches on the first floor, second floor and basement, Moving to secondary searches.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: At this time I've got two additional in-jail companies responsible.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Crews are confirming that there is an all clear of the entire structure.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Well, you can hear how that escalates pretty quick from being what we would call just a normal CO run or a smells and trying to investigate what's going on, into an actual rescue where a victim was brought out.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: There were a couple of notes that I had off of that and first of all I just want to ask Josh, and maybe Chico too you know a lot of times a CO alarm, or even you know a complaint, is a single engine response without a chief.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I think in this instance it really demonstrates having somebody in a strategic command position that would start to coordinate what's going on, because we went from a basic investigation to having to deal with victims pretty quickly.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Is that normal for your jurisdiction out there to have that chief response, or why did you end up getting a chief on this one?
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Typically one of us will show up on all of our initial responses.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: That's not very typical for a lot of other jurisdictions around us.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: They just send a single engine company to go investigate.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: I know for the two departments I work for we do send a command officer to those, but it's really jurisdictional.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: You know where that chief officer comes from, if they do or not, do you?
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: agree, josh.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a jurisdiction to jurisdiction and I think the key thing with deployment is, you know, getting called to an alarm, versus we get there and we realize that the alarm actually went off for a reason and then upgrading seemed like, okay, 25 parts per million, we were probably going to handle this and you know, the fire chief in that town's been around for a long time and been to tons of incidents and, um, in this case, made it, made a sound decision.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Then it was like, oh, it did escalate, right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: So, um, there, there's, there's no armchair quarterback and you know whatsoever.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: It's just a matter of, uh, what do we have and what are we going to do with it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: So, in this case, they recognize we, we do need more resources and they called it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: They called them right back.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: So, um, and I know you know John talked about it in there after actually just talking about, you know, until we, until we don't need them, let's just keep them here.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Um, and you know there's so many organizations as we talked about, I think, in the original CEO and natural gas podcast that you know they, john, I think you mentioned there's there's some that are sending one person on a staff car in their regular clothes and it's like, well, if that's two o'clock in the morning, you know what does that look like.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: When they get there and you know we're here to provide service to the community and when the bell rings, we should be doing all we can to provide that service to the community.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: So you know, in this case, them having an engine and a medic, and then you know, calling for additional companies.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: This is exactly what we do and I don't know if that would have or would have not happened if the strategic IC wasn't there, because that initial company officer was going to become very overwhelmed with getting an all clear of the space, making decisions, doing patient care.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: You also got a dog.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Well, you got one patient out.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: We're doing all we can for them.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Do I have enough resources to continue to get an all clear?
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Because in this case, multi-unit was the all clear, complete.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Yet when they pulled the first person out, and you know, I think the answer was no.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: But the takeaway from all of this is that you know we can all do better and really evaluating the critical factors so that we can develop a sound incident action plan, and then understanding that those variable critical factors change and in this case, you know, 25 parts per million becomes 95 parts per million, becomes 499 parts per million.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: You know, with a victim, with a dog, still don't have an all clear.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: So we want people to learn from everyone else's experiences, which really comes back to.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: You know John's organization doing this after action, right, so they did that internally, but you know it spread all over this region in the county of.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: This event happened and you know you.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: You can learn from it right.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: There, there's there's lessons to be learned.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: You can learn from it.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Right, there's lessons to be learned.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: It's not a 1500 square foot single family home, it's a multifamily right.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Or the same incident happens at one of the four-story apartments in the center hallway and there's a hundred apartments.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: So a carbon monoxide alarm there looks much different I shouldn't say the alarm.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: If you find carbon monoxide, it looks much different than it does at a single family home or this three or four unit home or whatever right.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: So we have to always be using I'll just go back to the system and really the focus of the system the eight functions of command and evaluating fixed and variable factors, and then the variable factors is what we can actually do something about.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: So, knowing what we're at, you know the fixed factors of the building and you know, kind of, the layout a little bit, and it is a multifamily.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: And then you know the, the variable on the carbon oxide levels, and then the patient is a huge deal, right, I mean, that's, that's why we exist to provide service to the community.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: So, uh, and we all know that the so that they pull off the dog too, and yeah, that's a huge deal.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, people's pets are part of their family, right?
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: So, um, I mean, again, kudos to the fire department for doing what they did.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: And then you know, taking a look at themselves and saying everything worked out, but we can still do better.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: John, what were some of the things that you guys identified?
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Then there's a brand new module We've been talking about it a lot this month on Blue Card.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: It's available for Blue Card instructors and it's our after action review, where you plug in the radio traffic and other documentation of the incident and it helps you grade the incident Using that.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And then your discussion with the crews John, what did you guys identify with your after-action?
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: review foremost was CO runs need to be run, just like Josh said, with all the critical fire ground factors and managed the same way.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: We run everything else Check all the spaces.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: That was a huge deal for us, making sure that every space of that building was touched, looking for those victims.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Building was touched, looking for those victims.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: The way the construction was was a hindrance to us.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I got a couple of looks when I asked the question do you know, are we sure that we have all the spaces checked?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And a very seasoned captain looked at me like man.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: I just don't know.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: We need to go back in there and do another round.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Go do it.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Um, uh, you know we talked about the uh building instruction already and how that that that impacted.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: That was another critical fire ground factor for us of you know these have a legal basement units, efficiencies and you know being occupied when they really shouldn't have.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: The modifications to that building from a two-family to now a six-family.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: That was a huge lesson learned for us.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: You know when we have residential inspections, we should be also pre-planning those, getting them into a document that everybody can see.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: That was another lesson, big lesson learned.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: We've made now a couple of runs into that structure and it's unique, very, very unique.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Had there been a fire where there's smoke and trying to get to the second floor of that apartment building and it's on the Charlie side, nobody would have guessed that it was on the Charlie side, you know, hidden underneath and kind of an awning, if you will, or porch roof.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: And then we talked about the releasing of companies.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: You know, I needed companies when I was put into the tactical position.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, my guys were working, they were working on removing a victim, uh, but the rest of the structure was not being ventilated, it was not being searched, uh, I just didn't have the manpower to to get all those those things done.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: And I had a bunch of needs but nothing that could be done at that point because those guys had hands on victims.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Um, one of the positives was our staffing level that day.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: You know, it was fantastic for us to have, uh, seven people on duty that day to where I could get that medic unit, just moved up the street a little bit, get the cot out and ready for that victim.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: When he was removed, the cot was right next to me and they plopped him on the cot and transported him rather rapidly.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: So one big negative for me that I took was I was sitting in the command vehicle in the beginning of this and then, as that victim got called out, I was deployed to the Bravo side.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't dress out Our model.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: I should have been in full PPE with an SCBA being inside that warm zone.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Due to the escalating factors of all this happening, I didn't do that.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I recognize that.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Is that good or bad?
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: I'm taking ownership of that, but should have done, you know, better.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: And then the last one that you know we provided great patient care, got him to the hospital.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: You know, had we not done everything right, that victim would have been dead in all rights.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: So we got him alive and he's back at home the next day.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: That's really good work there.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: I think a couple of the lessons that I learned off of this.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: You know I'll read the notes every time a carbon monoxide incident comes out and with my jurisdictions it's kind of pick and choose whether the chief goes or not.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: But having that chief there to not only make sure that apparatus was properly placed, that there was an area you know 300 feet away that traffic was being shut down, apparatus was being positioned appropriately.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: At one point, I think when they hit 96 parts per million, well before that, he actually wanted to make sure everyone had their PPE on when they started picking it up on their meters, so he was confirming that people were on air.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Then, finally, when we hit 96 parts per million, he ordered an evacuation of the entire building.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: So being able to have a command officer there in charge strategically to coordinate all that stuff I think made for a much smoother incident.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about my jurisdiction.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: That would have been a single company response without a chief and we really would have put a lot on that company officer if they were going to be in charge of making all those calls that the chief made there.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: So just an excellent job, good lessons learned and an overall, I think, good education for this time of year, because we get more and more of these incidents, as it's colder out and improperly functioning heating devices and buildings being closed up, we're going to see this happen more often.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: I think there's just lessons to be learned here for everybody.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: Lessons to be learned here for everybody.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: And, um, though it was a successful outcome, again good on the fire department for still doing an after action review and sharing it with their organization and everybody else to say, you know, here's what we did good, here's what we can, you know, maybe do or improve on.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: And here's some lessons specifically about you know this building and, uh, me being very familiar with this community where this incident happened, that's not the only one like that, because there's tons of two families that everybody out there that has I shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of these people who have rental property they're trying to get more and more out of it and an apartment becomes separate sleeping rooms, more out of it, and you know they're, an apartment becomes, you know, separate sleeping rooms and all of that.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: And I think, as John you know, talked about that it being all broke up.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: And then you know, face to face with a very seasoned company officer, captain, and saying you know, are we sure you've got an?
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: All clear.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: I think that's a whole nother lesson learned that if you, as John's kind of said, if you do, if you do go to a fire there, it's going to look totally different.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: So, like, how comfortable do we really feel that we got an all clear of that space when we have this in our mind of we know how those two family buildings are laid out, that are, you know, side by side, but that's not how it's laid out anymore.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Not how it's laid out anymore.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, I mean lots of lessons learned, Like, like, we talked about tis, the season right, co and natural gas emergencies, and we we need to do what we need to do provide service to the customer, and this is an excellent example I think of of customer service.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: The only thing I'll add is you know, complacency will kill us, right?
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Just, we have to be on top of our game all the time.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: At some point in that incident you heard the CO was going down.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I didn't even mention that.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: The oxygen level was 20.8, which our meters read 20.9.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: 20.8, which our meters read 20.9.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: So there's a 0.1 variance, which is being oxygen is being displaced by something which is that's 1000 parts per million of something else in the atmosphere.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: That we need to really kind of consider what's going on.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: You know, I told you my meters stop at 499.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: That's where they they top out.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Well, my oxygen dropped.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: So what does that mean for your, your meters?
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: I know we grab them out every year and we do a training for those, those meters.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: They were calibrated every month, all that stuff.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So we we try and stay on top of our game on that which you know, this is the season for that.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Like Josh said, we've got to be on top of our game all the time.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: But you guys want to stick around for a timeless tactical truth.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Well, sure, All right, let's do it All right.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Timeless tactical truth from Alan Brunicini Firefighting.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Every little thing matters and I think that's appropriate for the one that we had today, where you look at the details of these calls and oftentimes we file it under.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: It's a routine emergency or this is, you know, it's a single engine response.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: What's the big deal?
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: But little things matter.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: You talk to that victim that was pulled out or the person who got their dog rescue.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Those things matter to them, Details.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: And those little things end up being bigger things when the incident starts to escalate.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Agreed, I totally believe in you.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Take care of the little things and the big things just seem to work out.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: You know we take care of all those little little bitty pieces and make sure that we're doing everything right.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: This starts from, you know the turnout getting on the truck right, getting to the right address and training our people the right way.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Every, every little thing matters to the big picture.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that to me, this, this lines right up to you know a few people out there that talk about it, but I think Mike Dugan talks the most about it Like what it looks like in the firehouse.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: All those things add up to what it looks like in the street, right?
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: So if you're jacking around in the firehouse all the time, don't take anything serious.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: That's what it's going to look like on the fire ground too.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: And you know and within this organization you know that that structure of we're here to provide service, is, is, is, is a top priority and I think that lines out to the support that the people in the street get from the fire administration and the you know community there.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: Like, there's not a whole lot of one-station fire departments you go to that have two, four gas meters on their first engine and a single gas meter in both chief's cars because they want to make sure that they're doing it right, right.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: So it's like all those little things and then verifying and making sure that our meters are calibrated, and then the training on what does, what does the, what are those media readings really mean, and then the whole piece of, like John said, you know, being dressed appropriately.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: What does our communication sound like?
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: So you know, in this case, uh, on this instance, the little things you know, if that would have come out as priority traffic, it would have been like, oh wow, that that was absolutely fantastic, right.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: But it came out.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: And that anybody think that that they were going to go up there and find somebody unconscious Absolutely not Right.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: So it's like you're caught off guard.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: So it just comes back to you know, all the little things add up.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: So you know, from communications to evaluating factors, always talk about when you see the company going down the street with no seatbelt, no headsets on and doing dumb shit, expect them to do dumb shit on the fire ground too, right.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: So it's every little piece.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: When we have big successes, it's usually because we nailed all of the basics.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: So that's kind of my little takeaway on that timeless tactical truth piece.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here today.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Chief Edichico, thanks for sharing your audio from lachlan and, uh, you guys did a great job on this.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Always lessons to be learned, so we appreciate you passing that along and hopefully you guys have a great christmas and a happy holiday.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And uh, we're going to have a special b shifter podcast, a shortened one with um I'll just say it, the most interesting I see in the world's coming back for a Christmas tale on Christmas week.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: So if you want to come back and have a little fun with us next week, we'll be doing that right here and we want to make sure that all of you B-Shifters out there have a great and happy holiday.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Guys, take care Thanks for being here today.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Merry Christmas, everybody.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Happy holidays.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Happy holidays.