Firefighter LODDs renew our vow to be safer

An old soldier was once asked what it was like to be in battle. He answered by quoting a letter written home by a Massachusetts infantryman during the Civil War.

The letter said: "A bunch of us went down to Gettysburg. Some of us didn't come home. If you weren't there you really wouldn't understand."

As I was preparing to write this month's column, news of a line-of-duty death in Philadelphia started to make its way across the Internet. I hesitated for a minute or two and then I went back to outlining some thoughts for my column.

I was torn between doing a wrap up of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant that had just closed or preparing a piece on the upcoming SAFER grant application that may open in January.

As I checked my Facebook page, I noticed some of my firefighter friends had started to express their condolences and to offer thoughts and prayers for the family, friends, and coworkers of Philadelphia's first female firefighter to die in the line of duty.

I went back to thinking about my column but my mind wasn't really focused on my assignment, so I decided to save it for another time.

Then the unthinkable happened. Another line of duty death occurred, this time in Hardin County Tenn. This was the result of an apparatus accident that was responding to structure fire. Again, I noticed friends on social media respond with thoughtful comments on the sad occasion.

What it's like
Technology is an unbelievable advancement for mankind, but I go back to the words of that Civil War soldier.

On Jan. 1, 1971 I was a young 18-year-old firefighter whose department had been dispatched to a mutual-aid call for a structure fire in a neighboring community. It was about 2:00 a.m. on a frigid Pennsylvania morning. The fire was in an old building that housed a variety store and several apartments.

My chief told several of us to take a 1½-inch line and direct it in the large first-floor store window. After a while, it appeared that we weren't making much progress and additional units began to arrive on scene.

My chief came back and told us that we could take a break because one of the new crews was going to take the line up a ladder and into a second-floor window. We handed the line over to the new crew and sat on the tailboard of our engine that was parked parallel to the front of the burning structure.

Everything changed
It seemed like only a short period of time passed before we heard a loud noise that sounded like thunder. As everyone started to run to the front of the building, we realized what had happened.

The building had a brick front that traveled several feet above the pitched roofline. That brick wall had collapsed, trapping the four firefighters who had advanced the hose line up the ladder under it.

When all was said and done two of the firefighters were dead and two were severely injured.

When something like this occurs it has a profound influence on you. In the days and weeks to come, those of you in Philadelphia and Hardin County will be visited by a host of agencies trying to determine why the unfortunate event happened in your community.

The unanswerable
From the youngest firefighter to the incident commander of those alarms, you will ask yourself hundreds of times, "what if." There will never be an answer to satisfy that question.

The moment of that incident will be forever etched inside your mind with the ability to reveal itself at both very predictable and very random moments. Some members of your departments may decide that they just can't answer alarms any longer.

If this is the case, understand their decision. Be there for and watch over each other because; this is truly what the term brotherhood means.

For the rest of us, may we never have to post another line of duty death again. But if we do along with our thoughts and prayers, let's honor that firefighter's sacrifice with a commitment to make this a safer profession.

Soon I will return to those grant column outlines and, I'll do so with renewed interest as they are one more way to keep firefighters safe and get us to that goal of no more line of duty deaths.