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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show firefighter and rope rescue guru, Ryan Allen.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from training to become a firefighter
in California, his move to Florida, some notable water rescues, his journey into special operations,
the unique challenges the Orlando Wheel presents for the climbing team, the Central Florida
Rope Rescue Challenge, and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Ryan Allen.
Enjoy.
Well, Ryan, I want to first say it's great to see you again.
Obviously you and I worked together in Orange County several years ago now.
But firstly, I just want to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast.
Thank you very much, James, and happy to be here, humbled to be here.
So where on planet earth are we finding you on this beautiful Florida afternoon?
And I say that sarcastically as it's cold and wet outside.
Yeah, that would be unincorporated Osceola County area.
So technically Kissimmee, I guess, but unincorporated Osceola County in the four corners area where
Osceola County, Orange County, Polk County and Lake County all kind of meet up.
So that's where you'll find me.
Well, I know that you were not born here in Florida.
So let's start at the very beginning of your timeline.
Tell me where you were born.
Tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Yeah.
So I was born not in Florida.
It was actually Huntington Beach, California, a different Orange County on the other coast.
So we have that coast in common over in California.
And my father worked.
He worked in a kitchen and bath showroom industry, like working on designing fancy bathtubs and
sinks and everything like that.
But before he got into that, he was a surfer, really, really big surfer.
And that's what he did.
And so when I had an older brother, younger brother and a younger sister out there in
Huntington Beach.
And we all eventually, except my two brothers, we all became firefighters in Florida eventually.
And that comes back to when we were in high school, we were a part of the Explorer Cadet
Program out there.
Really good program, unfortunately, was dissolved very recently.
Was Huntington Beach Search and Rescue.
It was one of the older Explorer Programs that existed out there.
And what was unique about it was it was a police and fire Explorer Program.
It did both of them.
So I actually went into that program wanting to be a police officer and left wanting to
be a firefighter, strangely enough.
It's not strange at all.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Once you do both jobs, they're like, yeah, I'm going to stick with that one.
So that's how that started.
And all three of us ended up through that program at some point in our careers.
And that taught me a lot about the job that I wanted to get into and actually doing ride
alongs.
I did police ride alongs.
I did fire ride alongs, full 24 hours in the station, riding with the guys, going on calls.
And that gave me a good look about that.
This was the career that I wanted to do.
And when I was 20 years old, graduated high school, I was going in college at the time,
Rancho Santiago College, Santa Ana.
Did you go to Santa Ana for fire standards?
No, I actually went to Orlando.
I went to mid Florida Tech where we're going to be doing California.
Yeah, I didn't have to do standards.
They actually took my Florida cert.
So gotcha.
Okay.
But Northnet was where we do all the training at Anaheim, which is great.
So I was Central Net.
Yeah.
So I was at the Central Net Training Center and actually going through all the classes
out there.
And so we're talking, this is 2006 ish.
So yeah, hard to get a job in California at that point.
So I was putting applications everywhere.
I remember trying for Burbank Airport Fire Department and all kinds of different places.
And we used to vacation to Orlando all the time.
Once a year we would come out here.
And my brother had actually just became a firefighter about two, three years ago before
that.
And he told me, hey, man, you're going to be on vacation coming up once you put an application
in for Orange County.
So I did and ended up getting picked up.
So ended up doing the non-surf program through there.
I was a California state EMT.
So I had to redo and do national and go through standards, the Florida way and everything.
And yeah, that's how I ended up out in Florida.
And then my little brother followed a couple of years later.
And actually my brother-in-law works for the fire department as well.
So it's a whole big happy family.
Well, there's a lot to unpack that I want to start with testing in California around
that time because I got picked up by Anaheim in 2005.
And I came from, so I went mid Florida tech, Orlando, syrup, hired by my, excuse me, hired
by Hialeah by Miami for almost a year.
And then I got picked up by Anaheim.
And when, as we sit here now in 2024, we have a massive hiring crisis.
I think it's really important to underline what recruitment looked like when you and
I were trying to get work.
So talk to me about that.
How many people were going for how many spots?
What were the resumes of these young men and women that you were competing against?
Oh yeah.
So I remember, I think it was Orange, it might've been Orange County Fire Authority.
I can't remember which one.
But I remember it was a, you had to pick up the application at Angel Stadium.
It would just like to get it.
And I, you know, it's been years now, but we're talking like, you know, in the tens
of thousands of people, you know, I'd probably say it was probably about 20,000 people or
something that had applied for these positions.
And we're talking like a class of like 10 or 15 and just the massive people.
And it wasn't just, you know, people like right off of the street, like all the applications
and, you know, Hey, I had started when I was 15 as an explorer, I was an EMT, I was volunteering.
I worked at the training center, working as like basically a student intern, you know,
working with the firefighters, had all this experience and my application looked like
everybody else's.
And so it would just get lost in the whole heap of everybody else.
And you know, it was hard to stand out.
So I remember taking classes on interviews and resumes and all that in college on how
to get a job as a firefighter.
Like there was entire like multi-day classes just on the interview process, like the panel
interviews and everything just to try to get that edge.
And then that is, that doesn't seem to be the case now, as far as a lot more job openings
and applicants, it seems now.
Well, I don't want to load the question.
I would certainly impart my kind of perspective after, but you and I have experienced a very
similar thing.
I think what helped me was being English and traveling 2500 miles for each of the interview
processes.
I think that at least showed, okay, this guy is a little bit committed to this and then
you stood out.
That's what you need to do.
You need to do these processes.
What is your perspective?
Why are we struggling so hard now to recruit young men and women for the fire service?
Oh man, that's a big one.
I think it, you know, I just think it's maybe just a shift in the, in the culture a lot.
I don't think, you know, elementary school kids are, they're growing out of the, see
the fire truck and I want to be a firefighter.
They see other things and other ways to make a living that are not that, you know, social
media, you know, everybody wants to be a YouTube star or social media star or whatever, you
know, like, so they don't think, you know, that that's not maybe on the radar for a lot
of people.
And I think just the people we're hiring are different now, you know, it's we're, I, we're
the people we're hiring now are younger, which I think is good.
I think we have to get them earlier in their careers, which is good.
And they're not coming in with the experiences before, you know, I think when I was going
through as a lot of people coming out of the military and everything, and I don't think
that's as much as the case now.
So we're having to, I think, recruit younger people that are having less life experience
and we're, I think having to teach them life experience on the job.
But yeah, I just think it's a different world and, you know, they're growing out of, like
I said, that, you know, I want to be a firefighter and then maybe fall into it later on.
I think one of the things through my eyes, and again, obviously, it's kind of a unique
perspective now with all these conversations on the show and, you know, working for four
different agencies, which most, you know, firefighters don't, is when we first applied,
if you Google firefighter, it would be like you said, you know, just the kind of the hero
stuff and then, you know, golden nuggets on how to pass your firefighter interview and
things like that.
There was nothing on marriages, cancer, suicide, any of those things.
So I think what's happening as well, and correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, you work for department
56 hour work week, no Kelly day, is the reality of the fire service.
You know, we were blind earlier in my career.
I never thought about seat deprivation.
You know, the way we've always done it is was good enough for me until it wasn't anymore
until we started going to Carl's funeral, you know, young firefighters in their twenties
passing away.
And then all of a sudden there's this big right hand term and we've got the suicide
starting to really be visible now.
And so now fast forward to a young recruit, you know, 2024 and they do the same internet
search that you and I did.
But now these dark things come up as well that the hero, the rescues, all the things
that we do it for also come up.
But you learn about the work we learn about mandatory overtime and understaffing and,
you know, you start seeing new stories of firefighters that did everything wrong, but
their organization didn't back them up and they ended up being terminated, whatever it
was.
Those are there as well.
And so I think one part of the problem is that these young people, as you said, are
a lot more tech savvy.
They can do their own research.
Now they have the whole world at their fingertips.
And when they evaluate the fire service in 2024, unlike me in 2004, they get a very different
picture and they might have service burning in their heart, but they're going to go, you
know, I'm going to serve in a different way.
This doesn't sound like the right fit for me.
I think I don't know what your perspective of that is, but I think that's a big part.
We always focus on it's a new generation, but what have we done, the older fire service
to do a disservice to recruitment 20 years later?
Yeah, that's yeah, there is more information out there.
And I think a big part of it too is when we were starting out, we were definitely still
in the shadow of, you know, September 11th and everything.
That was a huge, I think that was a huge component to, you know, a big rush for that.
And then maybe that shadow is slowly, you know, you know, slowly passed over the years.
But yeah, there's you hear all the time, you know, people are on their phones all the time
they're going to hear the stories about, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly, you
know, when it comes to that.
And you know, you know, people can pick their what they want to do now.
It's very open.
It's not, you know, it's, you know, they're not definitely not niched into one specific
thing now.
So, you know, the options are out there where sometimes people feel it's like, okay, you
know, you know, this is my only option to do this is a good steady job, you know, with
a good paycheck and all that.
But but yeah, I just think there's more information out there.
Like you said, that's definitely probably a contributing factor for sure.
Well, I think the solution is not doom and gloom.
The solution is to fix the things that are broken.
You know, as I always say, we used to send children up chimneys and have them work in
factories until someone said, hey, the kids are all dying.
Maybe we should stop doing that.
Well, that's how the fire service is.
You know, when we fix it, then the problem will be solved.
The other side as well, going back to your Explorer program, especially when it comes
to the diversity conversation, you know, a lot of people, it's kind of just prior to
my hire, you heard a lot of I would have been hired if it wasn't for this initiative, whatever
it was, if they might be correct, they might be incorrect.
But that was very much the feeling.
What I've seen is a lot of times as a knee jerk, like, oh, we need to hire X amount of
this group or that group.
And when you drag net like that, you're going to get some fantastic candidates and some
shitty candidates, you know, because you're now deviating from the standards that you
set before, where I think we do, you know, we do a disservice by ignoring areas where
young potential candidates simply can't access fire academies, training, et cetera, because
of finances, you know, family dynamics, whatever it is.
So the mentorship programs, one here in Ocala that they do three times a week, they meet
at a centrally located fire station, as long as a child can get to the station, they get
free training, they're given all the gear, the scholarships to fire schools, as departments
wait in the hire on the back end.
So I think that is also the answer to not only the recruitment problem, and it's a beautiful
thing because it also helps kids realize if they don't want to be a police officer, a
firefighter, whatever it is, brilliant, check it off.
Now at least you've taken a step.
But talk to me about the importance of that exposure as a young boy yourself and your
perspective of mentorship in the modern day fire service.
Yeah.
And I think I was kind of alluding to that earlier about having to get people early when
because and I think that's the new way to go for a lot of these departments is a lot
of this internal mentorship programs, you know, get them in high school, say, hey, you
know, keep it on the straight and narrow path, you know, don't, you know, don't do drugs,
don't get in trouble, all of that and, you know, say, hey, this is the process because
I think the days of, you know, going on your own and doing fire standards on your own,
putting up that money and, you know, you know, most of us probably staying at home or, you
know, staying with our parents and then working a job on the wall during the fire academy.
I think, you know, those days might be behind where, you know, these intern programs and
the non-serve programs are definitely the way to go.
Yeah.
And it was just being in the firehouse.
I was, you know, going on ride alongs and being like, these are the kind of guys I want
to be around, you know, very hard working, you know, the firemen in Huntington Beach,
you know, you know, second to none.
They were a great group of guys.
And you know, this 16 year old kid showing up and, you know, interrupting your day, you
know, because it was all day.
And, you know, you know, the program at the time, you know, it was 20, it was a 24 hour
program and I remember showing up in the morning and my full uniform and everything and lining
up my gear in front of the fire engine.
And then the captain came out and did inspection and stuff.
And, you know, I just remember how cool that was and, you know, there wasn't any holding
any punches.
Like there wasn't, they weren't screening the calls that we were going to, you know.
So they said if there's a call and because the station I was at that I would go to, they
had an ambulance there, they had an engine there, they had a truck company there.
And they said, if the call goes, grab your stuff and go whatever unit it was, you know,
there was no like, you know, oh, it's, you know, we don't want them to see this or be
worried about this, you know, it was, it was go and run the calls.
And I got a feel for it for sure.
And I think a big part of it too that you were talking about is we are a heck of a lot
busier than we were.
You know, the strain on the resources is definitely there.
I look at the numbers and the numbers are double what they were when I started and I
thought we were busy when I started.
You know, and that's just a strain on people.
And you know, there has to be some relief that way, whether it's, you know, you know,
changing work week, changing hours, more personnel, more units.
And I'm starting to see that shift.
I'm definitely starting to see that shift.
I think the writing is on the wall.
Everything we've everything's been stretched so thin.
And now we're starting to see some of the some of that.
And I think it's starting to come back.
So that is that is hopeful.
So absolutely.
Yeah.
I even heard rumblings of the 24 72 finally being considered, which I've talked about
for years now as being the industry standard and giving these men and women the rest and
recovery because as we talked about when we were testing in California, not sounding arrogant
because I got picked up.
But ultimately, if you have that many candidates, you get to choose what you perceive are the
best candidates.
Now, you know, you've got to make it through Academy and then probation to prove that you
are actually worthy of that.
But you know, you you you really get to choose the best people.
What I'm seeing is that, yes, they're still kind of barely able to get people in the seats,
but no one is having the conversation of we are taking everyone.
And how is that detrimental at the firefighter level?
And as they rise through the ranks?
Yeah.
We're like I was saying, you know, we're definitely getting younger people out there and we're
having to teach them life skills, you know, you know, never mowed a lawn before, never
started a power tool.
A lot of that.
You know, here's a broom.
What do I do with that?
OK, I'll show you.
So they definitely are coming in younger and stuff.
And, you know, I wish every single candidate that came in was a former military person
or somebody that came in with, you know, it was some sort of background.
You know, it's like, hey, I was a roofer.
Oh, cool.
Let's you know, let's utilize that resource and everything.
But now that's just doesn't seem to be the case now.
And then just these departments are getting bigger.
Everything's a bigger, you know, the suburban areas are expanding, you know, more coverage,
more people, more calls, you know.
So they're just having to learn on the job and, you know, the guys that, you know, been
around like me got to show them the ropes.
You know, they're still coming.
Now what about the difference between West Coast and East Coast?
I went, like I said, mid Florida Tech, Orlando, which is beautiful because I'm going to be
there with you in a couple of weeks in a totally different capacity.
But you know, we were taught the Academy way of throwing a ladder, you know, lay it down,
you know, pick it up, suitcase, carry, lay it down front of the building, walk it, blah,
blah, blah.
And then I get hired in Ganneheim, California with an aggressive truck company.
And all of a sudden, you're like, you don't know how to shoulder a ladder.
You don't know how to throw, you know, a 16 foot roof.
And I mean, all these different things are like, oh, shit, my, my learning curve needs
to be like a vertical line if I'm going to keep up.
And then you, I went back to the East Coast, got hired with count with Orange County, same
as your department now.
And I remember, I won't name names, but I remember when the first places I was at, there
was a truck company there, beating their chest about how bad ass they were.
And I remember seeing them on scene going, oh fuck, it's totally different here because
a professional West Coast truck company is cutting roofs all the time.
You know, it's a, it's a very unique vehicle.
We did all the extrications.
And you know, on the East Coast, when you hear people, I'm talking about Southeast,
it's so dangerous to put someone on the roof.
We don't do vertical ventilation and that creates a very different mindset.
So did you have any kind of experiences of that when you came from originally West Coast
train to the East Coast?
Yeah, for sure.
The, you know, the biggest one like you touched on is the roof operations.
You know, that's, you know, you could definitely say there's the two extremes, you know, there's
probably does every single, you know, you can have the debate, does every single fire
need you on the roof to cut a hole?
My experience, not every single one needs to have it, but I think it's, it's a good
tactic to have.
And I remember just when I was, you know, training in California, the rep, the reps
of Rupa Rupa operations, you actually cutting on roofs, sounding roofs, that entire tactic,
like just like hammering down on it.
Like they, if you're a truck company, like that's what you did like all the time.
And you know, utilizing and getting comfortable with the saw and everything.
And then it just, it seemed very much like at least the Southern California area and
Anaheim's definitely included in that.
All the departments seemed very universal.
Where like they all were in the same uniforms and a lot of the, they were a lot of doing
the same thing.
So I think if you moved from one part, let's say Hanyu's Beach to Miami or I mean to Anaheim,
I think it wouldn't be too much of a culture shock where maybe in the Florida area, the
difference between one department and another are vastly different equipment wise, everything
else.
You know, so, and then like, you know, you go into California, like, you know, wooden
ladders are still the thing.
You know, you, you know, you, you talk about throwing ladders and then you throw a, you
know, a wooden ladder at somebody from Florida and they would be like, what the heck are
you talking about?
This thing is massive and heavy and, and everything else.
But yeah, it's different, you know, you know, but one thing I would say is just that all
being said, like the opportunities I've had when coming over here and the types of calls
I've ran and what I've done out here in comparison, if I would have stayed out there are vastly
different.
I don't think I would have the experience I have having stayed out there as here.
And, you know, one can say that, you know, that's good and bad, you know, should I've
been, should I've run all these calls that I have, but, you know, it's definitely the
opportunities are here and sometimes, you know, look back on your career and you're
like, wow, it's, it's been a lot.
Well, again, there's that kind of fake machismo when it comes to the fire service, like, you
know, I'm not doing EMS, I'm a real firefighter.
And what I learned when I came out East and, you know, started writing the box, I mean,
she did in Hialeah originally too.
That's where you save the lives.
You know, if you drag someone out of a fire and they just leave them on the front lawn
and you have no skills to do anything else, then you just did a body recovery.
That was it.
So the volume of trauma and the volume of patients that you run on as an EMT and paramedic
in our area, I mean, again, that learning curve is incredibly steep.
And I think that that kind of anti-EMS, you know, sentiment is so bad, especially as,
you know, the last 30, 40 years we've been doing EMS in the fire service.
So it's, you know, everyone that's mouthing off now is, was groomed in a generation where
this was always a norm, but remove that, you know, that's where ultimately most lives are
saved is in the back of a rescue or an ambulance.
I mean, it's just, it's fact.
For sure.
So then walk me through.
So you enter Orange County.
What was your orientation like, and then where did you find yourself station wise?
Ah, gee.
Okay.
Orientation.
Yeah.
Went, started non-cert program.
So they did a internal EMT and I think it was one of the first times they had done that,
like an internal EMT process.
And so that was rushed.
Good for me because it was fine for me because I had done it before.
But I know some people probably struggled if you're coming off the streets and didn't
have that experience.
And that led straight into standards.
I think standards pretty much the same.
I think they changed the big three into the big two.
But it was at, at the time this mid Florida tech central, the central Florida fire Academy
now Valencia.
But at the time it was the consortium.
Yeah.
Standards wasn't too bad.
It was, it seemed like it was more preparation for the test that, that big three tests that
that's what it seemed to be mostly.
So and the talk was for the most part, they're like, Hey, we're teaching you every the state
way.
You're going to go to your department and you're going to learn the department way.
And you know, that seems to be the norm because there is such a vast difference in, you know,
equipment and units and everything else.
So I did that.
I made a pretty big class.
I think we had like 30 people in the class.
Met some good friends, still friends today.
With guys I went with through that.
And then went through orientation.
I want to say orientation was about six, six weeks, maybe ish six or eight weeks.
And then got to, you know, know the, the systems and units that we had and did it.
One unique part about our orientation that we were really lucky with is there was the
Mercado shopping district area that was on international drive that was being torn down.
And we had like a week there and we got to train there as they were tearing this entire
shopping district down.
So we actually got to go force like real doors, you know, in real environments, you know,
do wall breaching and do, you know, searching scenarios and, you know, writ scenarios in
real buildings, you know, not, you know, the traditional fire academy rooms and everything.
So I think that was a big part of that.
And, you know, just forcing a, you know, a metal, a real metal door on a business and
back, you know, with the drop bars and everything else, like the hardest types of doors you
could force as a truck company and getting to practice on those was pretty awesome.
And then after orientation got assigned straight off to a good old engine 51 busiest engine
in the county.
Absolutely.
It's funny when I came on in 2008 with you guys, the training had devolved and we had,
I think it was only four weeks.
And this is no disrespect to the instructors because their frustration was evident.
But I remember the only hose evolution we did as far as, you know, fire attack was taking
a cross lay.
And if you remember by the, the, the training area where they have the three, four, three,
there's a little loading dock.
There was a shed, a wooden garden shed, and they put a lattice like you would, you know,
string tomatoes to, and you had to punch the lattice and then advance the line into the
shed, but you weren't allowed to flow water.
That was my, you know, fire attack training.
So I know since then it's got amazing again, but it's incredible how, you know, and luckily
I came from, you know, working several years already as a firefighter.
So as you said, it wasn't a big deal, but if someone came on that, that's their first
introduction to it, you know, the, that at that point, the bar was set very low in that
class at least.
Yeah.
Jamal and his team are, are doing great things over there and, you know, a bunch of respect
to them because, you know, they're very busy over there.
Yeah.
But he's got a good program that he's doing over there for sure.
Absolutely.
Well, then walk me through your engine 51, you know, in the meat grinder, walk me through
your journey into special operations and rote rescue.
Yeah.
So yeah, engine 51 busiest engine in the county for sure.
Always in the top 10 for the country for engine companies, you know, and there's policy.
Politics and that like only each department's allowed to submit one, but you know, it's
still, it's pretty busy.
So yeah, did, did the engine company for a while.
And then there was a sort of a mandate coming down that if you had a special operations
unit at your station, you needed to be qualified to write it, even if you weren't assigned
to it at the time.
And so we had a truck at station 51.
So I'm like, okay, I guess I got to go be truck qualified.
So I went out to the central, it was still the central floor of fire academy at the time
and got my Robo ops and rope tech classes.
And I had had some experience with rope back when I was in my Explorer days, but it was
a little bit different.
It was more, I was taught by a bunch of cops how to repel.
So I knew my knots and I knew a little bit of my systems and stuff, but it wasn't, it
was more repelling based and not rescue based.
So then went over and so it wasn't completely foreign doing the ropes at the fire academy.
And I had some, some good people over there, some good mentors that taught me rope at the
academy over there.
And then once you had that, then you had to do like an internal, internal academy within
the department to learn the trucks themselves, you know, driving, pumping and all that.
And that was only a couple of days at the time.
You know, it was like a day of driving a day of pumping, you know, and all that.
And then came out truck qualified.
So then started a writing truck companies.
So they, I was sent down, sent down to 55 and room 55 a lot, cause that was one of our
quints and they had a, at the time, all of our, most of our units were three men and
55 was one of the only four van units.
So they always needed an extra guy down there.
So for the first about year and a half, I was truck qualified.
I spent a lot of time down over there sending me over to 55.
And then came back, started riding the engine again.
Once all the engines went for man again, you know, living good life over at 51 and think
it's probably been about, probably about seven years.
An opening came up on truck 51 on the C shift.
I was on B shift at the time.
And kind of by chance I got it, I didn't intentionally put in for it.
I just, each transfer cycle, I would just put in for the truck, A, B and C and the guy
who was on the truck at the time, the senior guy was transferring out and then my name
was on the top.
So then I just moved from one side of the Bay to the other and then been there ever
since on the truck company.
And then so rode the truck a bunch on the C shift and still doing that now.
And then probably 2017, 2017, I just had an inkling.
I wanted to do more.
I was always the type of person on calls.
If there was like a special operations call, if there was like, Hey, you're not allowed
to go into that trench because you're not a trench rescue person or you're not a confined
space person.
I didn't like to hear that.
So I was like, well, let me go start taking the rest of these classes.
So then I went out and just started taking all my USAR classes, trench confined space,
VMR, VMR where we reconnected.
I remember that over at the state academy.
That was cool seeing you there.
It had been a while.
They had indeed.
That was the great, the great teachers there too.
Yeah.
Great group of guys are there.
So my, my, yeah, my VMR and then my structural collapse out there as well.
I had a very diverse group of certs from all different places.
And I think that did me well, um, uh, getting different perspectives of places.
And uh, once I had all my classes, then, uh, I went through, uh, our internal squad, uh,
academy, which is definitely, um, definitely challenging.
You have to take a test to start out, to even be accepted into the academy.
So you spend all this time taking the classes and then you had to take a written test and
you had to be in the top.
I think they took eight of us, top eight guys to move to the practical portion.
And the practical portion was six weeks, six weeks, Monday through Friday, working on all
the disciplines.
Say, you know, the, and the same kind of thing you learned in the academy a certain way.
We're teaching you the, our department's way.
Um, and so a lot of, a lot of, a lot of training on that, you know, I think two weeks of that
six weeks was just in hazmat.
So just to get into perspective.
Um, and then you had to do a test out process.
So you had to take the written test again, but it was different questions and you had
to do better.
And then there was, I think it was like probably like 18 practical skills that you had to do.
Um, like everything from in the entire process was like a proctor, like reading you a question,
like a scenario.
So there'd be a car on its side and they'd be like, you know, candidate, you have 10
minutes to use the equipment in front of you to properly stretch this vehicle and then
go.
And then you'd have to go and do it.
And if you didn't have your, if you forgot your safety glasses or something, that would
be an automatic fail or you weren't wearing your gloves or something like that.
And so I think there was about 18 of those practical skills and they crossed all the
disciplines and then you were qualified at that point.
So then I started writing squads and, uh, and doing all that.
So, so yeah, that's where I'm at doing a special operations for sure.
Which squad are you assigned to now then?
No, still on the truck, still on my truck.
But then I get floated there.
Depends on the time of year, if it's a time of year, there's a lot of vacation.
They'll pop me over to them.
So I'll go to, I go to all of them, all three of them.
Who was behind the high level of standards?
That sounds like an intense testing process.
And I remember, uh, Haskett and some of the names that seem to be kind of, you know, the
movers and the shakers and that, who, do you know who was responsible for maybe arguably
sometimes standards being lower in other areas, holding it very high in that discipline?
Um, I think it's evolved over the, over the time period.
Um, I will say my experience in the, being a part of all the programs, um, and then we'll
probably talk about those in a minute.
All the programs I'm in, in special operations, what it takes is a very dedicated group of
lower ranking individuals, firefighters, engineers, lieutenants that are very passionate and willing
to do the work and then presenting that to the management and being like, Hey, this is
what we want to do.
And then giving them the free rein to do that.
And that's where things like, um, the squad, the squad Academy, the current versions of
the truck Academy, uh, the dive Academy, and then the rescue climbers, which is one I'm
heavily involved in, uh, where that happens.
So I think it happens at that lower level and then manage management listens to those
individuals.
Um, because we, there's been a lot of rotations of people in, you know, whoever's in charge
of things always changes, but there seems to be that core group of people that stick
around, um, that are the movers and shakers and try to be like, Hey, you know, let's try
to be the best at this job.
Um, you know, so there's always seems to be like, yeah, like a lieutenant level person
who is very passionate about something and kind of pushes those programs to, to be as
good as they are.
I was only at the County five years, but the really significant change that I witnessed,
um, and I know this is a program that prior to me ever getting there, there were already
people really trying to push this and it was just kind of dead in the war.
Uh, when I went there, I got signed 73, which almost killed me.
It was so damn quiet at the time.
Cause they, uh, they were only the engine.
There wasn't a rescue.
So 70 was doing all the heavy lifting, um, ended up at 70, which I loved and I spent
my whole career there.
Um, it was, but we had a boat, you know, we had the lake next to us and I came from, you
know, uh, a pretty significant lifeguarding background, open water, all that stuff.
Um, when we started seeing what we were responsible for and the crew that I was with trained,
like John would take us down all the time and we'd, you know, practice back in the
boat in and, you know, doing, um, evolutions and then Wayne Dormany and his brother would
come and they actually brought actual lifeguarding mannequins and we did, you know, backboarding.
It was amazing, but you remove that crew out of the equation for a second, talk about standards.
There was no certification.
Anyone could be floated in this, maybe couldn't even swim no matter, drive a boat or, you
know, rescue someone from a lake.
Um, and then even the backboards, they had the backboards that we use in dry land.
Well, that doesn't work in the water, you know?
So I remember thinking, how is there such a disconnect?
You know, we have, um, brush truck certifications, but not boats.
Um, and then chief droves got hired.
And I remember at 50 actually talking to him about this, you know, and one of, like I said,
I'm one of many voices, they were pioneers prior to me already trying to put this in
place, but that was what was beautiful is that he came in and he listened.
And then the rescue diver program started building up, you know, and you had the surface
water and then you had the divers.
And now, I mean, I was talking to Wayne just about three days ago and he was saying, you
guys have like one or two rescues a month in the county now, right?
Whether they're successful or not, but you have that many cars with occupants in the
water these days.
So I applaud, I applaud that.
Because I mean, again, there was a lot of people that were told no in that journey,
but getting a good leader in accompanied by all these people on the, as you said, the
lower levels pushing for this, how many lives has that saved now?
Oh yeah, that's, that's for sure.
Um, yeah, Wayne is, Wayne was definitely one of the originals.
Um, and then, uh, rock Rocky, Rocky and his father were the two rocks and, um, and, uh,
Tyson and then my brother who's in charge of it now, um, they, yeah, they took a lot
of what other people were already pushing and started, yeah, with that surface water
program, the, and then the, the, uh, rescue swimmer program.
And that was just kind of little steps, little steps that, you know, has now led into the
dive, the dive program.
And now one of the biggest dive programs in the state and also the country, you know,
um, and yeah, there are, there's, I know there's a hundred percent, at least, of people
who are still alive.
But, um, I think, um, I think, yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good way to put it,
but I think that's the biggest, I think, the biggest thing is that, you know, the, the
first one person alive because of that, the dive program, um, yeah, we should probably
get a captain on, you should get captain on here and have them tell that story of the,
the kid on St. Patrick's day.
But I know that kid that went into that retention pond and St. Patrick's day right after it
arrived, who was a diver, he didn't have his dive equipment on, but he knew what to do.
Jumped into the water early, marked the car for the diver.
When the diver arrived, all he had to do was swim down to the marker and pull that kid
out.
And, you know, the fact that that, you know, you have a successful drowning like that is,
is amazing.
And I know for sure that that kid is alive because of that program, you know, having
had my own experiences with water calls and stuff there, the clock is for sure ticking
unless you're down the street and on the road, you know, the time is against you for sure
when it comes to that.
But yeah.
Well, speaking of that, when I Googled you, I mean, obviously, you know, we know each
other, but I always want to kind of dive in a little bit.
An EMT award popped up on the search and grab me if I'm wrong, that was a water rescue.
So tell me about that call.
That was a water rescue.
That was just prior, a few years prior to the dive academy, the dive program reinstated.
Let's see, that was early morning, right, right before shift change, that a car with
three people went off the road right next to a school and into a retention pond.
Like if you can imagine a small bridge going to a retention pond, it kind of veered off
to the right and then crashed through a fence and then flipped upside down and went into
the retention pond.
So we responded to that.
It's not too far down the street from the station, so it was really quick.
And we arrived, I was on the engine at the time, had a Probe with me and myself and the
Probe, myself, the Probe and sheriff's deputy went in.
The car was upside down and basically just the tires were showing.
And I originally went over to the driver's side to try to open it, but the door was jammed
into the muck and couldn't get it open.
And then they were just opening up the passenger side and pulled out the first person who was
there.
And then the process, so then I came around and in the process of pulling out the first
person, I'm, we're hearing my lieutenant of the time, Steve Sherrill on the radio and
he's like, hey, kind of giving us updates.
And he's like, hey, there's somebody in the car on the phone talking like on the phone
with 911 and took out the first individual who was unconscious.
And I was like, well, it's obviously not this guy.
He's not talking on the phone.
So there's obviously more people in the car and in that process, the person who was in
the back seat grabbed the hand.
I think it was the deputy's hand just reached out and grabbed his hand and scared and scared
the crap out of them.
And then we managed to pull her out and then talking to her, just trying to get information
like, is there anybody else in the car?
And then she's, we were able to manage to determine that there was a third person in
the car at this point, you know, it was deep into the car and the only way in was at the
time this, the passenger door.
So I went in under the water and there was sort of an air pocket area where the, where
your feet would be in the front seat of a car and kind of managed to get a breath of
air in there and then was able to reach around and find a seatbelt and a seatbelt was able
to take off and pull the driver out.
And with the assistance of everybody else, get them up on shore.
Cause even just getting them up on shore was difficult because it was like rocks, like
large boulder rocks leading down to the retention pond.
And then proceeded to work two codes at the same time with us and the rescue.
And then me and the Probe soaking wet, you know, no shoes on and everything else.
And then, and then what, what, then this Calvary started coming, but it was a very, it felt
like a very long, like two, three minutes that we were up on the shore alone and kind
of splitting, splitting all the equipment we had between all of us, we're working that
call.
And then, and then ended up riding in on one of them still soaked to the bone, no shoes
on riding in the back of the rescue.
And then, so we got pulses back on the one, he eventually passed later on, like a few
weeks later.
The other one, the other one was called at the hospital and then the other lady was,
the other lady was ended up being fine, which is pretty crazy that that happened, you know?
And there was a lot of, a lot of media that came along with that and ended up getting
EMT of the year for the state of Florida through the department of health that year.
So it was a, it was a crazy call, went very quickly, you know, a lot, you know, so it's
amazing though.
I'm glad I asked that question because you left out the whole part where you and your
crew had an amazing rescue.
Yeah.
So yeah, that lady was fine, you know?
Brilliant.
Well, I want to get to, you know, the, the very unique rope rescue team that you're a
part of, but just before we do, I mean, obviously there's been.
The op tempo, as they like to say in the military, when it comes to orange County is extremely
high.
I mean, we have so many crazy calls.
What are some of the other career calls that you've had up to this point?
Excluding the wheel?
No.
Jeez.
Most of them are, are just the small ones like, you know, the, like the amount of different
types of house fires and stuff in unique areas, apartment fires, you know, just the amount
of those or the unfortunate, you know, violent calls and stuff like that, that, you know,
you encounter unfortunately on too regular of a basis.
But you know, Oh, here's, there's one of my favorite ones.
Pirate ship dinner or pirate dinner adventure on international drive, which I used to be
a pirate in that stunt show.
You were a pirate in that, there you go.
I was Benjamin blue.
I always got the girl.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh, that was a crazy call.
Um, we responded to that.
Um, it was at the time, I think if you can picture, um, if people know medieval times
or I think Dolly Parton has one of those shows to those dinner shows, uh, where there's like
a show and then they bring out food to you, uh, during it.
And this particular one is pirate themed and it's an amphitheater and it actually has a,
it has a cloth cover or a canvas cover over it.
Well, the canvas cover was damaged and one of our hurricanes.
So the place was shut down.
Uh, so they had just replaced the canvas cover and, um, they were doing repairs inside and
the repair man, unfortunately, I think he was doing some hot work, caught some of the
decorative, uh, rock on fire.
Cause if you think this decorative rock is basically foam gasoline for the most part
and he caught one of those on fire.
And I give props to the guy because later on when I went in there, I found like six
empty fire extinguishers.
So he tried to put this out, poor guy.
Um, and then the place went up and, um, we arrived there as the first truck company.
I think I had just transferred over to the truck.
Um, and you know, big old hole in the ceiling of this canvas, uh, amphitheater and, uh,
the pirate ship was on fire and myself and my lieutenant at the time, uh, ducks, um,
went in and had to do primary search on this giant building, you know, so you've got to
think it's a amphitheater backstage area, um, pre-show area, and then like a kitchen,
you know, you're familiar with that.
It was amazing.
Yeah.
I was, luckily I was familiar with the building.
I had known people that had been in that show and I had been there before.
So I had a general idea at the time of what the layout was and we had basically searched
everywhere except the main building.
And I was kind of able to convey to my lieutenant kind of the, what we were going to expect
when we went in there.
And it has sort of a double door, uh, like almost airlock with the way you get into that
place.
So there was like no smoke anywhere except that because of this, the way the double doors
were.
And we went in there and sure enough, like, you know, we're talking pitch black, which
is this glow in the center of the, the, um, pirate dinner show on fire with a pirate ship
on fire.
And we're like, all right.
He's like, my lieutenant's like, all right, you go left, I go right.
And we'll meet back up here in the middle.
Um, luckily nobody else, nobody was in there.
Um, uh, but I remember later on when we looked back, um, the moat that's around the boat
was drained and we saw some of the areas people were walking in were very close to falling
into this 15 foot pool.
So that was definitely a unique experience.
Not every day you show up and there's a pirate ship on fire.
And then just knowing these unique buildings that are in your area, if you're working
in like near these heavy, uh, heavy touristy areas, you're going to have these strange
buildings like, you know, you know, the Ripley's building that's on its side or the, you know,
wonder works building that's upside down, these unique structures that are out there,
you know, that aren't your normal, you know, two, three bedroom house, you know, you know,
it was interesting when I came back to America from Japan and I went to the fire academy
and then I got hired.
Well, was it before?
I guess it was when I came back to Orlando.
Anyway, um, they, they were hiring for medieval times.
Bolly Partons was a Dixie stampede, which didn't last very long in Florida.
They get shut down pretty early and it was a pirate show, but I had sword training and
you know, stump work and stuff and I could ride.
So I went to medieval times, but they have a program where no matter who you are, you
start as a squire.
You just shovel shit and you work your way up.
I respect that, but that's not going to work.
You know, I got time to do that.
Dixie stampede, my, my ex, my wife at the time, she auditioned.
I was literally there just to watch and they were hurting for male writers.
So they asked me if I'd ride.
And again, I'm not a great writer by any means.
I just can ride a girl up on a farm and I got the job and she didn't, but you know,
running around on an ostrich carrying an American flag again, wasn't really the stunt work
that I wanted.
So that's how I ended up in, in the pirate show because I tried for all three, but that
was the one.
It was, I mean, the, the actual show is dangerous.
Like you said, the, the moat and everything we would do the high, not high fall, a fall.
It's not really called a high fall 18 feet into a mat that looked like a postage stamp
when you were up there, like 30 foot sword fight up on a mast.
And it was a great place to learn to be a stunt man, but man, those people in there,
they get paid way too little for what they do.
Cause it's literally 90 minutes of solid stunts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sometimes two, two, three shows a day.
Yeah.
That's a, that's, that's a hard life.
Yeah.
I do remember when it burned though.
And I remember going, huh, it needed a renovation anyway.
So it was probably a blessing.
Yeah.
It was good just to know.
And I, I got to tell this story to this day.
My, my people I work with laugh at me for this.
We went out and then there's different divisions set up.
So the battalion chief that was in charge of that side of the building we were working
on was working on a, one of those giant wooden spools that holds wire, like using that as
a table, like as the construction guys were used.
So that was kind of his command post.
And I just remember I was coming out and I was on the radio and I was bonking because
a million people were talking about things that were unnecessary.
So I walk out to give a, you know, just a report of what we did and the way they describe
it is right.
So you took your hand and then you pushed off all the junk that was on this wooden spool.
And then you pulled out of your pocket, a magic marker that nobody had knew you had
and proceeded.
I proceeded to draw a map of the building and show them, Hey, this is what it looks
like.
This is the fire.
And then this pirate ship is on fire and the guys still make fun of me to this day.
You're like, you just pulled out a marker and started drawing a picture.
It was a pirate map.
It's a treasure map in fact.
Yeah, exactly.
All right.
Well, I touched on it before just up the road from the pirate show is the Orlando I, is
that what they call it?
I think it's that icon now.
I think it's icon currently the wheel, the wheel icon park, the wheeled icon park, the
current name.
Yeah.
Cause in Orlando, I mean, sorry in London, it was a millennium wheel originally and it
became a London.
I know that.
So 400 feet.
Have I got that right?
Tall.
400 feet.
Correct.
So educate me.
I'm going to go to Orlando, Orange County.
Hey, we're going to be building this very large Ferris wheel.
Walk me through the inception of the team.
The testing I think is very important and the fitness standards for the team.
And then let's go into some of the rescues.
Yeah.
And everybody's going to be surprised.
I went through this, most of this podcast hadn't talked about rope yet.
We're going to get to a long podcast.
So 20, about just before 2015, cause 2015 was when they built it.
They wanted to build this giant 400 foot Ferris wheel on international drive.
And it was the team that owned the London Eye at the time that were kind of a part of
it.
So that was coming.
And then with that came the unique rescue challenge that that would be.
Cause even your Ferris wheel at like a fair or something you can get with a ladder truck
and all that.
But now you have a 400 foot wheel and London has their own rescue team on standby for that
as well.
So with that, so they were decided they were, they were going to build this wheel and then
they contacted the fire department and wanted to make a rescue team.
So instead of going like the private rescue team route, they're like, Hey, we'll just
have the local fire department do it and we'll bring in people from London to teach the firefighters
how to do the rescue.
Well the difference is every single one of these giant Ferris wheels is built differently.
There's not a, it's, you know, everyone is custom.
The one that is in Florida is different than the one that is in Las Vegas and is different
than the one that is in London and everything else.
So everyone has its own unique challenges.
So what we found was that it would be a unique challenge and you needed a certain type of
person to do rescues on this.
Cause you need somebody who can basically carry 50 pounds of gear, climb up 400 feet,
crawl into a hole that is 18 inches, an 18 inch opening on the top of one of these things
with all that gear proceed to evacuate, you know, five, six people climb out of that hole
climb to the next one and do it again and potentially do that multiple times.
And so with that comes some, you know, stamina and some knowledge to be working independently
because most likely you're just you and your partner or you and two other people.
So they wanted to develop a unique team that could focus on the unique challenge that this
ride would present.
So they had a testing process for that, that involved initially the ladder mill.
And if people aren't familiar with a ladder mill, if you've been to your gym, like a Jacob's
ladder, imagine a Jacob's ladder straight up and down or a treadmill, but instead of
replace the belt with a bunch of rungs of a ladder.
So it's just an endless ladder that you climb.
So you had to climb this for you had to climb 400 feet on the ladder mill in under 10 minutes
and then after that, do some rope rescue like skills and then had to climb the or Bronto
truck that is a unique shape to it was the testing process at the time that since that's
has since developed into more where it's the ladder mill.
And now there's multiple different skill stations you have to go to.
We have a knot tying section, a pickoff section, a like a system section.
And then, you know, you have to demonstrate your ability to know those rope systems.
What happened when they did all of this was they brought down the people from London to
teach us and they basically looked at the way North Americans at the time do rope rescue
and saying you guys are in the Stone Age and they proceeded to show us equipment and techniques
that vastly improved the way we do things.
So what would take going from, you know, a system to pull somebody up and then changing
that system to lower somebody down would take five minutes to change from one system to
the other where this equipment we have now and that they introduced us then can do it
within five seconds.
And that introduced us to just a whole new way of doing doing things and that you could
take what was normally multiple fire trucks showing up to a call pulling out giant bags
of equipment and would reduce that to you carrying all the equipment on you.
It was a unique change for sure.
And reducing that team from like 15, 20 people to multiple small little teams of individuals
working and with that reintroduced me to rope rescue and my passion for rope rescue and
it's led to all kinds of things that I do now.
Just jumping on that topic for a second.
One of the most nauseating things that you can hear from American firefighter is the
ridiculing of the European fire helmet when we're wearing and I see over my shoulder there
you got a patent of the leather helmet and it's from the 1930s.
And you know, all for artifacts and more for history.
That's why we have museums.
But when it comes to being progressive, you know, finding the best innovation, just like
you said, if it's truly for them, you want the best equipment.
I find it nauseating when someone will not only push against but even ridicule innovation
that's far better.
You know, in those helmets, they've got comms, they've got visors, they've got all the things
built in.
They're incredible and they're light and they're low profile.
Bearing in mind, I wore West Coast helmets, I wore East Coast helmets, I had all the helmets.
Talk to me about that knowledge sharing because I think there's a lot of ignorance, borderline
narcissism sometimes in the American fire service and you know, more concerned about
looking like Kurt Russell than actually being the best version.
And I always say you don't see Navy SEALs wearing tin helmets for a reason.
And if you're so, you know, stuck on tradition, why are you wearing a BA?
Go do it old school.
You know, good luck with that.
So I think it's a very important point, the humility to listen to an agency that arguably
is just doing it better than you in that specific area.
You know, how was that information delivered and how was it received in the team?
Because I think sometimes ego gets in the way of progress in our profession.
Yeah.
So at least what they were showing us was just so beyond what we were doing.
And it was just kind of like this exists, like at least as far as the rope part of it
was.
You know, they sent down three really good guys.
And what's funny is I've reconnected with some of them over the years through different
avenues and I still talk to them this to this day and they make fun of us.
They're like, we showed up and you guys are using bar racks and all this other stuff.
And it was just so beyond what we were doing that there wasn't really much pushback, at
least from us as an internal team from the rescue climbers.
Now taking that information, what we were doing, it definitely took time for us to transfer
that information, let's say to the rest of the department.
That cell was a was a lot harder for sure.
But I think at least as far as the rope goes, sometimes you just have to show people and
you know, sometimes just demonstrating it and doing it side by side against the old
way and the new way and then, you know, even if they don't like it, you know, even the
the staunchest critics will kind of shrug their shoulders a little bit and go, okay,
maybe this isn't so bad.
And it's little bits.
If you want to make a change in your agency with something, it has you, you have to do
it slowly because it's not going to be an overnight thing.
For sure.
It's you know, you, you have to little bits of information at a time and, and then make
it not just so, you know, so drastic of a change.
But you know, the way Europe and other parts of the world do fire service is very different
than the US.
Like a lot of them are, you know, military or branches of the military.
I know in my experience of guys in France and stuff, it's basically military guys that
are doing it.
It's a completely different mindset and they're telling you we do it this way because this
is the military and this is how we do it.
So there's no like, you know, well, I'd like to wear this helmet.
I like to wear that.
It's like, no, this is this the way it's done here.
And that mindset is very different culturally all over with that.
I think that military influence a lot of the fire departments in Europe and all that.
But yeah, it's at the time, yeah, it was so drastically different than we were doing
that it kind of blew our minds.
And the only pushback that I ended up seeing was when it tried to expand beyond our smaller
team that we had at the time.
Yeah.
Well, I think the, the differences, like you said, you, you had seen it work.
There was no ego.
There was no, you just, Oh, this is better.
And don't get me wrong.
This, you know, that's not saying it's a one way street.
There's a lot of things that we do that I know over the years, many departments around
the world have taken, you know, but that's the thing.
It's a humility to knowledge share, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships.
But if you are dogmatic about the way you look rather than your ability to perform that
then in my opinion becomes a problem.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
So before we go to, you know, your advancement in the rope rescue side, what about the actual
rescues talk to me about, you know, if there's any that stick in mind, cause you're 400 feet
up, you've talked about, you know, ascending, you know, with gear on your back, obviously
the fitness side is, you know, is clear, but now you're courting through 18 inch spaces.
How are you getting the riders from these places back safely down to the floor?
Oh yeah.
So that goes a lot into, um, uh, look, we, the best way you can deal with a lot of these
unique structures is pre-planning.
So all the gear to rescue a lot of these, these, these people is already in the cab.
They just don't know what it's sitting on top.
So you have to climb, you know, all the way to that individual cab, crawl in, introduce
yourself to these people that are going to be scared and, um, and then proceed to tell
them to go to the back of the, uh, to the back of the cabin and open up the doors and
use the ropes that we have to build a system to get them down.
Um, and with that came smaller ropes than what we were used to at the time in the fire
department switching from half inch rope to 11 millimeter.
So which doesn't seem a lot, but you know, when you have to carry that rope potentially,
you know, there's a big weight difference in that.
Um, so yeah.
And then pre-planning the each one of these rides on how to get people down, um, the system
that we built, if people aren't familiar with it, it's sorta, you know, basically like a
controlled zip line, you know, there's kind of a tracking line, um, and then a way to
lower people down and then you reset it and then send the next person down.
And you have to have a system that works for all types of people, everything from a small
child to a, you know, to a service dog.
You know, you could potentially be rescuing, um, on these rides.
Uh, we are really good as a fire department rescuing, um, you know, 175 pound, uh, male
person because you know, that's what you practice on you, you know, you're not going to get
the biggest person or the, you know, to rescue.
So we're really good at practicing that, but we're not really good at rescuing children
or service dogs or, you know, um, uh, different size people for sure.
So that's the unique challenge that, uh, these theme parks and everything give us.
So are you, are they literally going from the cabin that they were in all the way to
the ground?
All the way to the ground.
Well, to the roof of the building, uh, of the building.
So almost all the way to the ground, but yeah, to the roof of the building that they, the
attraction building.
So we have anchors pre-staged on there.
So, and then from there there's, that's a two story building.
So it's a few stairs on the way down.
So these people getting in have no idea that they might be doing a 360 foot external repel.
Yes.
No idea.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That's the whole part of it too is, um, is being able to, you know, do all that.
And then if you're physically fit to do that, you're not going to pop in like sweating bullets
and you're breathing super heavy, you know, like if you can come in and you come in calm
and collected, people are going to trust what you're doing more, you know?
And that was the whole part of our program about implementing the physical fitness standard
and everything was we need you to do the climb, but then once you're there, that's when the
work starts, you know, the climb is just getting there.
You need to be able to perform, you know, perform the rescue and then exude confidence.
And we have to be able to trust because, you know, there's not a safety captain climbing
with you.
You have to trust what you're building is correct, you know, and you have to be able
to, to do that and have the stamina and not have like, you know, lose that dexterity in
your hands because you've been climbing so much.
So that was the big push in why we specifically have a team just for this kind of stuff.
In my last place where I worked next to my station was a 28 story hotel and the mentality
of quite a lot of the department was, oh, if we have something, we'll just take the
elevator.
There was a guy who came in briefly, sadly passed away not long after, but he set up
high rise training in a two story building.
And I remember asking him just a quick question, how are we simulating the exertion of getting
a hundred pounds of gear to the fire floor before we even start working?
And he said, oh, we'll just walk around the building a couple of times first.
And, you know, internally I face palmed, I wasn't disrespectful, but this is the big
disconnect to, you know, the, the physical fitness.
And you talk about dexterity.
I mean, also just the, the clarity of thought to be able to put the system together and
not make a mistake.
And, you know, a fatal mistake is a huge part.
So it's really interesting to hear in the, the wheel example, the really mirrors high
rise and everything else.
And shortly after I left that place, they had an incident where the elevators roll out
and they had to climb.
I don't think it was 28, it was a different, different hotel, but it was, you know, I think
15 floors with all their gear.
So yeah.
I mean, so then when you look at the absence of fitness standards in the fire service as
a whole, yeah, you might be fine making entry on a single story, you know, 1950s house or
running a medical aid, but what happens when you have that fire in the bank of America
building or, you know, some kind of catastrophic event in the millennium wheel, you know, where
you actually, maybe you're not assigned to that team, but you yourself have to get up
there too, because they need all hands, you know, that's what we should be training for.
Oh yeah.
You know, adrenaline and you know, rise, you know, adrenaline will only take you so far.
And they always say you'll rise to the level of your training and stuff.
But if you haven't trained to that level, then how are you expected to rise to that?
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, you touched on the passion for ropes.
So you're first exposed to it, the truck program, you get on the squad program.
Now you're on the the climb team.
How did that continue to evolve to, you know, becoming the core of your passion?
And we'll obviously then talk about the event.
Yeah, it was slow.
Like I originally when I was introduced it as an explorer, as a cadet in California,
I really liked it.
And then, you know, kind of went to the wayside until I got involved in the truck program
and stuff.
And that evolved into rope access training.
Everybody on our team is eventually set to sent to rope access training and is certified
with SPRAT, the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians.
It's not a fire department course.
It's not a rescue course.
It's actually an industry course for people that, you know, if you wanted to hang lights
in the middle of the Gaylord Palms, you know, if you want a Christmas tree hanging in the
middle of that atrium at Gaylord Palms, you would have rope access technicians do that.
So we were sent there and I was part of the first class that did that.
And what was unique about that program is it is not a pay money and get a cert program.
It's a five day course.
Four days you're trained and on the fifth day you're tested and you're not tested by
the people you're trained, that trained you.
You are tested by an outside evaluator that has flown in that has nothing to do with the
agency that you that you that just tested you.
So you're trained in all these different rope climbing techniques.
So basically, you know how to climb rope, how to go rescue people, move horizontally,
you know, laterally through rope.
And then you're taught about like 15 different skills.
And then you have to perform those in front of this evaluator.
And basically, it's it's you know, it's baseball, it's three strikes and you're out.
And then sometimes if it's a really bad offense, they'll just cut you right there.
And it's like, hey, sorry, I know you paid $1500 for this class, but you can come back,
you know, so it's you feel like when you come out of that class that you actually earned
your certification.
And I have hence continued with that program and progressed through the different levels
to level three of that.
And so I just started getting involved in ropes and I got involved with some guys out
of Canada that I work with, the guys wrote a rescue out of Canada that teach advanced
rope rescue classes.
And then they got me involved or kind of showed me rope competitions, rope competitions exist
and they're all over the place.
There's currently there's one in the US, there's one in South America, there's a big one in
Europe every year, and then there's China and Japan.
And so I started getting involved in those and I put together a rope competition team
in 2021 to go to California and compete against 11 other teams on the USS Iowa, I think it
is in LA Harbor over there for a two day rope rescue competition against teams from all
over the US and all over the world.
And that was an awesome experience and it was all on a battleship.
So that was pretty cool.
And then since I've been involved in other ones and let about last year, March of last
year I was actually in Japan and competed with my friends out of Canada in the competition
in Japan.
And we were the only North American team and I was the only person in the competition from
the US.
So it was mostly teams from Japan and Asia up there.
So which is crazy.
And we're not talking just, you know, hey, the patients there go get them.
We're talking, you know, our hour and a half scenarios to get some of these people out
and only five people to do it.
So very cool and unique thing to do.
And you carry all your equipment with you.
You have to carry everything with you so you can bring whatever you want.
You just have to be able to carry it on your back.
What did you notice about the difference with the Asian teams versus you?
When I think of Japanese firefighters and rope and obviously this isn't what we're talking
about, this is kind of more the militant drill training, but the incredible speed that they
do the rescue harness and some of these things in there, what I would imagine is probably
their academy.
But it seems, you know, I know I lived in Japan for 15 months.
They're very, and I say this, you know, compassionately, they're very obedient.
They don't really question authority as a culture.
There's a kind of respect for hierarchy there.
And then you've got a very high level of respect to what did you notice a contrast or any differences
between the kind of the Western side and the Asian side?
So the Japanese teams are amazing.
They take it to a regimented level on how to do things.
It is the way they can climb rope and at the speed they can climb rope is amazing.
Their concept of rope rescue is very young for the most part, at least knowing this stuff,
but they have taken over the past like, you know, five years, you know, something that
wasn't a big deal and created an entire culture in Japan just around rope rescue.
And they've taken it so they literally went around and saw what everybody else was doing
and took all the good parts and created their own thing, which is amazing.
There's a, if you want to watch it, there's a YouTube video.
We had a videographer follow us in Japan and there's a YouTube video.
It's a Ronin rescue.
Look up Ronin rescue on YouTube and it will be under a Grimp Japan, Grimp G R I M P Japan.
And it's a two part, two part documentary.
So it's about like each episode is like 45 minutes and you can see there, like we do
a test.
We do like a practice run with the guys because they invited us down to train with one of
the other teams there.
And so we did a little side by side competition against each other for practice and they smoked
us completely smoked us.
It was almost embarrassing.
It was actually kind of embarrassing, but you know, it, it's amazing.
And they were, they were all very cordial to us and you know, opened up, opened up their
training facilities for us to train in.
And then even helped us out getting some equipment because traveling across the country or across
the world to do some of these competitions, you're talking each person's carrying about
50 pounds of gear.
And then each person has, you know, 300 feet of rope plus a stretcher and, and everything
else.
It gets kind of costly to do it.
So if you can have some local support of where you're going for some of these comps, it makes
all the difference in the world.
So they're very, very cool guys.
And they've even competed their top teams over there have competed in Europe.
The main competition is a Grimp over in Belgium that they do every year.
And I think one of their Japanese teams two years ago, you know, won it straight out.
It was very, very, very good, very, very good and well deserved for sure.
Well, that underlines what we're talking about before and having the humility to go.
And I think this applies to the fire service, the country, I mean, everything, you know,
you're doing this really well, you know, teach me about this thing, you know, whether it's
I talk about this a lot, Norway's prisons, Finland's education system, the NHS in the
UK, when it was originally planned and still funded well, the actual principle, you know,
there's all these systems that do work really well if they're like I said, if they're supported
properly and having the humility to say, you know what, you know, for example, healthcare
in America, we're doing something wrong.
70% of our country is obese or overweight, you know, our prescription drugs are insanely
expensive.
People are dying of cancer and losing their house, you know, all these things like we
need to make a fix here, you know, which country is great at this and having the humility and
the the community to interact humbly with each other and these other countries, whether
it's a fire department or a nation and knowledge share, then as I said, everyone benefits everyone.
Okay, well, let me teach you about this.
While you're here, Japan, you don't seem to have gangs murdering each other on every corner
of your street.
Talk to me about your culture.
What are you doing right that we're missing that you know what I mean?
So I think that's the that's what we need to do.
You know, we've got politicians beating their chest saying we're the greatest country in
the world.
But our statistics don't back that up.
We are a beautiful nation full of incredible people.
But there are also other beautiful nations full of incredible people around the world
that we can share knowledge with and have the humility to learn from.
And everyone would benefit.
And that would also just like you with the teams that you've interacted, improve relationships
with other nations and maybe down the road even prevent some of these conflicts.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And yeah, that's, you know, you know, what little we do in the in the rope world.
But you think the the the Belgium competition, you know, you have the UK team, those, the
intervention of the UK.
They're another great team, really good group of guys over there.
And so you have like at that competition, you have, you know, a team from Wyoming, which
ended up winning Michael Rush, those guys, you know, against, you know, the best in the
UK, the best in Japan, you know, France, you know, you've got the the Belgium Fire Brigade,
all these different departments coming in one spot, you know, in in Belgium to compete
for a week in rope rescue company.
You know, it's it's amazing, you know, the connections that you can make and the friends
that I've made in doing all this stuff is is really cool that you can.
And then some of those guys on the UK team were the guys was one of the guys who came
down and taught us rope rescue stuff back in 2015.
And I saw him at a competition.
I'm like, like, we I know you.
He's like, yeah, I came down to Florida.
And sure enough, you know, hanging out and meet each other in California after, you know,
you know, six years.
So it's funny how that works out.
Amazing.
Well, you touched on the fact that a lot of people just can't afford to send teams full
of climbers with all that gear.
So talk to me about the creation of the Central Florida Rope Rescue Challenge.
Yeah.
So after we did in twenty two in twenty one when we competed in in Los Angeles, we had
a good we had an awesome time and we had a lot of support from different people to get
us there.
And I've always been one when I do something like that, if I go to a class or sent to a
convention or something like that, I want to bring something back.
So I met with the team.
You know, we all talk to each other kind of on the way home and we're like, how do we
do this?
Is there is there a world where we could do a version of this for, you know, teams that
wouldn't be able to do this?
You know, because you end up you have to send five people plus an evaluator plus a victim.
You have to bring your own victim for these two.
So you've got to send seven people across the country.
So we talked and it was myself, Chris Ramey, Jeff Hansen, Donnie Krantz, Evan Peck and
then the the Ronans.
And so we thought, hey, let's see if we can do a version of this in central Florida for
the local fire departments.
And there's sort of a pipe dream.
But we met with the the fire academy.
So currently, Valencia, the fire people at Valencia, and we kind of told them what we
wanted to do.
And they said, yes, kind of right off the bat.
They're like, as long as we do it on a day that doesn't interfere with their normal operations.
So basically had to be a weekend.
And they said, yeah, well, we'll do it and we'll help you guys out with advertising and
everything else.
And we're like, OK.
They said, yes.
So then we had to figure out a way to to do this and get sponsorship and create from scratch,
utilizing the facility.
We had an event that would be worth having.
So we did our first time last year.
We did we had eight teams.
It's a one day event.
We have five events and we had basically teams from all over central Florida come together.
And we had a team from South Florida that was our winners last year.
And we had our friends over at Reedy Creek who got second place in the city of Orlando
got third place last year.
And we got a lot of good feedback from our first time doing it.
And we were discussing this year about doing it again.
We were thinking, oh, should we take a year off?
You know, it was a lot of work.
And then I had a conversation with Chris and it came down to, hey, the first one was successful.
And if we don't do it this year, we'll probably never do it again, you know, because the momentum
was there.
So we put it back together and now we have 10 teams this year and we have a bunch of
them are newcomer teams as well that have never done it before.
And they'll show up.
They have no basically pre-knowledge of the scenarios that they're given.
They're given out a bunch.
They're sent them a bunch of rules about like how to do things safely and per the rules
that we set up for the competition.
But they're going to show up in five person teams and going to compete head to head against
another team and during five different scenarios.
And we'll see who comes out on top.
And a big part about when we were setting this up was we obviously wanted to bring the
event to central Florida, but we wanted to, you know, also have it mean something, you
know, give back as well.
So each year we pick a charity where all the money that is collected from the teams goes
to a specific charity.
So everybody that goes as volunteers, we take a little bit of the money to pay for like
the food and the t-shirts and everything.
And then the rest goes to our charity.
Last year we had the UCF Restores, which is the PTSD center over at UCF, the help first
responders.
And then we had Give Kids the World, which is the it's a make a wish resort for kids
with the Make-A-Wish Foundation that want to come and visit the theme parks.
And then this year we wanted to put it all into one charity so we could give a bigger
check.
So this year we're going to do just Give Kids the World to give them the check.
So and then next year we'll see about maybe, you know, somewhere else.
But yeah, it's a great event.
And then we're going to have a new master of ceremonies yourself come in to join and,
you know, trying to make this a thing.
So it's going to be exciting.
Yeah, I'm excited.
I really am.
Obviously, having been a, you know, recruit, you know, a wannabe firefighter one day in
that same place.
I mean, I've been there for the Orlando Fire Academy and, you know, being on there not
as a young firefighter anymore.
But that's going to be kind of a cool, you know, circle round to now be in part of this
incredible competition that you've put together.
And I think also props to Reedy Creek.
I mean, they've done really well in you mentioned the ladder mill.
Rick's fire sled equipment, you know, he puts on a challenge every year.
And I think Reedy Creek have won it like one or two years in a row.
You're saying that their high angle teams is excellent as well.
So kudos to anyone, whether they do or don't get support from their department still taking
upon themselves to chase excellence.
I think that's admirable.
Yeah.
And, you know, competition can bring out, you know, can bring out the best in people
because especially the first year, you know, people are very apprehensive about doing this
because, you know, you think internally, you know, you might be good, but you're going
out there and I have respect for any team that does one of these competitions, you know,
no matter how you do, because you're putting it on the line, you know, you're going out
there and saying, I'm going to put my skills to the test for everybody to see.
And this is a very small world.
You know, there's it's not like most sports that have all this, you know, infrastructure
to look at and everything.
There's no real book on how to do all this stuff.
You just have to be like, OK, I'm confident in my team's ability to do this and let's
see how we do, you know, and can come out going, hey, I saw what these guys did.
They did this.
This was a lot faster.
And then the biggest change I see is seeing that filter out what we were doing into all
of these departments where now most of the departments in the central Florida area are
using the smaller diameter 11 mil rope and a lot of the equipment and ideas that we have
implemented in my department and in the in the companies I teach with.
I'm now seeing a lot of that in the area and is expanded outward.
And that's kind of what we wanted to do.
And to have that to be a part of that's pretty cool.
And I love we got some teams that not from the central Florida area coming this year.
And I think that's awesome.
And that's what I want.
You know, if this grows and we have people from out of state one year, that would be
really cool, too.
One more area I want to hit before we go to some closing questions, because it's important
because I'm seeing the the the fire academy of mine right now.
What I have observed in some places that I've worked, Anaheim was phenomenal at training.
We trained constantly, as you said, if you're going to be on a truck company in California,
you're constantly cutting roofs, you're constantly brushing up on building construction, you're
doing fire service and all the things to make sure that you are being as safe as possible
and you're you're effective on a roof and you get off the roof straight away.
So therefore you do make it a safe operation or as safe as you can.
Conversely, there are areas where there's box checking.
You do an evolution once for your annual training in the fire department.
All right, you did it.
You're good.
You're slow.
And a lot of times maybe with zero realism as well.
You go search a completely empty burn room with a bale of hay in the corner and then
you go talk to me about the courage of being willing to fail on a training ground, because
I would imagine there's a lot of apprehension in some of these new teams and they're overcoming
a fear of looking stupid.
Doesn't mean they're going to look stupid, but we always have that little mind like,
oh, everyone's going to know you're actually a bit shit.
I have that very strong in my mind.
But you show up anyway, because there's no better place than the draw ground to make
mistakes even if you do correct them, learn, get the reps in.
And then when you're out in the real world with someone's life is in the balance, hopefully
you'll actually execute properly.
So what have you seen as far as fear, fear of looking stupid, getting in the way of people
actually getting better as firefighters?
Yeah, that's that takes that's a lot.
That's a hard hurdle for a lot of people to get past about looking that it is OK to fail
in training.
And then there was there has been I've seen a lot of apprehension about doing it and that
is OK.
Nobody's going to make fun of you.
Nobody's going to like it.
If I'm involved in it, it's not going to be that way.
It's I want people to learn.
And you know, that documentary I told you about the bus going to Japan, you're going
to see a screw up.
You are going to see a screw up.
You're going to see in that, you know, it doesn't always go well, you know, especially
you put pressure on people to do stuff.
You know, it's you know, they they kicked our butts and that's OK.
But I can I can tell somebody who's going to, you know, potentially, you know, say like,
well, you know, why did you go if you ended up not placing or anything like that?
It's like I got to go to Japan and hang out with, you know, all these wonderful people
from all over the world.
And I put it on the line out there.
And it just just because, you know, you know, we didn't place or whatever, you know, anybody
who has the, you know, courage to participate in one of these competitions and put it out
there, even if they don't do well, is going to is going to be successful in a real operation.
You know, like the the type of rescues that are being asked to do in some of these competitions
that are supposed to be done within an hour or an hour and a half are like multi hour
rescues in the real world.
And the fact that you can limit now down to you only the equipment you carry and you only
have five people.
You know that if you can work under those conditions and under that pressure and do
it, it's going to change the way when you go back to do real rescues, you're going to
be like, oh, this training evolution doesn't need to take three hours.
We can do this.
This is easy to train for the really hard stuff.
And then when you show up for the easy stuff, you're like, oh, we got this.
But yeah, it's it's OK to fail.
It's OK to fail in competition.
It's OK to fail in training.
I, you know, rather have people do it there than in the real world and see it on the news.
Yeah.
Like I said, you watch the documentary, you'll see us grew up a bunch and it's awesome.
I have no problem putting it out there.
Yeah, no, I think but I think you learn more from failures.
I used to do martial arts for years and I would train much harder after a loss and a
win because when you win, you kind of you have that voice going, oh, OK, you're good.
You're not good.
But, you know, you keep going.
So if you have a few bad days.
Yeah.
And you got to, you know, I like the way of being tested, too, because, yeah, now you
change the way you do this, now you have the humility to listen to some of the instructors
or other students that are in and you see things differently.
And actually, when we did VMR, that was my second VMR class when I was at the creek.
And the guy that I went to to get, you know, the the permission to think it was the, you
know, the education incentive I was using, he's like, well, why do you want to do this
again?
You've already done it.
I'm like, therein lies the problem because I did it three, four years ago.
I want to be proficient on the tool.
And no other place, you know, can you get a week's worth of tool time in a decay?
No, in a department, you might get, you know, five minutes on a tool, then you got to hand
it off to the next person.
So and I want to keep screwing up and I want it because I can't remember how to do a clamshell.
It's been three years.
Yeah, I don't have that kind of brain.
So I think it is a beautiful place to fail.
And if someone's laughing, then you just take him out the back, give him a smack in the
head and then bring it back.
Because you shouldn't be laughing at people that have shown up willing to fail.
You know, I don't care if it's in a gym and they're showing up and they're out of shape,
but they're in a gym.
Or if they're trying to, you know, remember how to tie a bowlin, if you're there showing
up, you are doing the right thing, whatever level you're at.
Yeah.
And every time like we something like this happens or internally as a department, if
you're doing some kind of like testing coming up or something, there's suddenly an increase
in training and everybody starts doing it, you know, and everybody starts practicing
you over doing rope assessments in the truck program again, all of a sudden there's
ropes hanging in the bay and everybody's practicing again.
And that's what it is.
You know, I want to focus away from, you know, it's like, I want you to come in with the
knowledge like if, you know, if we have to teach you how to tie knots and we'll teach
you how to tie knots, but that doesn't need to be the focus.
I need you to see the bigger picture of this.
This is just, you know, the idea of you being able to tie a certain knot is whether or not
you know how to uncouple a hose or something.
Just putting it all together to fight that fire or to put the, to do that rescue is what
we want to see.
And we saw some amazing things last year from, you know, departments that are not involved
in the way I am in competition and stuff, because you put a time limit on people and
restrictions and they, they will rise to that.
They will, you know, we're like, Oh, well, I guess we have to make them a little bit
harder next year because they're doing so good.
So, and they will be harder.
Brilliant.
All right.
Well, the first of the closing questions, is there a book or are there books that you
love to recommend?
It can be related to our conversation today or completely unrelated.
Books.
I like it.
Probably somebody's probably mentioned it on here, but there's a, I think it's 6,000
or 3000 degrees about the Brewster Cold Storage fire.
Somebody recommended that one.
That's a very good book about that fire that they had in Massachusetts.
I think it was 99 or something.
Fire department related, really good story, you know, and then people know it usually
from the story about the battalion chief who blocked the doorway from other people going
into that fire.
Cause they ended up losing, I think six guys, if I remember correctly.
And he basically stood with his arms in front of the door and said, nobody's going in.
And, you know, the, the way the, you know, the cojones it would take to say something
like that because it's crazy, but that's a, for any, you know, somebody listened to podcasts
like that.
It's a great book to read.
I think it's 6,000 or 3000.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
All right.
What about film?
You mentioned a documentary overseas about your, your Japan competition, but what about
other films and documentaries?
There is, I think there's, there's that one.
I think it's called brotherhood about, FDNY post 9 11.
I think it focused a lot on their special operations companies and then them rebuilding.
And it was like only like a year or so out of after 9 11.
And like a lot of guys were having being put in roles and having to step up and changes
about a crazy incident that they had out there.
And I think that's a good one to watch.
And for sure, that's kind of related to what we're doing.
I just had Mickey Farrell on the show, FDNY truck.
I think he's Lieutenant.
And he was literally in the Academy, either side of 9 11.
So they ended up working in the pile.
And so he's now assigned to a firehouse, you know, basically like the replacement in the
world war II, you know, unit, you know what I mean?
And it was such a raw, unique perspective to come because, you know, he's, it was going
to be a wide eyed rookie going to go there and have the senior man, you know, mentor
him and all this stuff.
And now the firehouse is full of, you know, broken, grieving men and women.
You know, so hearing what it was like day one to be immediately after 9 11 was extremely
powerful.
And you really kind of got an insight into not just obviously the three, four, three
in the funerals, but like all that knowledge has gone.
And where did these young recruits even start to learn again?
So it was really powerful.
Oh, yeah.
Under those conditions.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, then speaking of great people, is there a person that you recommend to come on this
podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the
world?
I think you should get Captain Troy Broadway on here from he had that rescue.
He was part of that rescue.
And maybe the guy, some of the guys that were involved in that dive rescue call, I think
that would be a good one to have one here.
And then could probably my friend Mark Pfeiffer from Canada.
He's got his own little podcast that does rescue stuff.
And I do a lot of what I do and have a lot to think of that man who is who does nothing
but freely give information about all the about what he does.
And he he was the first he took the first team, the North American team to Europe and
for rescue competitions for Grimp and brought it and went over there and had a lot of the
same experiences.
You know, they're like, oh, well, these guys are doing things a lot better and has since
brought a lot of that back to North America and has been like an advocate for that and
freely gives out information.
Anybody who does rope competitions, you know, contacts him and, you know, he goes, yeah,
this is what you need to do.
He's very open with his information and and has like podcasts on stuff that he's done
in competitions and he goes over it and all that.
But yeah, I can talk to him.
Mark Pfeiffer, good guy.
Let's make it happen.
Both of those.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, the last question before you make sure everyone knows where to find you and obviously
the competition, what you do to decompress.
What do I do to decompress?
I love the beach.
I love the beach if it's just me.
I live really close to the theme parks, so I sometimes will just take my daughter or
my son and we'll just walk around the theme park for a while and be outside and, you know,
and then I listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts and stuff and go on my runs over
here in the central Florida area.
I got a couple of running paths over near the attractions and I like to run in the evening
when the fireworks are going off.
There's some good running paths over here.
So yeah, that's me.
Just be with my family and, you know, the beach is nice and all that.
We started in Huntington Beach when I was there.
They just officially named themselves Surf City USA.
I think it was.
I think it was to the contention of some other areas.
But it's funny where I live now.
Ocala calls themselves Horse Capital of the World.
I don't know if the rest of the world agrees.
But anyway, do you still surf now, now you're on the East Coast?
I do not as much as I would like.
I probably only get out there a few times a year.
It's just a little bit more of a drive than it used to be before.
We're talking my high school was a block from the beach.
So it's definitely a lot easier.
So now it's more of an ordeal and getting the kids out and all that.
So but I try still still got my boards if I ever needed to dust them off.
So maybe as my kids get older, I'll get back into it a little bit more, but wish I would
do it more.
Brilliant.
All right.
Well, then the competition then firstly, where can people find that?
I know that it's free to come and watch and then, you know, to tell me if someone's interested
for planning for next year, how can they actually send a team?
Yep.
So it's going to be March 2nd.
I would say get there about 7am and it's at the Valencia College Fire Rescue Institute
on 2966 West Oak Ridge Road, Orlando, Florida, 32809.
And I would say it's free to come out and watch.
If you want information about it, you can follow me on Instagram, rope underscore rescue
underscore guy on Instagram.
And that's where I post all the stuff.
And usually coming up, probably it's usually we start thinking about it in like fall is
when we start kind of planning it for the upcoming.
So we give plenty of advance notice.
So if you follow me on Instagram, you'll get all that info.
And yeah, it should be a really good time.
Come out and see.
It's fun.
We got a relay, our rope relay.
It's probably the big draw for people to watch.
And yeah, we're going to have food out there.
It's going to be a really good time.
And the rope relay is two teams at a time, head to head, head to head, doing a currently
undisclosed set of skills going through.
So that's really cool to watch them go head to head like that.
And that's kind of how the whole competition has worked out.
Each scenario has its mirror.
So two teams do the same scenario at the same time.
It helps us get through the day faster.
But you also so you have a kind of a ticking clock next to you.
So we have to figure out scenarios that kind of mirror each other.
So it's limiting on what we can do.
And we have to be a little creative with that.
But we're able to get more teams by doing it that way.
But I do find it fun to do it right next to another team because that's how they did it
in when I was in LA.
We had a we went head to head against another team.
And that does amplify your stress levels.
And I think it brings out the better in you.
Absolutely.
Well, Ryan, I want to say thank you so much.
It's so funny that we're having this conversation now.
I mean, you know, I think you were hired a couple of years before I got to Orange County.
And I remember being at 51 a lot.
So obviously, that's where we passed and shift change normally.
And then, you know, fast forward a few years, we're doing VMR together.
And now here we are, you know, about to be part of your amazing event in a couple of
weeks.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the
show today.
Oh, no, thank you, James.
Thank you.
And I think you were just starting out this podcast.
I think it was brand new.
I think you're handing out cards and saying, hey, I'm doing this thing.
I still do that.
Good.
Yeah.
Good for you, man.
Good for you and everything you've been doing and being an advocate for first responders
and everything.
Well respected.
So glad you're going to be a part of this.
I'm looking forward to doing it.