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of the Behind the Shield podcast. This episode
is sponsored by Bubz Naturals, yet another company
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my nails, not really a big concern when I was
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their products and Glenn's powerful story, listen
to episode 558 with co -founder Sean Lake. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Geering, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show Deputy
Fire Chief of Operations for Washington, D .C.
Fire and EMS, Sean Downs. Now, in this conversation,
we discuss a host of topics from Sean's journey
into the fire service, 9 -11, the insurrection,
the tragic recent aviation accident, their 24
-72 shift schedule, some incredible mental health
and physical health wellness initiatives. violence
in the workplace, 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 podcast 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 well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So
all I ask in return is that you help share these
incredible men and women's 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, Sean Downs. Enjoy. Well,
Sean, I want to start by saying thank you so,
so much to Oak McCulloch, our mutual friend for
making this connection. And then I want to welcome
you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
All right. Well, thank you. It's an honor to
be here. And it's really an honor that Oak felt
enough of me to share my name with you. Likewise.
Likewise. So let's very first question. Where
on planet Earth are we finding you this afternoon?
You are finding me at home in St. Mary's County,
which is the southernmost county in Maryland,
surrounded by water. A good way to decompress
when you leave work. Brilliant. I said this shows
you how tired I am. We're going to talk about
sea deprivation. It is morning time here at the
moment. I just said this afternoon. So there
we go. All right. Well, let's start at the very
beginning of your timeline. So tell me where
you were born and tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic, what your parents did, how
many siblings. Okay. So I was born right here
in St. Mary's County at Leonardtown Hospital,
and I currently live in Leonardtown, Maryland.
So I haven't made it far. I grew up in a broken
home, if you will. My parents divorced when I
was really young. And I think that's important
because a lot of what I'm going to say about
my childhood, I think is very common amongst.
Public safety individuals, police, fire, EMS,
military, whatever the case may be. It's just
this really weird thing that I've come to realize
that a lot of us that had troubles growing up
seemingly end up in careers where we're helping
others. So I don't know if there's a connection
there or not. But anyway, so my mom was a just
a. a general worker. She worked for a microphone
company for a while. She ran an in -home daycare
for a while, things like that. My dad really
never did anything. When I was growing up, he
suffered from a lot of mental health issues,
and he was just kind of in and out of my life,
if you will. But I did have a couple of family
members that were in the fire service, and my
grandfather was a sheriff right here in the county
that I grew up in. So there was that ounce of
public safety connection, though if you would
have asked me when I was younger if this is what
I would end up doing, the answer would have been
a hard no. My plan was... After high school,
I was going to go to Frostburg. I was going to
play football. I was going to major in history
and I was going to come back and I was going
to teach American history in high school. That's
what I wanted to do. That obviously did not happen.
So what ended up happening was in high school.
I was headed that direction. Everything was going
great until my senior year. My senior year of
high school, my father ended up committing suicide.
And the only thing I really, really remember
about my dad is him always saying, hey, you should
go in the Marine Corps. You should go in the
Marine Corps. You'd make an awesome Marine. On
and on and on. So I abandoned all college. Everything.
My hopes, my dreams, everything else. And I enlisted
in the United States Marine Corps at 17 years
old. And I spent about a minute and a half in
the Marine Corps. My career was cut very short.
I found myself back home. And I had been volunteering
at the firehouse for a couple of years. In fact,
I was living in the volunteer firehouse when...
when I left for the Marine Corps. And I came
back and I was working on PAX River Naval Air
Station. I was testing aircraft as to how they
react to electromagnetic waves and radar frequencies,
which are, it's a pretty cool thing if you ever
look it up. You can shut an entire aircraft down
mid -flight if you hit it with the right frequency
at the right angle at the right time. And that's
pretty scary, right? So it was a really interesting
job. So another thing that happened there right
out of high school and coming home was I ended
up getting someone pregnant. It was my first
child, obviously. At 19 years old, he was born,
and life sped up really quickly. Still volunteering.
By this point, I was an officer in the volunteer
firehouse, but really still didn't have that
deep, burning desire to do it for a career. It
was fun. I just... I don't know. It didn't seem
like something that I thought I wanted to do,
which is odd, right? Like a lot of people that
volunteer and a lot of people that grow up down
here, they're chasing this dream. And that just
wasn't a dream of mine. I just wanted to be successful.
I didn't care what it was. I wanted to break
the cycle of what I was born into and I wanted
to be successful. That all changed when DC opened
up their hiring for the first time in three years.
When I found that out, me and a buddy of mine
rode up to the city the night before they were
accepting applications, and we literally slept
behind a firehouse. And we were number 80 and
81 in line, so it wasn't like we were the only
ones doing this. So, lo and behold, submitted
my application, took a written exam, and when
the written exam results came back, I actually
called DCHR asking if they made a mistake. I
don't think that I'm... dumb by any means, but
to place 32, I think, out of over 3 ,000 people
testing, like I was, no, that's not me. I'm sorry.
But sure enough, they did not make a mistake.
So I was in the first recruit class on that list.
Again, still raising my oldest boy and everything
else, still volunteering. Took a break from volunteering
while I was in the academy and through my probation,
of course. I fell in love with it. I mean, honestly,
I'll stop right here and say that my first day
in the academy, we had to stand up and we had
to say, you know, why we're here, et cetera,
et cetera. And I honestly remember saying I'm
here to provide the best life I can for my son.
You know, it wasn't I'm here because this is
a lifelong dream. It wasn't, you know, I'm going
to change the world or it was this was an opportunity
for me to enter into a career that. I already
really liked and I thought I could fall in love
with. And that's exactly what happened. I mean,
when I got hired, I had this plan, so to speak.
I was going to make captain at some point in
my career and I was going to retire a captain.
Well, that's out the window because I made. deputy
chief with, I think, 18 years on, right? So everything
else got compressed forward. And the reason it
did is because I ended up falling in love with
the job. I ended up falling in love with my city.
I ended up falling in love with everything that
the fire service truly is, especially in an urban
environment like Washington, D .C. I cannot compare
it to anywhere else I've ever seen. I know that
all the time that I volunteered down here, Cumulatively,
you throw it together, it's 26 years, and I bet
I do more in one year in Washington, D .C. than
I have those 26 years combined down here. And
there was something about that that I just absolutely
loved. Not to mention, you're protecting the
nation's capital. And I really don't care at
the end of the day what someone's political views
are. I don't care what their worldviews are.
I don't care. It's pretty awesome to work in
Washington, D .C. and protect that city, right?
No matter who's in the White House, it's pretty
awesome. No matter who's in Congress, it's pretty
awesome. There are highs, there are lows. But
at the end of the day, you are the ones that
are. responsible for the 720 ,000 residents and
the 1 .5 million daytime population that comes
into that city to work and or visit. And I fell
in love with it. Like I said, I rose up through
the ranks really quick, became a sergeant with
seven years on the job, a lieutenant with nine,
a captain with 11, a battalion chief with 15,
and then a deputy at 18. I'm now at 22, and I'm
a deputy, and I'm perfectly content right there.
You know, there's really only one more stop to
make, and that's the assistant. But after four
years of serving in the health and safety division
and working Monday through Friday and doing all
of that to be back in operations and shift work,
I'm okay. Three years to go, like, I'm okay right
where I'm at. So, yeah, that pretty much covers,
like, the career quickly. Now, a little bit personally
about me through the years, I've collected some
other kids somewhere along the way. I think I
went to Toys R Us or something and just started
picking them up. But no, honestly, I did. I had
three boys with my first wife. We went our separate
ways back in 2012. And I met my wife now. And
I've got two amazing stepkids. Unfortunately,
one of them did pass away earlier this year.
You know, he's still mine, whether he's here
or not. But my kids are all to the point now
where they're spreading their wings. My biological
oldest boy went to college, played football,
did all those, majored in history. Really weird,
right? Came back, was a history teacher, did
it for one year and decided that's not for him,
but that's okay. He's still plugging along. The
middle one is currently in the Army. He's stationed
at Fort Drum, New York, in the 10th Mountain
Division. And his dream is really rappelling
out of helicopters or down the side. of a mountain
and going after bad guys. That's all he wants
to do. And then the baby, he just graduated,
so he's not a baby anymore, but he's my baby.
He's working probably 55 hours a week right now,
toying with the idea of maybe taking a couple
of college classes, but he knows he does not
want to go away to college. So, yeah. And my
daughter is doing great. She's 17. She's special
needs as well. But we have a pretty... active
life still i thought parenting was over at 18
and that's not the truth that's when it gets
really difficult actually so all of you young
parents out there that you've got 18 as your
end goal sorry it's lifelong yeah absolutely
yeah my uh my youngest i've got a stepson who's
20 how old is he now 24 And then my son with
my first marriage is about to turn 18. So yeah,
I can relate. I mean, it's not harder for those
two, but yeah, it's a transition because now
they're going from the child that you just tell
them, hey, do this thing and they do it to you
have to take a step back. And this is another
man now. So being that parent, being present
for them is absolutely imperative, but the communication
has to shift. You can't tell them what to do
anymore. Nope. And I think that that's the amazing
thing about having three young men is they call
me for advice, which is great. My oldest boy,
when he was in college, more than one time called
me saying he needed a ride home. He had a little
bit too much to drink, you know. So somewhere
along the way, I got that right. My middle one,
the one that's in the Army, is currently at Fort
Polk in Louisiana doing some JRTC training for
his first deployment. And this morning, 5 .15
this morning, he texted me because they're getting
ready to go out in the field for two weeks and
he won't have his phone, you know. And it was
just, I love you, pops. I'm going to miss you.
I'll talk to you in a couple weeks. All the tragedies
that you've mentioned as far as, you know, losing
your father, losing your sister, losing a child.
I mean, these are... Just these kind of death
by a thousand cuts, but I would argue obviously
some of those were much larger cuts. But this
ripple effect that you're worried about from,
as you said, your father, your sister's side,
it's interesting now with epigenetics, like with
alcoholism, with some of these other things.
you know, the neuroplasticity can occur if there
is this kind of multi -generational trauma, you
know, and then, you know, one person grows up
around alcoholism and they become an alcoholic,
for example, and I think it's the same, you know,
with depression, you know, leading to these mental
health crises. But I'm optimistic when you're
worried about, you know, you said yourself and
your children. That when you identify that, when
you do the work, when you're, you know, luckily
empowered that you're living in 2025 and there
are these solutions around that just simply weren't
around, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago. I think
that's exactly how you change those genetics
as well, because once you do your own healing,
I truly believe that even your DNA starts changing.
I agree. I agree. And I think that. Another thing
that helps me personally is the fact that I've
latched on to psychology in general. While that's
not what my degree is in, the majority of my
electives through the years were psychology -based.
My wife has a degree in psychology. Obviously,
the last four years in the district, that has
been one of the biggest things that Myself, along
with my team, worked on was building out our
entire behavioral health program. And it's all
for those things right there. It's teaching people
to have this conversation right here and just
talk about it. Right. Like if I had cancer a
couple of years ago, skin cancer on my on my
head, I talked about it. It wasn't I mean, it
wasn't something that was fun to go through,
but I talked about it because. In case anyone
else had something similar happening, they may
go to a dermatologist and find out, you know,
what's going on. Same thing with the behavioral
health, mental health aspect of life. I openly
talk about it. A lot of fire service leaders,
I believe, are hesitant to, especially when they
themselves are the ones that had to endure these
things. I think that what we're seeing now as
we're getting into, you know, towards 2030, a
whole new generation, a whole new decade, is
we're seeing more and more open response to those
types of conversations. And I'm going to keep
having them. If I have them and somebody wants
to weaponize it and use it against me, that's
their problem. That's not mine. But if I'm having
these conversations and I get through to one
person and. it causes them to speak to someone
before they get to that point or recognize the
signs before it gets to that point, then I'm
OK with that. Well, this is what's interesting,
going back to what you said about, you know,
the challenges you have when you were young,
leading you into uniform and seeing that in so
many of us is that absolutely is a thing. And,
you know, our profession hasn't done a very good.
job of, for example, talking about the ACEs,
the Adverse Childhood Experience scores, where
when you look at the research, a lot of first
responders and military members have six and
above out of 10, as do a lot of incarcerated
men and women. So those struggles can lead you,
depending on the mentorship that you hit along
the way, to a bad path. You know, alcoholism,
addiction, you know, crime, et cetera, or it
can leave you lead you into the military, the
first responder, which may again lead you to
those other bad ones later. But, you know, you're
now wanting to be the protector. You're building
an armor around yourself. You don't want people
to feel the suffering that you felt. So they're
for all the best reasons that we go into uniform.
But having that conversation at the front door
saying there's a good chance that the reason
you're here is because of stuff that happened
when you were younger. in my opinion rather than
just doing a psych screen like an mmpi which
we all know now or at least i know through all
the psychologists and psychiatrists have asked
was never meant to be a standalone test to deem
someone um ready to be a first responder but
instead saying all right well we're going to
do pt from day one let's do mental pt as well
let's give you x amount of counseling sessions
as you enter so that we can start working through
whatever you brought into the job I agree. I
think that we, again, we as a service, I'm not
going to say Washington, D .C., I'm just going
to say we as a service, still are hesitant to
accept. Exactly what you're saying. And that's
what leads a lot of us to it. And when our people
come in, we focus on all the things that they're
going to see. And we talk about those things
and all that. But you're right. I don't think
that we address the elephant in the room, which
is the baggage that they came on the job with.
And then unfortunately, what ends up happening,
and I've seen this, is that the cumulative stress
of life and then everything that you're going
through as someone with a badge on your chest,
then when you break, the first thing I've seen
organizations say is, well, they came into this
with these issues. Well, yeah, they did. That's
why they came here to do the job in the first
place. Let's not turn our back on them because
of that. So, yeah, we still have a long way to
go, I think. Well, I think where the message
is being completely mixed is, or distorted, should
I say, is people... have the impression that
you, me and another, you know, 3000 people are
testing to this job and we get down to where
they do the screening and they're like, all right,
well, let's make sure that James and Sean don't
come in with issues. So we're going to do the
screen versus switching the mentality completely
where you've done, you know, the background check,
the physical, the written, you know, the, you
know, the combat challenge, whatever it is. And
now we're down to this and I, okay, these are
two recruits that have proven themselves to be
worthy. let's have this conversation where we
are going to turn those struggles into strength
and that whole post -traumatic growth conversation,
because it is very doom and gloom. Well, you
know, Sean has had this experience and now he's
struggling with depression or James is, you know,
riddled with anxiety because of whatever, rather
than, all right, you had some shit happen. But
when we help find the tools that will work you
through it, those struggles become strength.
And now you become more resilient and more compassionate
and empathetic in this job. And you will become
an asset because you've been through some shit.
But the difference is giving people the tools
and helping them work through it the same way
as if someone comes in and they've got, you know,
a bit of a bum shoulder or back. You don't just,
you know, put them through something, break them
and say, right, sorry, you're out. You go, OK,
let's do. PT, let's do physical therapy. Let's
help you work through that injury. So now you're
less likely to break. You're stronger than you
ever were before. Agreed. Agreed. All right.
Well, then you mentioned about, you know, 26
years of volunteering. Talk to me about 9 -11.
That wasn't too far away from you, obviously.
What was that day like through your eyes and
how did it impact your journey in the fire service?
So, that's interesting, because I shipped out
for the Marine Corps September 11th of 2000,
so a year to the day. However, I was back home
by September 11th of 2001. It was before I got
hired on base, so I was volunteering. I think
I was a lieutenant at the time, but I was working
with my uncle -in -law at the time. tower hit
or when the first plane hit the first tower he
came out to the bay to get me he was like hey
man you got to watch this and i was standing
there watching it when the second one hit and
my first thought was i just wanted to be back
in the marine corps i wanted to go take care
of whoever did this um in a way that i probably
shouldn't say on this podcast And then as the
rest of the events unfolded that day, I mean,
we sat there. We were close enough to Andrews
that we heard the F -16s take off when they were
attempting to intercept what ended up being United
Flight 93. And it was just surreal. I mean, you
could walk outside from the shop that I was working
in and you could see the smoke from the Pentagon.
It was obviously a couple of years before I came
on the job in Washington, D .C., but it doesn't
mean that it affected me any less. um back home
at the volunteer firehouse and then just in the
community i think one of the greatest things
that i saw amongst all that tragedy was finally
finally finally america was starting to recognize
what police fire military and all do for this
country it was like the very first time that
in my life i could recall I don't want to say
us being heroes, right? Like, I don't want to
be someone's hero. I just don't want you to chastise
me for what I do or my guys or whatever the case
may be. And that was amazing. I think that rather
I realized at the time, subconsciously, that
was the moment I began to say, this is what I
want to do for my life. This is. you know, the
path that I want to go down. And again, two short
years later, I was hired in D .C. and the rest
is history. But I still think back to that day.
It's hard to believe it's been almost a quarter
century ago. I know I will personally never forget
that. I will never forget what it meant. I do.
It does break my heart to see the way the country
has gone the last 10 or 15 years with. with the
seemingly hatred towards law enforcement um thankfully
that has not spilled over into us but obviously
there are a lot of people in this country that
are anti -military still and and things of that
nature and i have to admit that it's heartbreaking
and while i don't long for another september
11th uh by any means no stretch of the imagination
i do long for a day where America can come together
like it did then, because I really think that's
what America's about. This is a conversation
I've had with a few people recently, and I'm
hoping, we're talking grandiose plans now, I'm
making my book into a show, and I hope this is
one of the things that contributes to exactly
that. We should not need a tragedy. to bring
us back together again. What we need is an awakening.
An awakening happens when you've been given all
these pigeonholes and these people are black
and these people are gay or these people are
cops or whatever it is. And then something catastrophic
happens in multiple cities in the States and
you realize that you're all just humans. And
you saw in 9 -11, you saw 7 -7 in London, the
Grenfell fire, where mosques and temples and
churches and all these humans. All colors and
creeds were coming together because they realized,
again, that they were all American, they were
all British, whatever the thing was. And I think
this is, I believe, and this is my own personal
opinion, that the kind of cracks are starting
to show in the many areas that have divided us,
the areas that span both political sides of the
aisle, for example, the corruption in business
and healthcare and all these different things.
And I think people are starting to see it now.
So I hope... that the next time that we see these
nations coming together, it isn't because of
a tragedy, that we can get ahead of that and
come together before another tragedy. I agree
wholeheartedly. And you said something in there
that is one of my passions. It's one of the things,
one of my talking points, I guess, any time I
have the opportunity to say this. And you said
we're all human. That's exactly it. No matter
what your religious background is, no matter
who you call God, or if you don't believe there's
anything greater than you, at the end of the
day, you can look at someone else and say, they're
the exact same type of being as I am. What's
it matter what they look like? Do you hate the
orange and white cat, but love the brown and,
I don't know, gray cat? Because at the end of
the day, that's really what we're saying. Right.
Is because of someone's appearance or because
of where they're from or because of who they
choose to be in a relationship with that you're
going to hate them. And I just I cannot get behind
that on any level. Like I can never understand
it in my heart and it breaks my heart to see
so much of it. Absolutely. Well, I'm, I've said
this so many times on here, an angry yet incurable
optimist. And I believe that, you know, you pull
out aggressively the people that are the root
of the problem. But, you know, I do believe that
that middle 80 % is going to have an awakening
now. There's going to be those two on the extremes
of 10 % that, you know, come hell or high water
will die on their sword for their favorite, you
know, political figure or whatever it is, you
know, racist cause. The 80 percent in the middle,
I believe, are really starting to have, you know,
have their eyes opened again. And I think there's
going to be a revolution, but a nonviolent revolution
of kindness, compassion and community. So I'm
putting it out there. It's begun. And just, you
know, we need everyone to believe. I think in
this country, it's going to be. One of the two
major political parties, or it's going to be
a totally new party, that comes in and aims for
that 80%, because I'm with you. I firmly believe
80 % of the people in this country just want
to love each other and just want to do a good
job and just want, you know, to chase that American
dream. There are extremists in every aspect of
life, whether it's religion, it's land, it's
politics, whatever the case may be. And I'm not
saying I'm not worried about those, but I am
saying that we greatly outnumber them. And I
just think that that is the answer. I believe
that's what you're saying, is we just need something
that is non -violent, non -catastrophic, non
-whatever, just to unite us. And I think we'll
be stronger than ever before. Absolutely. Well,
let's get back to your on -ramp and to the career
side then. So, you know, now you're in charge
of the wellness side. Obviously, you've got this
great mental health initiative. We're going to
talk about a lot of those things that you're
doing today. Contrast that to the environment
that you walked in. Obviously, different time,
you know, a lot of, you know, we just weren't
talking about a lot of things. But what was the
kind of fitness standards, you know, mental health
conversation when you entered at the beginning
of this millennium? Yeah, so I think when I got
hired, I can honestly say we never spoke about
mental health. We had critical incident stress
management if you needed it. But really, the
only time that was even activated was catastrophic
incidents, whether it was a line of duty death
or something like that. We just didn't know,
or we didn't want to admit it, at least. When
it came to fitness standards, I can say that
when I came on the job, on average, the members
of our organization were just overweight, some
of them grossly overweight. I wasn't the skinniest
when I came on the job. And again, like we just
didn't press fitness. We definitely didn't press.
talking to each other, though I will go down
one little rabbit hole and say that we did it.
And just there wasn't really this heavy emphasis
in the service in general. I'm not picking on
Washington, D .C. There wasn't this heavy emphasis
on safety. What I think happened in the fire
service is I think cancer is the thing that turned
our minds on and engaged our minds. And what
I mean by that is by the mid -2000s, 2005, 2008,
I think it was beginning to become apparent to
even the most hardcore, hard -nosed, salty firefighter
out there that, hey, there's probably a better
way of doing this stuff after the fire. And I
think that it was the all -in -one effort. to
attack cancer that opened our eyes to everything
else. Rather, it was cardiac, physical fitness,
mental health, all of these. Because once we
started admitting that this is something that's
killing our people, it became easier to admit
that so was this, so was this, so was this. And
the funny thing is, is it's not what you're...
running it's not the incidents you know by and
large the incidents we do a wonderful job of
managing i mean we lose 100 firefighters every
single year and that's catastrophic and that's
horrible and i want to reduce those numbers but
statistically that's not horrendous given the
amount of incidents that we respond to and i
don't want to minimize any line of duty death
by what i'm saying What we failed and still fail
in certain aspects to realize is how many we're
killing all the other ways. Again, the physical
fitness, so cardiac, cancer, mental health, et
cetera. So in Washington, D .C., I think the
tides began to change when the union began to
really attack cancer and try to get us presumptive
legislation. We had a few very, very. outspoken
individuals thankfully that were battling cancer
around 2010 2012 that just did not let up they
just kept you know talking about it forcing it
talking to the city council about it uh obviously
talking to the department about it and eventually
um we got presumptive legislation which i think
was the first piece of the puzzle Oddly enough,
that's about the same time I was a captain at
the time that I got sent to the safety office.
And my whole job when I went there per the deputy
chief at the time was to create a cancer reduction
slash prevention program. And we were able to
do that for the first time. We were able to have
classes on, you know, what we're doing. And 90
percent of the issues still are after the fire's
out. Right. Like, I think we're pretty safe in
putting the fire out. It's the dropping our guard
after that. And it was, you know, preaching wet
decon on the scene. It was preaching clean gear.
It was preaching taking a shower, though we still
had certain hurdles. I mean, in 2016 in Washington,
D .C., it was unheard of for a unit to go out
of service following a fire so that they could
get a shower. The thought process was, and what
we had always told ourselves, well, we're way
too busy to go out of service for something like
that. The conversation that I ended up having
with an assistant chief that ultimately helped
me change that was I just asked him, hey, if
we run a shooting, we have blood all over us.
You let the guys go out of service to get a shower?
And the answer is an unequivocal yes. OK, if
we've run something and they're covered in vomit
or, you know, feces or anything else, are they
allowed to go out of service? Yes, that's disgusting.
Then why can't they for something that we know
is giving them cancer? And it was that phrase
right there that began to change. That aspect
of it. And I'm very proud of the fact that the
entire division for the next couple of years
hammered down on that. Through all of that time,
I was sent back out into operations. I was a
captain at 15 Engine, ended up getting promoted
to battalion chief, though they kept pulling
me back to the safety office every so often on
these projects. And then we'll fast forward to
COVID. When COVID happened, I got pulled back
to the safety office because they basically decimated
that. entire division to lead or work on incident
management teams across the city to deal with
the pandemic. And during those times were when
we really, really started to hammer down on cardiac
conversations, fitness conversations, mental
health conversations. By that point, we had O2X
as our fitness component in the city. We had
two Physical trainers then for our 2 ,200 people,
which obviously. wasn't enough. Our people were
showing that they wanted to be in better shape.
They were the ones that were reaching out to
O2X. They were the ones that were asking, hey,
can you set me up with a diet plan or a workout
plan or something like that? And we recognized
all of that. So going through COVID, on the back
end of all of that, we were working on policies
and programs and things to institute as soon
as we could. Thankfully, as the pandemic you
know went on um i i ended up getting pulled back
full time to that office and then ended up getting
promoted into the the division head position
which is deputy fire chief of health and safety
and uh my fire chief told me he was like i don't
care what it takes i don't care how much it takes
we need to do something about these things so
you just tell me what you need and we'll make
it happen and by and large he stood by his word
I can't really ever remember a time he told me
no. There obviously were times where we didn't
have money in the budget for a huge ask or something.
But the answer is not no. It's just we need to
work up to that. But in that time, right, I'm
going to talk about simply from 2021 till now.
We have, gosh, we've gone after. Post -incident
exposures by getting the enforced application
so that our people can track their own exposures
to the byproducts of combustion and or any other
harmful substance on the scene of a call. And
there's a mental health application within that,
where every time they've run a traumatic event
or something, they can just simply log in saying
they were here. They can choose to write a little
blurb if they want. But God forbid, 10 years
from now, when the person just, I don't want
to say just runs another CPR call, but runs just
another CPR call, but that's finally the straw
that breaks the camel's back. The provider isn't
looking at, well, it was just a CPR call. They're
looking at these hundreds and hundreds of shootings
and stabbings and infant CPRs and this and that
and line of duty deaths or death of an active
firefighter or whatever the case may be that
potentially, or we know, I'm not even going to
say potentially, but all led up to that final
straw being the one that broke the camel's back.
enhanced our physical fitness program. Our people
are now allowed to go out of service to work
out. I mean, we obviously, we have an understanding
if there's a fire, if there's somebody not breathing,
whatever, you hop back in and you go. But for
the most part, our organization has done a phenomenal
job of getting our people out of service so they
can do those things. After a fire, we identified
the units that were operating inside the structure
and they're ordered to go out of service they
go back to the firehouse they take a shower they
put on a clean uniform they put their second
set of gear in service um all these things that
are now common sense that were just unheard of
a decade ago um I mean, there's so much more,
the behavioral health aspect of it. We hired
a behavioral health coordinator a couple of years
ago, and she has done a phenomenal job at working
with our peer support team, which is almost 100
people, and providing services for our people.
Never more was that prevalent than the airplane
crash back in January. That's an incident that
will stick with our members. for the rest of
their lives and that was a multi -day incident
so it's not even like it was just one platoon
that was affected by that it was all four platoons
plus day work individuals and everyone else regional
partners but again having our behavioral health
program in place having systems in place to get
resources to our people quickly and then know
to follow up on those like if you would have
asked me um I don't know, five years ago, what's
the best way to follow up after these traumatic
events? I would have been like, oh, you just,
you know, you make a phone call, blah, blah,
blah, blah. I had no idea, you know, the whole
three weeks or three days, three weeks, three
months. I didn't know that 30 days is about what
it took to officially diagnose with someone with
PTSD if they weren't beginning to show signs
of vast improvement and things. like that. Those
are all things that she brought to our organization
and brought to our attention and helped us realize,
recognize, and put these programs in place. There
are so much more, man. We've completely redesigned
our personal protective equipment. I feel we
have what is the absolute best available on the
market right now for our people. We've redesigned
apparatus to include 360 -degree cameras. We
have the Haas Alert system in our apparatus,
which has We essentially net zeroed our responder
and responder crashes. We had just a horrible
couple of years where we had fire trucks or fire
trucks and ambulances crashing in intersections.
We found the Haas alert system. We worked with
Corey Hose and Haas to design something specific
for us, which then is, well, now is available
in any and all piece of apparatus. And he's in
private vehicle manufacturers and everything
now. It has. We haven't had, knock on wood, one
single apparatus on apparatus crash since we
put those programs in place. Will you explain
the alert system for us? Yep. So Haas Alert is
a device that basically... takes millions and
millions of measurements to determine, and every
single piece of apparatus that has it, to determine
the trajectory of where you're traveling and
calculate the likelihood of you colliding if
something doesn't change. And the way that it
warns you is there's a blinking light right next
to the driver. So the driver knows, hey, I need
to slow down, really mind my P's and Q's, the
whole nine. And what it does is it... It lets
you know in all those blind intersections in
a city like Washington, D .C., which almost every
intersection is a blind intersection, that someone
else is coming. And again, it's so juvenile in
the thought process, you would think. You would
think somebody would have just thought about
this, but it took Corey Hoss and Haas in doing
that and having that vision and bringing it to
reality. I know just about every single organization
in and around Washington, D .C. now is using
the Haas system. And again, I mean, it's just
that was us thinking outside the box, us finding
a vendor, working with a vendor, tweaking a product
that would fit us that ultimately ended up, again,
being totally invaluable when the dust settles.
Here we are several years later. There are, man,
there are so many things that I could talk about
that we were able to do. Oh, here's one. The
violence against responders tracking application.
So we had a big issue a couple of years ago where
one of our units was operating on the scene of
a medical local and someone that was high on
PCP walked into the scene, became verbally abusive
towards our responders and then became physically
abusive. MPD was not on the scene yet. They had
been requested, but they weren't there yet. We
do not have police powers, but we did restrain
the individual as best as we could to keep the
incident from escalating. On the other side of
that, being in the Health and Safety Division
and asking a lot of questions, we learned that
really there weren't any protections in place
for our firefighters in the district. I didn't
know it at the time, but assault on our firefighters
was, at the time, simple assault. It wasn't the
same as assault on a police officer, which is
crazy to me. There was this general consensus
that we can't leave a scene. We were there treating
that patient. And this happened that if we were
to leave, that's patient abandonment. We were
able to disprove that, right? Like that whole
DSI scene safety thing doesn't change the moment
that you enter the scene. It stays the same the
entire scene. So we were able to educate our
members on things that they could do. We were
able to educate our members on the i guess the
actual legality of leaving the scene if you absolutely
have to um we were able to put a system in place
where our members on the scene could document
really quick via an application every time they
were verbally physically assaulted and put in
as much information as they want and we've been
able to identify okay well in this battalion
uh during these hours etc etc there's a higher
likelihood of that. So what that can do for us
eventually, we haven't done it yet, but we could
increase the number of responders. Some of the
things that it has done for us is it's allowed
us to request MPD and their assistance in other
ways. For us, a 1033 is our verbal signal that
we need immediate police response. But like anything
else, say a May Day, if you suddenly change the
fire service to say, hey, every time you've got
a priority message, say May Day on the radio,
then eventually our entire May Day would just
be. another transmission, right? So we did not
want to use 1033 15 times a day. So we just created
a priority one response with MPD. And that's
actually what gets used 90 % of the time now.
Very rarely do our people have to declare a 1033,
but they do need MPD's assistance pretty regularly.
So I'm sorry, I'm sitting here trying to rack
my brain. Everything that we were able to do,
it just keeps going and going and going. And
again, I mean, I have to give the fire chief
all the credit in the world for anything that
we took back to him pretty much within reason
was just done. He was like, yep, make it happen.
Make it happen. We totally revamped our annual
physical at the police and fire clinic to finally
be 1582 compliant. That's something we have been
working on. since long before i first went to
the safety office so we're now actually for the
first time ever as of last october doing yearly
physical fitness assessments we're doing a much
better behavioral health screening that's actually
required in the standard um our cancer screenings
we do every single one of them that is required
in the standard now um and we're not done there
i'd like to continue to build on that um And
go with things that are above the standard and
beyond the standard. But that was a huge win
for the health and safety of our members. And
really, I think I'm going to stop right there
because I'm really racking my brain right now
trying to think of all these things. But at the
end of the day, that's what every single one
of these programs or enhancements or whatever
the case may be has been about. It's been about.
the safety of our members. And we've been intentional
in getting in front of them and saying, look,
we're not trying to put all these things in place
to keep you from doing your job. We're putting
these things in place to help you do your job
more effectively by keeping you safer, by keeping
you at work instead of increasing the likelihood
of injury, by hopefully helping you live a long
and prosperous retirement, not just... get to
retirement and then end up croaking 10 months
later. And I think on the whole, the organization
is far better off. And I know our members are
far better off because of it. You mentioned about
the PPE that you put in place. I just recently
got in contact with a company. Actually, they
approached me who are developing a probiotic.
that hopefully will remove pfas from the human
body obviously that's a you know a big topic
now and again i want to give maximum thanks to
diane cotter who really has been the absolute
fire spark plug when it comes to getting us in
our profession to realize how bad this is but
anyway they paid for me to have a blood test
done and normally when i get blood work of all
the other things the things that we're usually
looking for you know my blood work is usually
pretty spot on When it came back as far as the
PFAS and there's different kind of types within
that spectrum, everything that registered was
off the charts, like way, way off the charts,
terrifyingly so. So this is a huge topic, I think,
you know, for us is it, as you said, the prevention
side, what are these pieces that we can manage?
We can't manage what was in that building that
is on fire, but we can manage what's in our gear.
We can manage the decon after. So with the PPE,
has that been a conversation? Is that something
you've already put in place as far as a manufacturer
that has the PFAS free gear now? So I think that
where our organization and our bargaining unit
and me personally, where we lie, is we want to
wait until there's a reliable product on the
market that can do those things. And unfortunately,
I don't think that that... exists at the moment
and that's no knock on anyone that has it uh
we've worked hand in hand with both steadfast
and gore and trying to um how can i say this
tell them eventually what the fire service needs
and i don't mean tell them as and we tell them
what to do i'm just saying that we have really
good open relationships with both of those organizations
both of those organizations are somewhere i could
see myself ending up when this career is long
over with um but i think that the timeliness
of pushing a product without knowing what it
was going to do is is ultimately what has hindered
our our ability to do that. Segwaying from that
into back in April, I was invited to NFPA up
in Boston, and I sat in a room with people that
are far more intelligent than I. Obviously, you
know, Jeff Sturgis was in there, Brian Ormond.
Oh, God, what's Heather's last name? She's from
another university. North Carolina. But there
were PPE manufacturers, there were component
manufacturers, there were fire service leaders,
there were labor people, there were obviously
research scientists. The entire conversation
was about 1970 and all the changes to the gear
and how the service was not going to meet it
by the deadline in September. But obviously PFAS
was a large conversation of that as well. And
I think that What I took out of that, more so
than anything else, was the manufacturers are
asking for the same thing that some of us in
the fire service are asking for. And that's just,
we're not asking to kick the ball down the field.
We're just saying, hey, slow down just enough
to get a quality product in our members' hands.
Because the last thing we want is something that's
going to protect our members even less, if that
makes any sense to you. So that's where we are.
It's something that we want to put in place.
It's something that we want to do for our members,
for ourselves. But we don't want to be so quick
to do it that we end up hurting other aspects
of our job. Because there's going to be a trade
-off anytime you make any change to PPE. Yeah.
No, that's a really interesting perspective.
And it's one of the first times I've heard someone,
you know. that was really present in some of
these conversations. And I think the perfect
parallel is the COVID vaccine. You know, there
was rush, rush, rush, rush. And, you know, in
that conversation, obviously, I think a lot of
people didn't need it in the first place, but
some people did. But the efficacy and, you know,
the safety of it. was rushed through. And now,
retrospectively, we're realizing that it didn't
do the thing that, you know, we were told initially
that it did as far as 100 % efficacy and all
these kind of things. So it is a good kind of
side by side comparison. If you rush something
through too fast, you might end up with something,
as you alluded to, that actually makes things
worse, not better. Yeah. Have you seen any of
Brian Orman's stuff out of NC State regarding
Specifically, the DWR finish on top of PPE and
what that looked like on a firefighter's PPE
ensemble prior to the removal of PFAS containing
DWR. And then what it looks like now with like
a wax based. If you haven't or if any of your
listeners haven't and they're a fire service
leader, I would just ask them, beg them to go
look at that. And you can choose to believe it.
You can choose not to believe it. I sat on a
committee. with Professor Ormond and probably
100 other people prior to Professor Ormond writing
his most recent paper, which caught a lot of
flack from some of the fire service. And he didn't
say one way or other in that article that PFAS
isn't. something we need to do uh removing it
meaning all he said was the same thing i'm saying
which is let's just do it scientifically please
you know because what he found was in his studies
and again you can choose to believe it or not
but he found that not only water repelled better
on the old stuff right like that's something
we all saw gear prior to 2018, 2021, depending
on the manufacturer that began to remove it,
would just bead up and run right down the outside
of your turnout gear. And then with the newer
DWR finish, it seems to soak in it like a paper
towel, so to speak, right? Which, you know, the
first inclination is, well, it makes the gear
heavier, which could lead to cardiac strain,
et cetera. That's a concern, but that's not the
biggest concern to me. To me, the biggest concern
is if water does that. what does oil what does
fuel what does the simple hydrocarbons the byproducts
of combustion and what he found was they were
all doing the same thing and this the gear was
basically soaking it up and when pyro man which
is what they utilize for their their burn test
when they introduced a direct flame to that unwashed
gear it lit up like a dry christmas tree and
it scared me to death that's when like myself
and the bargaining unit and leadership in our
organization is like hold on wait we cannot rush
this one because the last thing we need to do
is You know, put all that emphasis in our people
like, hey, every single time you run a car accident
where there's fluids, you need to make sure you
wash your gear. Every time you do this, you need
to make sure you wash your gear. We just felt
like, hey, we want to wait until the science
and the product catches up and we're going to
go after this. What we've done additionally to
that, hopefully. alleviate the PFAS, not alleviate
it, but reduce it, is, you know, we've preached
not working out in PPE. We've preached not wearing
it on calls that you don't specifically need
it for. We issued winter coats to all of our
members, fire and EMS, instead of them wearing
turnout gear as a coat in the winter. We are
still talking about a second style of PPE, something
that's more in line with, say, tech rescue gear
or something like that to wear for flash protection,
but doesn't have everything else in it. And you
wouldn't really necessarily need that same amount
of fire protection. So it being a little more
absorbent probably doesn't harm you as much as
if that were your PPE ensemble that you were
exposing those things to. And I think my personal
opinion, obviously, I can't tell any fire service
leader what to do. But I think those types of
conversations are really intelligent to have.
Those things to look at are very smart right
now. Science is going to move fast. We're going
to have many options here really soon. I firmly
believe that within the next couple of years.
But definitely before you, you just. put all
your eggs in that basket, just do a little bit
of research, please, and just see the trade -off.
And again, I know it's very controversial for
me to even say that, but it's something that
I've walked through, I've seen, I've been a part
of committees, I've been a part of these conversations,
and I honestly, honestly, honestly believe. that
uh the best thing you can do right now is educate
your members think outside the box and ways to
get them out of it and work with these manufacturers
as best as you can to get a reliable product
to market Absolutely. I really appreciate that
perspective because that's a brand new conversation
now. It really is. I think another place that
we've got to be wary of, knowing the fuckery
of some of these companies like DuPont, is also
that they don't come out with a material like,
okay, it's not PFAS and it's just one molecule
different and it does the same thing as well.
So that's another thing we've got to be careful
on the science side is that we're just not duped
into thinking it's a safer product when it's
not. And I think Dr. Heather does a great job
of that. Again, I wish I could remember which
university. She might be at Duke. It's definitely
in North Carolina. I do know that. And I think
it is Duke now that I said that. But she talks
about, you know, bromide and all the other freaking
chemicals and things, these compounds that are
in our gear that 1970s calling to remove. The
trade -off there of what that does to gear and
then, okay, well, what if they just replace it
with this? That's just as harmful. You just don't
know it yet. And it's the exact same thing you're
saying right there. Her message was the same.
Like, when we're making these changes, we have
to know to ask these questions. And I didn't
realize I'd get so nerdy at this point in my
life, but I'm really nerding out on a lot of
this stuff because... I want what is absolutely
best for the fire service, even if it means it's
going to take me six months longer to get there,
because I think that it's important to do it
right one time, if that makes sense. No, it does
completely. It does. Now, when we're talking
about carcinogens, you know, the other, you know,
what I call herd of elephants in the room is
shift work, sleep deprivation. I have been on
this mission now for, I mean, I think it's pretty
much since I started this podcast, or certainly
close to it, we're trying to get people to realize
that the work week that a lot of us work around
the country, the 56, and now with this recruitment
crisis that we're seeing, that becomes 80 plus
hours a week, that that is a massive contributing
factor to everything from the cancers, to the
suicides, to the addictions, to the divorces,
to all things that we struggle with. when we
spoke a few weeks ago initially you talked to
me about not only the fact that you you know
are doing 24 72 yourself which is a i think such
an under -discussed fire service conversation
and i've you know i've called him out our current
union leadership work in a city that works 24
72 i've seen nothing as far as right let's make
the rest rest of the country work the same so
talk to me about the history of the 24 72 in
your department and then what are you seeing
if you've had any ability to contrast with departments
in your area that aren't working that that you
know proactive healthy shift as far as health
you know ability to recruit etc yeah absolutely
um so we as an organization uh worked three three
and three in the early to mid 80s and that was
three 12 hour days three 12 hour nights and then
three days off the mid to late 80s we switched
to a 24 48 with a kelly um and then in the early
90s we expanded the organization and picked up
a fourth platoon based on you know just the needs
of the city uh nfpa requirements of minimum staffing
etc etc etc and we ended up To the best of my
knowledge, it was one of the first in the country,
not the by any means, but one of the first in
1992 going to the 2472. Now, for those first
couple of years, from what I've been told, staffing
was a little insane because it does take you
a while to build up that staffing. There was
a lot of overtime. There was a lot of other things.
But really, after about 94, 95, the department
was fully staffed and we've that's all we've
ever known. So what does that mean? in comparison
to other organizations what we'll talk about
right now in the staffing crisis you and i spoke
about that a couple of weeks ago in washington
dc we don't have one and i don't mean to sound
um how do i want to say this i don't i'm not
bragging about that but i am bragging about that
i guess um we have so many people that leave
their agencies in and around washington dc to
come to us or Ohio or New York or wherever the
case may be. And one of the first things that
they say is the reason that they came was the
2472, the pay. Then you get into the, well, it's
Washington, D .C. or it's whatever, whatever.
So what does that mean to me? That means that
no knock won't be in a Washington, D .C. firefighter.
place a lot of pride in that. But it does mean
that the people that are coming on the job are
more concerned about the shift and the money
than they are about exactly where they are. I
don't know if that's good, that's bad. But I
know that for our organization, that it's really
good. Because again, when you hear some departments
having a mandatory overtime people or having
to do this or having to do that, like we're staffed
right now at 102 or 103 % of our agency, meaning
we have extra bodies. That doesn't mean we work
without overtime because there are so many various
types of leave, whether it's sick leave, annual
leave, paid family leave, whatever the case may
be. We're always working some people overtime,
but it's not against their will. We have not
had the mandatory overtime someone, oh gosh,
probably two years. and the last time we did
was paramedics more so than anyone else um but
we just we don't have those issues and i can
only attribute that to the three things the schedule
the pay and the fact that we're an urban fire
department it's like the perfect uh i guess setting
One of the things I was going to ask you this
as far as the other proactive initiatives that
you've done, whether it's, you know, like you
said, everything from the PPP to the Haas system.
One of the things, sadly, that is the barrier
to making this change. And I'll just, you know,
call a spade a spade. If it was simply the wellness
of the fire service, this would have been changed
decades ago. Because you look at, you know, you
talk about the numbers, that's the official numbers.
That's not even the behind the curtain numbers
of who we lose, whether it's... Buried because
it was a suicide or an overdose or whether it
was the other 80%, 90 % of deaths, which is our
retirees that don't get reported at all because
there's no VA for the fire service. So the magnitude
of this physical and mental health crisis that
we're in is really kind of brushed under the
carpet. So really, though, I mean, from a human
point of view, that should have been enough,
but it isn't. Let's just be completely honest.
So then it comes down to dollars and cents. What
have you seen as far as the savings as you start
doing these proactive solutions? I'm assuming
there's no real way of seeing the 2472 specifically,
but when you contrast it to the immense overtime
budget, I'll give you a perfect example. LAFD
over three years, their overtime budget was a
billion dollars with a B, three years. So, you
know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist
to figure out which system is going to be healthier
and also more fiscally sound. But in all these
proactive initiatives, have you been able to
attach a dollar amount, as you mentioned, just
intersection wrecks alone, you know, the lawsuits
and all these other things? We sure have. So
first and foremost, and the most obvious, is
what O2X does for our people. O2X produces us.
quarterly and annual reports on the overall cost
savings and the way that they figure that is
utilizing our typical performance of duty which
is our workman's comp we do it all in -house
so it's performance of duty and sick leave usage
compared year after year based on the number
of people that they get um and the speed at which
they get them back to work so in a mechanic shop
you have um different hours that are associated
with a different service let's say a oil change
which is a half an hour let's say a break job
is 1 .25 hours and you had both of those uh done
and it's supposed to take one and three quarter
hours to do it that's what the dealership's going
to get paid but it only took your mechanic a
half hour to do it so you know basically you
just got yourself an hour and a quarter back
um in profit, so to speak. Well, the same thing
works with injuries. There are just generally
accepted timeframes. An ACL is six to nine months.
An Achilles is nine to 12 months. A shoulder
that doesn't require surgery may be four to six
weeks or whatever the case may be. So utilizing
all those numbers coupled with an average of
an hourly rate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Last year, Their report to us showed that they
saved us $4 .2 million on a contract that we
pay $800 ,000 a year. So we netted $3 .4 million
in savings overall, which allowed us to spend
that elsewhere that we didn't have to spend for
these injuries and these time off things. So
that's the most clear cut. It's hard to argue
with. It's right there. in front of you um a
second one that we've seen is some of the changes
that we've done regarding the access to leave
usage uh and things like that we used to make
it somewhat difficult for our people to get off
for little nagging injuries we would make them
come to the police and fire clinic just to say
hey my toe hurts today like i can't go to work
whatever the case may be we have something called
the minor illness program we've drastically increased
the amount of times that someone can utilize
that. They just can't utilize it in succession.
And we've seen about a third overall reduction
in our number of performance of duty entries.
So I'm not saying that some people are fraudulent
in claiming performance of duty, but I am saying
that there is a direct correlation between allowing
them access to utilize their own leave. They're
paying for that leave. It's their leave. And
now you don't have these mysterious 5 a .m. injuries
when someone's lifting their gear bag that we
used to have a lot of. So, I mean, little changes
like that have been amazing to just see that
increase. I'd have to say that our behavioral
health stuff is on the other side of that. It's
continuing to raise and continuing to go up.
But I believe that is a direct. The result of
the newness of it, the acceptance to be more
open about it, which is causing more people to
talk about it. And then some of these just catastrophic
things that have happened in the city the last
few years, rather, was January 6th and everything
that that went with that. It was the what do
they call them now? They don't call them riots.
They call them. Peaceful gatherings. Yeah, peaceful
protests or whatever it is. So you can use whatever
word you want to use. But those, the airplane
crash, we've had a couple of deaths of active
members. So I think all of those things add up
to that on the behavioral health side. The good
thing about the behavioral health side is, thankfully,
And it breaks my heart to say that we had one.
But thankfully, there's been one in the past,
I'm trying to think back, I want to say seven
years, that there isn't even a direct that they
committed suicide. It's just it may have, it
may haven't. So it's kind of questionable. But
that's really good for Washington, D .C. in any
urban fire department uh and i'm just gonna stop
right there i want to say so much more but it's
it's a touchy subject um so yeah i i can 100
say that we have seen a positive budgetary work
performance uh just being at work um impact of
these programs and these policies yeah i think
this is the other thing that i'm realizing now
because this is a constant ongoing you know metamorphosis
of understanding and culture change and all these
things but when for example you have a department
and they're like oh my goodness it's going to
cost this many million to put in that fourth
shift The conversation needs to be one of two
things. Firstly, what is your downstream annual
wastage through overtime, lack of retention,
workman's complaints, et cetera, et cetera, which
ends up being millions and millions and millions
and millions, depending on the size of the city
or the county. But secondly, it's an ownership
piece. You didn't choose to go to a healthier
work week 10, 20 years ago. And I'm talking about
other departments. So this has got worse and
worse and worse to the point that it's now a
crisis. Because there are literally departments
in America that almost no one wants to work for
anymore. So we can genuinely put our hand on
our heart and say there might be some departments
that literally have to tell the city, sorry,
we can't do this anymore. We don't have enough
people. So to turn that around, and you were
mentioning even the recruitment struggles of
law enforcement. And we at least have a decent
public persona, a relationship with the public.
But the poor law enforcement community have been
vilified to where their recruitment crisis is
as bad, if not worse. So if you are going to
make proactive changes, yes, it's going to cost
some money up front. You want to build a new
school in your city? It's going to cost a lot
of money up front. But then children are going
to learn for decades after that. I think this
is an important thing. When O2X came to you,
and I've had Adam and some of the guys on here
before, great group of people, great mission.
I know they're doing a lot of good with you and
Boston and some of these other areas. There is
a dollar amount attached to that initially, but
you can't look at everything with a fiscal year
view. You have to, as the saying that I always
butcher, plant the seed of the tree under which
the shade you'll never know. You've got to invest.
Long term. So that is for your people and then
for the people that you serve as well. So these
proactive initiatives that you've taken, I'm
sure the HUS system, again, had a large dollar
amount up front. But what was the cost of all
the lawsuits attached to all those wrecks prior?
That's what's not happening now for years and
years and years. So it's a really interesting
perspective because a lot of our leadership have
to develop that courage to go to their cities
and counties and say, yes, I do need the money
for. X amount of people spread over the next
three years to create this D shift. But let me
show you where we're wasting money. That money
wastage will stop. And now we'll actually be
saving you money from year three, four, whatever
it ends up being. Yep. And I think that that
amortization is exactly what you're saying. That's
necessary in any pragmatic change you're going
to make in any business. School -wise, I went
completely outside of the fire service. I have
an MBA. So I think of things in dollar and cents.
But I'm also a long -term investor. I don't own
a single stock, right? And that's on purpose
because I believe that small, consistent increase
over time will pay you a better return. Sometimes
that means there's a large lump sum that I go
and I put in all to get a better return in the
end. And that's the same thing that - you need
to think about when you're doing these programs.
Like you said, Haas. I want to say our contract
with Haas, don't quote me, but I want to say
it's like $250 ,000 a year. If they prevent one
wreck of two engines hitting each other, I mean,
an engine right now is $1 .25 million. So $2
.5 million saved for $200 ,000 spent, you tell
me, a great investment. Now, what if you had
that this year, but you didn't have a wreck?
Okay, great. Maybe the program worked, whatever.
And yeah, you're down 200 ,000, but the next
year you have two of them. Now you're back up.
And that's the same way it works with these shifts.
Even more so because it's the human body you're
talking about. It's someone's livelihood. It's
someone's health. It's all those things. I'm
going to go completely off topic, but on topic
and say today's generation. I'm sorry. They play
so much emphasis on their time and their time
with their family and their time with their hobbies.
That to them is a million times more important
than a bigger paycheck or the prestige of this
job or this title or whatever the case may be.
And my kids, all three of them grew up around
the fire service. None of them. are showing really
any interest in the fire service because they
don't want to work 48 56 hours a week and you
know all the other things that come along with
it um so fire departments need to wake up and
they need to start looking at all these things
as you're saying they need to start thinking
long term not just savings but long term are
like you said are you going to be able to exist
um because People are leaving some of these organizations,
like you said, in droves, and they're leaving
them in really, really bad positions. And that's
scary to think about if you're a resident of
that area. Absolutely. Well, I want to touch
on a couple of pretty career incidents that you've
had in your city. And you've kind of alluded
to the fact that it did have a very... you know,
strong impact on your men and women. Let's start
with January 6th. I've got a friend of mine who
was Capitol Police at the time. I think he was
in the dispatch area at that moment. But apolitically,
removing politics from it as a first responder,
you know, that incidence happens in your area.
You know, people are hurt, people are killed,
you know, and then because of the... politicizing
of it, I would argue there was a lot of moral
injury from the fact that it was suppressed and
downplayed, et cetera, et cetera. So that's just
kind of my perspective. Talk to me from a, you
know, DC fire and EMS response, you know, what
that day was like for you guys and then the impact
that that had on your men and women. So to best
start that conversation, I'm going to start at
the end and then go back to the beginning. Please.
I'm going to go to January 7th. January 7th,
I was at the training school and I was teaching
our newest recruits. It was their first week.
The risk management, cancer reduction, heart
health, behavioral health class that I do for
every single new recruit class. And in the middle
of that conversation, the fire chief and a couple
of members of the executive staff walked in.
And, of course, I gave the floor to them. Artief
began talking about the prior day, January 6th,
and he began talking about how devastating that
was to the city. And the correlation he gave
was that our generation would remember that like
the 68 riots. And I looked at him and I went,
oh, my God. And he he just he was like, what?
I was like, do you want to know how effed up
I am? He goes, what do you mean? I was like,
how effed up my head is and how just accepting
I am to. this being an urban environment, et
cetera. January 6th, I was at work, and I have
to admit, while it was unusual, it wasn't like
it was unusual. Does that make sense? It does.
And I don't mean to downplay the incident. It's
just you're so used to chaos that chaos was...
And that was not expected, but chaos is expected.
And without educating myself further, I just
chalked it up as just another crazy day, you
know. So I had to work backwards from that. I
had to start thinking, like, how in the world
did I get there mentally? And obviously, it's
the desensitization of, you know, years and years
and years of horrible, horrible things that you
come across. But it's also a mindset that we
just should accept these things and we should
expect these things when really as a society,
should we? No, we shouldn't. We're not a third
world country. We're the United States of America.
So with that particular incident, I'll go back
to the summer before when we had the. the first
amendment activities i think is what we referred
to them as um and some of those nights were were
crazy some of those nights there were a couple
buildings on fire in the same block and i was
an incident commander handling a couple of these
things at the exact same time with the companies
that i had and we went through that for months
um so again that just became the norm became
what we did um you lead up to the days leading
up to january 6th we were on a little bit Higher
alert, just because of the contention in the
country, so to speak, and us being the nation's
capital where this vote was going to happen.
We had Proud Boys in the city. We had Antifa.
We had BLM. We had other just independent groups.
And so we had a full incident management team
in place. And I worked a few of those days, including
January 5th, the night before, as the recon chief.
So your job doing that is literally to ride around
all downtown and just kind of finger on the pulse,
see how things are going. And there were moments
that night on January 5th where it got. sketchy,
I would say. Myself and my aide are sitting in
the middle of the street, and you've got people
from one group on one sidewalk, people from another
group, and they're throwing things at each other,
and they're yelling, and they're screaming, and
you know you're one second away from utter chaos.
But again, it's just where we were, and in certain
cases still are, which is scary. Not in our city,
right? We haven't had anything. even remotely
close to that since thankfully um but then you
roll into the next day and it was another work
day like i said uh for me i was in the fourth
battalion which means i was not near the capitol
i had an entire battalion i was running we had
incidents we were running while that was going
on it took that conversation with the fire chief
the next day for me to actually go back and review
what happened and to try and see it from the
general public side. And oh my goodness, I mean,
we were so lucky as an agency that no one was
hurt. None of our members were hurt physically.
We had one chief that was inside the Capitol
by themselves, just because that's how the IMT
was broken down. He was the manager of that particular
branch. When things went crazy, he was still
inside. So our guys had to find a way to get
him safely outside. Our guys were dealing with
calls all the way around the Capitol, inside
and outside, for injuries, for this, for that.
We had, obviously, the bombs that we were dealing
with, a couple, well, bomb threats that we were
dealing with a block away and everything else.
It was just... Utter chaos for our people. We,
however, as an agency, I think, did a tremendous
job following that event. We continued to check
on our members. We stayed just on top of that
in a progressive manner, in a proactive manner.
We were very transparent with our members. Anything
and everything that we knew that we could say
that wasn't classified or anything, we shared
with them. On the whole, thankfully, I don't
think I could chalk one lasting moral injury
to that. To the best of my knowledge, no one
separated from the agency as a result of that.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has been
impatiented because of that. I'm sure, I would
never know this, but I'm sure people have talked
about it with our behavioral health people and
our peer support and things like that. And again,
I give a lot of credit to our agency for the
way we responded to that and what we did. And
I'm not knocking Capitol Police when I'm getting
ready to say, but they've had two or three people
commit suicide as a result of that. And again,
I'm not saying that that's a result of what they
did or didn't do. I'm just saying that thankfully
we did not endure that. Yeah, I mean, that's
firstly that I think is a testament to. All the
things that you've got in place when it comes
to the mental health and the culture within your
department to be able to talk about it, because,
you know, depending on where you were that day,
I'm sure you're. Your moral injury potential
was either very large or completely disconnected.
But I know, speaking to my Capitol Police friend,
you have this happen, and then on a national
stage, it's downplayed. It's almost denied. And
these were real first responders, I mean, predominantly
law enforcement in this case. that were hung
out to dry, that were given those support. And
then after it happened, oh, that didn't really
happen. It was barely nothing. So I'm so glad
to hear from on the fire and EMS side, there
wasn't that big impact. But I mean, you know,
sadly, the suicides are clearly, you know, one
byproduct of a different entire culture that
maybe didn't have that same kind of support.
And certainly from the higher level nationally.
that, you know, organizational betrayal. I mean,
you put on that uniform every day to protect,
you do your job, and then you get thrown under
the bus at the end of it, which we all know,
whatever your example is in your particular department,
organizational betrayal can be a huge, huge impact
when it comes to mental health. Absolutely, it
can. And again, I think that... Our partners
at the Capitol did the best that they could as
an agency for their people. I think a lot of
what you're saying holds a lot of weight. Gaslighting
is real. And when you tell someone that something
they experienced, that they didn't experience
it, and then you get them twisting that inside
their head to where they're questioning their
own reality, just imagine what that ultimately
leads to. And I'm not saying the Capitol Police
themselves told their people it didn't happen,
but society 100 % did. The news. Depending on
which network you were looking at, definitely
did. And again, I'm not going political with
that. It is what it is. Again, me, right? Like
I had blinders on. I had blinders on and I was
there working that day. I just was, I guess,
a few blocks too many north of where it occurred
to have been drawn down in it. So it didn't hit
me the same way it hit. the chief that stuck
inside capital you know um yeah there's a great
one hour video on youtube if you ever want to
watch it uh our agency did it was all about the
response to that chief donnelly has a lot to
say in it chief mccoy who was our special operations
deputy he's now an assistant had a lot to say
about it um but it'll really show you from the
fire department's perspective what that day was
like um it's a really really good video that
we shot in -house I'm going to have to watch
that. It's interesting how you kind of had that
aha moment on the 7th. I think I wrote about
this in one of my books. I'm sure I did. There
was a moment kind of towards the end of my tenure
at the second last department I was at. So we're
talking Orange County, urban environment, Orlando,
the bad side of Orlando, the part that the tourists
don't see. And I think I had a late relief. So
I went on this call. And it was for a body in
a dumpster. And our medic at the time, Maria,
you know, she actually went and observed obvious
signs of no obvious signs of life, caught it
right there. And then we came back and we were
talking about getting breakfast. And it just,
I, I kind of had this moment. I'm like, fucking
hell. Like we literally went about our day. Well,
there's this, you know, if she was a sex worker.
So this young woman is lying dead in this dumpster.
And it didn't even raise an eyebrow to us. And
it's not that we aren't compassionate, because
I can tell you, everyone on scene that day was
a good paramedic or EMT. They were full of compassion
and empathy. But it was that dulling of the senses,
like you said, when you're used to that kind
of violence and tragedy year in, year out, you
know, your barometer becomes completely skewed.
And at that moment, it was so normal. that she
went, she checked, she came back and we had this
conversation about breakfast. And that was a
real aha moment for me that kind of parallels
what you're talking about. And it's sad when
that hits you, right? Like I, at least it was
for me because I have a heart. I believe I'm
a compassionate person. I would do anything in
the world for anyone. And again, to sit there
and look yourself in the mirror and say, And
I am this flawed because of this. That stings,
you know. But I think that's also important to
have in work, right? Like you have to have the
to emotionally disconnect things. When it comes
back, I firmly believe that if you're not intentional
about talking and you're not intentional about
decompressing and purging. That stuff that's
accumulated in you, I feel bad for you when it
breaks. I'll talk briefly about when it broke
for me. In 2019, my oldest son, the oldest one,
the one that just passed back in January, went
through a series of seizures and just this one
characteristic, like shouldn't have lived. situation
um he was seizing for over 40 hours straight
um now defining season that they weren't all
grand mal you know just that constant erratic
brain activity um it got to the point where the
doctors at johns hopkins had told us hey you
know you need to go ahead and say bye like the
only thing that we're we can do at this point
is almost like a computer and do a hard reset
like they basically had to kill him in order
to to see what would happen um so my wife and
i were standing in the corner of the room and
when they did that and you heard that beep and
then you started watching them work him it was
like i saw movie or any other psychological thriller
where i'm watching what i'm watching and all
i'm seeing are the hundreds and hundreds of incidents
that i've run through the years where CPR was
involved or something, you know, like that. Just
weird stuff that I had no idea was still in my
head. I mean, I was seeing kids. I was seeing
old people. I was seeing people in car wrecks.
I was seeing people that had pulled out of buildings.
I mean, just everything. And after about five
minutes, I couldn't take it. I went out in the
hall and I called one of my fire service mentors.
I actually called him Pops. And he was like,
dude, I'm so jacked up. And I wasn't saying that.
I was saying a lot more. I guess, aggressive
words. And he calmed me down. He's like, what
is going on? And I told him and he went, dude,
you need to stop. And I was like, what? He goes,
you were doing your job. You know what I mean?
Like if you couldn't do your job in those moments,
blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was right, right?
Like every single one of those moments, every
single one of those events, everything that came
back. I was doing my job and I couldn't be overly
emotional. I definitely couldn't be like I was
there in that room. I had a job to do. But on
the other side of that, I didn't do my job. I
didn't get it off my chest because I didn't even
realize it was there, you know. And that's the
scary part about mental health and everything
in the fire service in general is we all say,
well, this is what we do every day. And this
and that, it doesn't affect me again until it
does. We had a retired member just a few. now
about a year ago now i guess um he had been retired
for we'll say five years it's like five to eight
years somewhere in there and he sat at the the
breakfast table was talking to his wife and his
wife got up and walked away and he picked up
a gun and he committed suicide um and i don't
know his personal life i don't know what led
to that but my heart breaks to think that maybe
years and years and years of the trauma maybe
he just never accepted the need to talk about
that and um that's that's gut -wrenching yeah
i mean this is the thing this is the conversation
we've got to have as i alluded to you know when
we look at the statistics even you know we're
not including all the men and women that transition
out at the age where most of these things are
going to manifest you know the cancers the heart
diseases all the real you know impacts of our
job but the other problem is you know As we talk,
let's talk about him when he was a young man.
There was probably, you know, a series of events
and struggles when he was younger that sent him
into uniform in the first place. That was pushed
down because they weren't talking about it then.
Then you've got this whole, you know, 20 plus
year career in a time where also, you know, masculinity
is again, suck it up. Don't show any emotion,
bury it down. And now, you know, you're with
this crew though. It's healing for you. You know,
you love what you do. So you've got this identity,
this purpose, this tribe. And then one day you
don't and your ID doesn't work and the bay doors
are closed now for you. And now you're in an
apartment on your own or whatever the example
is. And that more often than not is when these
people are going to start struggling because
everything that they did kind of build around
themselves is stripped. And if you're not talking
about that, that's when it's all going to rear
its ugly head. And a quote I say a lot on here.
Mexican proverb, they tried to bury us. They
didn't know we were seeds. So you can push it
down all day long, but eventually it's going
to rear its ugly head. Oh, it will. And I remind
people, I'll say the non -believers, right? Because
we still have them. We still have them in our
agency, the people that, oh man, whatever, get
away from me with that stuff. And I tell them
all the time, man, look, I'm 100 % thankful that
you haven't had to deal with. some kind of mental
health issue some kind of breakdown whatever
the case may be but i'm also pretty certain that
it's coming right like i i just i don't think
you can make it through a career like this completely
unscathed um and i just hope that when it does
come you find a healthy way of dealing with it
uh and then i just kind of leave it there right
plant another seed form maybe um But it is something
that we really, really need to look at. I mean,
one of the things that we are working on in health
and safety with our retired firefighters association
is identifying types of cancers, coupling that
with time off the job. is the average diagnosis
for skin cancer. Three years when they're retiring,
you know what I mean? And going back to that
conversation of, well, then we need to be covering
our retirees for a period of 10 years or whatever
the case may be with presumptive legislation.
The same thing goes with the behavioral health.
We've got peer support in place for our people,
but our retired people can call them as well.
And I think that's amazing. That's something
that we offer to our... retirees. I would love
to see, and I don't know that it'll happen before
I'm eligible to retire, but I would love to see
the day where we have our own behavioral health
center in Washington, D .C. Fire Department,
where it's our own providers, it's our own people
that are trauma -informed, have a public service
kind of specialty. When that comes to fruition,
the dream is that, again, it's for active and
retired members. People think I'm crazy when
I say I think that a place like that should have
a basketball court, maybe some pool tables and
this. Think like an FOP on steroids, so to speak.
And people are like, why? I'm like, because these
retired people are used to being in a firehouse.
They're used to being around people that know
what they've been through and things like that.
And maybe, just maybe. Having somewhere to go
and just hang out with the people that you used
to work with, maybe that helps. I don't know.
But I don't think it's a bad idea. No, it reminds
me of Friends of Firefighters in New York. It's
an old firehouse. So there's counseling and all
kinds of other stuff, but there's a kitchen.
I'm sure there's a pool table. There's all the
things that you would find in a firehouse so
that when these retirees come, immediately they
already feel at ease. It's interesting as well
what you were saying about watching your son
being worked. God, this was well over a year
ago now. I was on a flight or literally on the
plane getting ready to go on a flight back to
the US from England when I was over there and
I was on the tarmac at Heathrow. And had my little
noise canceling headphones on. I'm looking straight
ahead. And then, you know, we all know that look
when other people are looking at something like,
oh, shit, something is going down behind me.
So I took my headphones off and the last passenger
shuffled his way on. The doors already closed
and he just keeled over. So unlike these stories
that you see where there's, you know, 20 cardiologists
on the plane, there was no one, no one that had
pre -hospital experience except me. Now, don't
get me wrong. There were some good Samaritans
that, you know, at least knew CPR. And then the
stewardesses in this particular example, you
know, had been trained on the, oh my God, what's
it called? Not the kaleidoscope. I forget now.
But anyway, one of the BLS airways that they
had, it'll come to me in a second. So anyway,
but I end up having to lead this code, you know,
and I'm a passenger. So, you know, we start off
with the people that are there, then eventually
London Fire Brigade get on. They help, you know,
we drag the gentleman into the galley and we
keep working him. Then London Ambulance get on
because those are two separate services. And
that's when the real, you know, ALS interventions
begin. And the poor cabin crew, I mean, they
had to ask permission for the BVM, for the AED.
So they're trying to get this equipment for us,
but it's taken them a while to even get it. It's
in the, you know, like I said, in the aisle.
So, you know, not the teamwork and the ability
to... to be efficient that you'd have in a trained
ems crew for example so anyway point being we
get in there and it's right when he goes down
he's got that look that we all know okay that
we're not going to save this code and i'm a black
cloud anyway like i'm the grim reaper when it
comes to cardiac arrest but even to me that was
like you know this guy whatever's inside is just
you know It's irreparable. But we work in, you
know, I'm still doing compressions. The paramedics
get the advanced airway. I rotate off the chest
finally, you know, say, hey, is there anything
else you need me to do right now? And they have
plenty of people in a small space. So I'm like,
all right, I'm going to go to my seat then. They
go, yeah, okay, we'll come find you when we're
done. So I go wash my hands in the airplane toilets.
I mean, there was blood in the code too. So wash
the blood off my hands and I just go sit back
down. And it hit me. And I was like, what the
hell is wrong with me? As you said, this is what
we do every day. And I transitioned out for,
oh my goodness, what? Five years by that point.
So I hadn't worked a code in a while. But then
I was like, oh, this is how you're supposed to
feel when someone dies. And it was such a jarring
moment, kind of like yours had. And it ended
up being good because the crew was so shook.
And some of them went home right there and then.
And then the rest. kudos to them carried on doing
their job they took off and it was an eight and
a half hour flight back to the u .s and they
served the passengers but i ended up talking
they actually upgraded me so i ended up being
right where they all were and ended up talking
to them pretty much the whole flight making sure
they were okay but it was just to understand
underline what you said what we do at work and
how we react to it is not normal And we should
be moved. Now, of course, you can't be moved
by every single one and constantly be processing
it. But it will build up to the point where if
you're not offloading it, you become numb to
this. And then one code one day will be that
straw that broke the camel's back. So realizing
that you are supposed to feel after you fight
to save someone and they die anyway, giving yourself
that grace and compassion is imperative. So I
want to hit one more area and then we'll go to
some closing questions so I can let you go. You
also alluded to another large incident, which
was the absolute tragedy with the military helicopter
and the plane over your city. So again, if you
want to kind of talk about that day, how it unfolded
and then the ripple effect of that on your men
and women. So I'm going to actually start that
by being. even more transparent than I've been
so far. And I've been completely transparent.
But I didn't even know what happened. My son
had just passed like four days before that. So
I was off. And I mean off, obviously. And my
organization did such a wonderful job of honoring
that. Here I am, the Deputy Chief of Health and
Safety. All behavioral health stuff is under
me. All of that is all under me. And I didn't
even get a phone call that night. I woke up the
next morning to probably 15 texts from friends
of mine across the country. Oh, my God, my thoughts
and prayers are with your guys. I'm like, what
the heck happened? You know, so it took me till
the next morning to even know what happened.
But of course, I hopped right on the phone and
I started calling just to make sure things were
going the way they were. Here's what I learned.
The night that it occurred. Our men and women
did the same thing that you're saying. They hopped
right into action. We recently got a dive team
barely a year ago. So having them in place was
amazing. The ground units that were there at
the casualty collection points, amazing. But
in talking to some of those people over the next
couple of weeks, you really find out what they
were thinking without realizing they were thinking
it. For instance, I've heard stories of people
that were sitting there and they're pulling body
parts out and they're doing this and they're
doing that. And they're hearing cell phones ring,
right? Because everybody that's right across
the river at the airport is calling their loved
one. And they see a suitcase float by with a
little ice skating figurine on it. And you know
that's one of the kids, right? I heard stories
from people where there wasn't a single whole
body. that they pulled out it was an arm here
a leg there some sort of flesh here um i heard
stories of you know just utter utter devastation
but none of our people ever stopped there wasn't
one single person rather it was the night the
event happened the next morning which was just
as bad because now the sun's up and you're really
starting to see the remnants of it Or for the
several days following that, I want to say it
was six days total before they got the fuselage
out of the water. We never had one person show
up on that scene and say, hey, I can't do this
or whatever. Every single one of them did it.
One of the big things that we did was initially.
We called in as many resources as we could from
the surrounding areas. We reached out to the
international. They had people from all over
the country fly in peer support wise, but we
knew we needed something much larger than that.
So we had psychologists and psychiatrists and
behavioral health therapists and things from
the region come to the city for our people. We
set up a standalone temporary behavioral health
center. where our people could go for weeks and
weeks and weeks following that. When the dust
settled, to the best of my knowledge, seven.
I think we had seven total people that went off
for more than 48 hours. We gave everyone that
was there the option for 48 hours, so just kind
of like decompressing time. The majority of them
didn't even take that. Some did. We had seven
people beyond that that stayed off for a little
longer or whatever for lingering effects of it.
But not one person has separated from the job
as a result. Now, that's not to say that a year
from now, five years from now, 10 years from
now, we won't. But we're not finished processing
that either. We're still talking about it. We're
still working on. After action reports, there's
an after action report operationally, but there's
also a behavioral health after action report
in phases. Phase one was the initial response
to it and the few days thereafter. Phase two
was from the day that we stopped working the
scene until 30 days after, you know, that whole
PTSD window. And then phase three is from then
forever. um and that phase three after action
report is going to make recommendations to the
agency and to the city council again on things
like this standalone behavioral health center
and other things that we recognized we needed
that we just didn't have um you know i can't
imagine the devastation that they saw that night
uh there's still a part of me that in the craziest
of ways feels bad that i was going through what
i was going through and i wasn't able to go um
and i think that that's just that desire to want
to help that desire to want to be there i wouldn't
have made a single difference with any of the
lives that were in the water i know that but
the lives of my men and women um just knowing
that they knew i was there um that that kind
of stings but at the same time i know my life
was pretty messed up at the time too. And I was
where I needed to be. But yeah, I mean, I go
to a lot of firehouses now day in and day out.
I talk to a lot of our members, obviously my
battalion chiefs that are under me and some of
their officers below them. But when I walk into
a firehouse, I have a conversation just like
this from the newest rookie all the way up through
the most senior person on the job in that particular
firehouse. And I have to say that in the past
two or three months i haven't even heard one
person reference it and i don't want to say that
as it wasn't important i don't want to say that
as it wasn't catastrophic because i'm sure it
stings every single one of us our hearts the
way it did when it initially happened what i
am saying is that it's a testament to the resiliency
of our members and how they have the ability
to go through something like that to hopefully
reach out to the resources that are in place
to help them process this stuff. And here we
are seven months later, and by and whole, you
know, by and large, they're doing very, very
well. Well, I think, again, that is a testimony,
as you said, to all the resources that are in
place, but also... to the 24 72 you know the
the rest and recovery is needed to allow the
brain to process that and the conversations about
you know what do we bring into the job because
this is the mistake i think that we make in the
fire service is you know when it comes to mental
health they would point to that incident this
is why you're struggling well what if they had
you know all kinds of death by a thousand cut
calls prior to that. They had X, Y, and Z happen
when they were children. You know, there's all
these compounding factors. So the more we can
kind of work on all those pieces, the more resilient
the people become. And I'm a huge believer in
post -traumatic growth and forging resilience
by going through these struggles and even an
acute event like that. The ability to work through
it, through ample rest and recovery, through
no barrier to access when it comes to mental
health counseling, fitness, all the positive
outlets, a culture of community, so you're not
having that kind of toxic environment. I mean,
these are all such powerful pieces. And what
you're talking about is it sounds like all that
preemptive, proactive investment that we talked
about for the last almost two hours now factored
into the success of... the men and women that
responded heroically and their ability to process
it after. I couldn't agree more. And I think
that that's, again, that 48 hours, that's something
that is kind of unheard of in our agency. Our
behavior health coordinator can give 24 hours
for extreme events, but we fought for more time
there because we recognize that right there,
that need to decompress. You know, that would
have given someone 12 days, which... is a good
amount of time to spend with your loved ones
and to do those things that you need to do to
emotionally kind of um uncharge from that um
and again i think that all those things like
you just said uh played a role in the success
so far mentally in the members uh on our you
know in our organization dealing with that the
one thing that you've talked about time and time
and time again that i wish the fire service would
truly embrace is cumulative stress um sarah janky
talks about it all the time sarah's a really
good pal of mine and i talk to fire service leaders
all the time across this nation that like you
just said they look for this one catastrophic
event, and that's what they hang their hand on.
They don't realize that it's that death by a
thousand cusps, like you said, that get the majority
of our people. Our own police and fire clinic
in Washington, D .C., I'm still working with
them to try and understand that that is a real
thing in our line of work. Now, I'm not knocking
them by any means, but I am saying that they,
too, try to look for this Big event, you know,
well, you weren't on this, you weren't on that.
Why in the world are you broken down now? You
know, you ran that 64 year old CPR. Yeah, I did.
But that's also, like I said, an hour and a half
ago, the 1000th time I've run that. Oh, and I'm
dealing with coming out of my grandmother's hospice
stay. And that woman looked just like my grandmother,
whatever the case may be. Like, who are we to
say what should or shouldn't. break someone?
Who are we to tell someone what their breaking
point should be? What if we could just embrace
the fact that we're all human, we're all individuals,
we come to this job with a million and one scars
from throughout our life anyway, and this job
will scar you more and everyone has a different
breaking point. And I think that that's very
important for fire service leaders to hear nationwide
that you cannot have a list of, well, these types
of events qualify for, you know, a performance
of duty or workman's comp mental health breakdown
that take that idea and shove it where the sun
doesn't shine. Cause everyone's different. Everyone's
resiliency is different. Gosh. I mean, there
are me, we talked about some of the stuff that
I went through and we didn't talk about everything
I went through as a kid. And one of the first
conversations I had with my therapist, she literally
had tears in her eyes. And I'm like, what is
going on? She's like, how are you standing? I'm
like, what do you mean? She's like, I've got
people in here that completely break down because,
you know, their husband didn't fill up the car.
Now, again, I'm being facetious there, but, you
know, like what in the world? And again, it's
resiliency, right? It's life has made me as an
individual have to be this way in order to survive.
That's the same with every single one of us.
And every single one of us have a different breaking
point. And it is okay when someone breaks because
of something that is so seemingly normal. Yeah.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, even if you want
to just use the musculoskeletal injury model
for a moment, I've had Stuart McGill on the show,
the back mechanic, they call him. And again,
we're going back to the shift work and lack of
recovery now. But he was like, oh, it's not if
you'll break. If you're not sleeping every third
day or even less than that with overtime, he
said, you know, that's when you repair. So if
you're an aggressive firefighter and you lift
weights and you train, it's just, you know, where's
the weak link? So again, like you said, oh, I
pulled my shoulder picking up my bunker gear.
Yeah, because that was, you were, you know, 99
% likelihood of getting hurt by that point. And
that was the final straw. So whether it's in
the mind or in the body, you know, it's the cumulative
events. And then therefore, and then equally
and oppositely. the lack of ability to rest and
recover, whether it's healing tendons, ligaments,
or muscles, or whether it's simply allowing the
brain to process a trauma and forge that resilience
in the first place. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
I think I'm right now the walking example of
that. I literally just had someone I haven't
seen in a few months. I ran into him the other
day at work and he was like, oh, my God, dude,
you're beefing up, aren't you? Like, yeah, I've
gained about 15 pounds since the last week of
April. He's like, what in the world? Like, dude,
I can actually lift and sleep now. Day work.
I live an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes
from the city. So an eight hour day. Plus that
travel time. Oh, and I always like getting to
work early. So I was at work at 530 in the morning
means that Monday morning through Friday morning,
every single week for four years, I was getting
up at 3 a .m. And I was going to bed about 10.
So Monday through Friday for four years and about
five hours a night that I was getting. And that's
if something didn't wake me up and if all the
stars aligned perfectly. And I didn't even realize
it, how much all of my weight training and everything
else in the gym, like I was just spinning my
wheels, so to speak. Went back to shift work,
working once every fourth day. And thankfully,
I'm in a role that at nighttime, I mean, I supervise
the entire city for 24 hours at a time. So that
means. At night, when I finally do try to lay
down, other than waking up to listen to boxes
and things like that, I do get to sleep a little
bit. And then on my days off, I sleep like a
baby all three nights. Now, I haven't really
changed anything in the gym. I haven't changed
what I'm eating. But here I am four months later,
and I've put 15 pounds of size back on and not
bad size. Like, there's a direct correlation
right there that I can 100 % say I'm living proof
of. Yeah, 100%. Well, I want to go to some quick
closing questions if you've got time. All right.
The first one I love to ask, is there a book
or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or
completely unrelated. Hmm. Yes. I just cannot
think of the title. It's the one that Todd LeDuc
from LifeScan wrote, but it is probably one of
the best books I've ever read that has to do
with everything related to the health and safety
of firefighters. It's broken down into chapters.
There's chapters on fitness. There's chapters
on cardiology. There's chapters on behavioral
health. There's chapters on annual physicals,
blood work, et cetera, et cetera. But I think.
Every fire service leader out there that has
never found themselves in the space that I found
myself in the past decade, in the safety office
and then risk management, health and safety,
all of that, I think you should read it. It's
a pretty quick read, but I think it'll open your
eyes to a lot of things that you probably don't
even recognize or realize are out there. Another
one is almost anything by Jocko. I'm a big leadership
guy. I'm a big... you know, lead from the front
kind of guy. I absolutely love everything he
did. Obviously, Oak's book is another leadership
book. The big takeaway from Oak's book is essentially
he would not do anything or not order anyone
to do something that he wouldn't do himself.
Now, there are a lot of other things in his book,
but that's probably the biggest thing I got out
of him. Let me think. Trying to think all the
books that are sitting. On my shelf. Yeah, I'll
stop right there. That'll be OK. Absolutely.
What about films and documentaries? Ah, I would
say. Documentaries wise, I personally watch a
lot of military again, leadership documentaries.
I watch a lot of documentaries and. the fire
service space you know rather it's looking at
the way this agency's doing this it's looking
like that youtube is like my life um i search
almost anything and everything on youtube and
i just watch documentary after documentary there
aren't any that stand out as i'm like hey you
need to watch this one but it's just what has
worked for me and it has really opened my eyes
um movie wise i'm not really a big movie guy
so i don't know it just reminded me one of the
best fire service documentaries i've ever seen
i think it was called inside the fire and if
i'm not mistaken it was one of the uh the safety
organizations i think they put it together but
it was on the history channel and i've got it
somewhere on dvd but one of the it was it was
volunteer kind of paid on call and then career
and one of the career firefighters i remember
was a a black female firefighter from dc and
what made it so good was, you know, you saw that
no matter whether it was someone who just did
it, you know, if the bell went out off in their
town, you know, and they're doing, you know,
chicken dinners to raise money for apparatus
or whether it was, you know, an urban environment
like D .C., that they were all the same person,
you know, with the same calling in their heart.
I remember the volunteer guy saying every time
a firefighter crosses the threshold of a burning
building. they're taking the same risk. And that
always stayed with me. Whether you're paid, whether
you're part -time, whether you're a volunteer,
with all this kind of looking down your nose
at different groups of firefighters or different
countries even, every single time that we break
the threshold, man or woman, we are taking the
same risk that we will sacrifice possibly even
our life to try and get to someone. Beautiful.
All right. Well, then the next question, is there
a person that you'd recommend to come on this
podcast as a guest? Mark, M -A -R -C, Cruz. He
is, oh gosh, he's going to kill me if I get this
wrong. I want to say it's Houston. It is a city
in Texas. I want to say it's Houston. If it's
not, he's going to body slam me for this. Mark
is a huge proponent of everything, obviously,
in the behavioral health space. That's what he
does. But one of his big things he talks about
is what you've continued to talk about today,
and that's sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.
One of the things that his organization did that
I think is amazing for their people is they went
to noon relief times. They work a 24 -hour shift,
but their shift change is at noon, not 7 o 'clock
in the morning or 6 o 'clock in the morning.
And when I initially heard it, I'm like, you're
crazy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But think
about it. Then you only have one night. Doesn't
matter if you're 2448, 2472. We'll just talk
about 2472 if my agency did this. Even though
our relief time is at 7 a .m., the majority of
us are relieved by 5 or 530. The majority of
us live more than an hour away from the city.
So that means you're leaving home at 4 or 4 .30,
which means you're up at 3 .30 or whatever the
case may be. So your night before work, let's
say you went to bed at 9 or 10, you're up at
3 .30. Now you're probably up for the better
part of 24 plus hours. You come home, you're
up all that next day, the whole nine until you
find, and that's without overtime, a second job,
a family, whatever the case may be. If you went
to that noon relief and your idea of early relief
was 10 .30 or 11. At least you got your normal
night's sleep before your shift. You know what
I mean? Then you work through the afternoon and
into the evening. You go to sleep. You don't
need to be up again at 5 o 'clock in the morning.
If you're not on an incident, you sleep. They
don't chase people out of bed until 8 or 8 .30.
Just enough time to clean up the firehouse, eat,
and their relief is there. I'm telling you, people
look at me like I'm crazy when I mention it,
but I really think there is something there that
he's doing that he can quantify and show you
the results of what they've done. And I think,
personally, that is the future of the fire service.
When we talk about health and safety and we talk
about all those things, a small change like that,
I think, could go a long way with the sleep of
our firefighters. I couldn't agree more. I've
actually talked about that a lot recently. I
think it might have even been Sarah that really
put that idea in my head. Sarah and Mark are
one in the same. I mean, I've got them both on
speed dial in this phone. I love them both. They
teach together all the time, side by side. Typically,
if I'm in their class, I'm picking on both of
them. But, yeah. Yeah. It is. And when I think
about because I were, you know, 14 years, I usually
lived about 70 miles away from the station. So
I was, you know, commuting into an urban setting,
you know, so again, I'm getting up at five in
the morning, you know, so then when you kind
of take a step back, like, okay, so that first
day, we're already sleep deprived before we've
done anything. I also then recently kind of look
back and was like, on the 2448 schedule, I only
spent one out of every three mornings with my
family. The first day I'm awake and gone before
they wake up. The second day, again, 70 mile
commute, they're already at work and school by
the time I get home. The third day is the only
day I actually see them in the morning. So by
switching to the noon schedule, the ongoing shift
wakes up at a normal time, has breakfast with
their family, you know, takes the kids to school,
kiss the partner goodbye, and they go off to
work. And then they go to the station. Off going
exactly like you've alluded to, they get their
ass handed to them at night. Now they get to
sleep. And that's how Anaheim was. We took the
gear off our... our you know who we were relieving
so they could just stay and sleep so we never
made anyone get up in in anaheim when i was there
so again now you sleep you know nine ten whatever
needs to happen you wake up you you know you
do your you know finish off your checkouts or
replenish whatever needs to happen clean the
rig and now your relief comes in You get to go
home without becoming a smear on the side of
the freeway because you're so sleep deprived.
And then they have the same routine, but it's
instead of breakfast, it's lunch. They come in,
they check out their gear, and then they sit
down as a crew for lunch instead. So it makes
perfect sense to me. And I've always said the
trifecta, if we want to change the fire service,
amplify the good, is a 24 -72 has to be the first
thing because hours are hours, simple mathematics.
Then a noon or 11 a .m. noon start time. And
then an integrated telehealth style system with
your dispatch where they take away the non -emergent
calls that goes through telehealth. That person
gets the help they need. They never have to go
to hospital in the first place. And the bed stays
open. Oh, you do? Let's talk about that very
quickly, because I think that's the third prong
for this trifecta of revolutionizing the fire
service. Yep. So we call it the nurse triage
line. It's something that Chief Dean brought
from Seattle, an idea that I don't think they
actually had it, but it was an idea that they
had. And our former chief of staff, Amy Morrow,
latched onto it and pushed it immensely. And
it's awesome. I mean, I want to say, again, I
don't know, but I want to say 80 to 100 calls
a day, I believe, are diverted from EMS to...
the nurse triage line. So the call taker asks
certain questions. If the criteria meets certain,
or certain criteria is met, they get transferred
to a nurse, right? There's just a pocket of nurses
somewhere in some other state. It changes on
occasion. And that nurse asks them a bunch of
questions. If they meet all that criteria, they
have the ability to say, okay, well, I'm going
to set you up with an appointment at, you know,
this freaking, wellness clinic right down the
street. At one o 'clock, an Uber is going to
come. They're going to pick you up. They're going
to take you down there the whole night. That
has been amazing. Another thing that we have
done is we have contracted with AMR as a third
-party provider, and we basically are all but
out of the BLS transport game now. If we're taking
somebody in a BLS DC unit, AMR either doesn't
have any units available or they're so far away
that you know it just doesn't make sense to wait
for them um but back in the day when i was riding
an ambulance i was just talking about this the
other day at nine engine because i was a fireman
at truck nine and myself and my old ambulance
partner were talking about the difference we're
like man we used to transport 15 or 18 people
a day that was transports that wasn't including
the people we got canceled on or got signed refusals
for nowadays most units are transporting two
or three when it comes to the BLS unit. And that's
huge. It makes a big difference. You actually
see the guys in the firehouse. They can drill.
They can eat with the crew. They can do all of
those things. Oh, and they're still available
for immediate response if they're needed. So
great, great kudos to Washington, D .C. Fire
Department for thinking well outside the box
and leading the charge on some of these things
because our men and women in the street are definitely
better off because of it and the citizens and
residents and visitors to the city are definitely
better off because of it because units are available
more often than ever before well i'm sure as
as you've just detailed you know dc probably
has a phenomenal you know list as far as recruits
you know in the first place but i think you're
going to have you know a few more applicants
after listening to this conversation so uh With
that being said, if people want to learn more
about you, reach out to you, where are the best
places online or social media? Join dcbravest
.com. It is a recruitment webpage that a good
friend of mine stood up a couple of years ago.
Well, actually, two good friends of mine. They
studied with me. I've coached football with one
of them. Awesome people. and we completely reimagined
the way that we do our hiring too it used to
be one test every three or four years now it's
a new test every six months it used to be you
had to stand in line forever now everything's
done online including your testing and you know
hey if i didn't do well this time six months
from now i can have another shot at it we also
began charging for our testing which has helped
a little bit if In the craziest of ways. It's
60 bucks or something like that. But at least
it makes someone have some skin in the game and,
you know, really want to do something. Join DCBravest
.com is great for the recruitment side of it,
for just staying in touch with it. DC Fire and
EMS on either Twitter or Facebook are great.
We have an entire community and relations division.
that right now we have a uniformed battalion
fire chief over it just until we find a new division
leader for that and then it'll go back to all
civilian staff but each of those have previous
experience with news networks. One of them worked
for CNN. Another one worked for Fox 5. I believe
another one worked for NBC4. But they're amazing
at communicating what our men and women are doing
in the streets. There's a lot of action shots,
a lot of fire department things. And then the
last one is, I'm going to give a shout out to
a good friend of mine. He is my boss. He is the
assistant chief of operations. Oddly enough,
how the fire service works, there was a time
when I was his lieutenant. And he was a wagon
driver. But he is one of the best minds in the
entire fire service. And I'm not saying that
just because he is my boss. I'm saying that because
he truly does. And that's Tony Kelleher. If you
follow Tony on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, like
you will be 100 percent up to date. He has been
in that role now for two years, and I think he
has completely revolutionized the way we look
at the operations chief. He has done a wonderful
job of championing what our men and women are
doing out there in the streets. He's done a wonderful
job of instilling. the mindset of making a decision
and sticking by that decision for better or worse.
We've gotten away from chastising members and
doing things like that. We've moved more towards
like a coaching mentorship style of leadership
on the whole. And again, I mean, he's just information
galore. And the dude knows more about the fire
service than anybody I've ever met. I mean, this
man, honestly, I'll tell you a quick story. It'll
make your viewers laugh. Back in the day when
I was lieutenant at 4 Engine and he was my wagon
driver, Elliot. walked in. Now, Elliot's somebody
we buy our shirts from. He used to work at Communications
Forever. Just an awesome, awesome guy. Still
hangs around the fire department. Well, he was
talking about how that night Chicago Fire was
on. And I was like, man, I can't get into that
stuff. Blah, blah, blah. I don't watch fire movies
or fire shows or whatever. Well, Tony pipes up
standing at the stove. You know what I hate about
Chicago Fire? Rescue 3 closed its doors and blah,
blah, blah, blah. And he goes off on like this
10 -minute tangent about Chicago Fire. And I
just shook my head. I said, Tony, I finally figured
you out. And he's like, what? I was like, you
really don't know all this stuff. It's just we're
so ignorant. We believe everything that comes
out of your mouth. So he laughed. And no, truly,
he does. He's amazing. So if your followers want
to know exactly what's going on in D .C. Fire
Department, those three things, stay up, stay,
you know, current with everything that we're
doing. Brilliant. He sounds like Tony would be
another guest I probably need to get on here
as well. I should have. He should have been the
first one on my mind. Yes, Tony would be amazing.
And Tony can bring, like me, he can bring the
volunteer aspect of it, but to another level.
He was the fire chief at Kentland for eight years.
Kentland's year in and year out the busiest volunteer
fire department in the nation. So being the fire
chief there for eight years, being a co -founder
of Traditions Training, I mean, he does a lot
in the fire service. Fantastic. Well, Sean, I
want to thank you so much. I know we've gone
over two hours and I could talk to you for another
two hours. I mean, all the innovations, you know,
the great leadership, the culture that's been
developed, you know, the work week. I mean, all
the things that we've talked about. I think hopefully
it'll give people listening a lot of hope. You
know, there has been a breakdown in a lot of
departments when it comes to that. an incurable
optimist. I know that we can go back to all departments
having people just lining up around the building,
vying for those coveted spots to wear that particular
uniform. So I want to thank you so, so much for
being so generous with your time and coming on
the Behind the Shield podcast today. Yes, sir.
Thank you so much. And if you ever need anything,
don't hesitate to call.