Good morning from bathroom-remodel nightmare central…aka my
home. I hope everyone is having a good morning and I have a lot to go over with
you so let’s get started.
·
New Inst Bulletin—went out yesterday regarding using your
MDT. Please print and take the time to learn about the different function keys
and when to properly use them. This bulletin is an attempt to reduce radio
traffic for certain things that can be done using a function or “F” button.
This will also cut down on our roll call procedures as well. As always, please
let me know if you have any troubles working through the bulletin.
·
Personal Escape Systems—is now in the hands of Procurement,
which means it will take about 60 days until we have a purchase order for a
vendor. The first 100 was bought by a Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation
Grant should be delivered pretty soon. There will be training provided for
every member on how to use the system and more importantly, how not to! This
has been a long time in the making for JFRD and one I’m very proud to be a part
of seeing it to fruition. There’s a lot of thanks to go around on this
one (Mayor’s Office, City Council, Administration, Safety Committee, field
chiefs and field personnel) and you know who you are….thank you to all!!!
·
Jeff Cool—don’t forget Jeff Cool is coming to present next
week. Times are 4-15, 0900 to 1200 & 1400-1700 and on 4-16 the times are the
same. Location is the Union Hall and the Fraternal Fire Chiefs Association paid
for all the expenses. I would like to personally thank them again for making
this a reality for you. Do your part and take the time to make a session; its
just 3 hours and may one day save your life or your crews. I highly recommend
coming with your crew if showing up off-duty. As for the on-duty folks, we will
send the maximum allowed under the Training bulletin for each session. The
Battalions will decide those days, who to send.
·
Ocean Rescue—it’s that time again when our beaches and
parks get busy. For those that don’t know, Brian Stafford is our new Ocean
Rescue Supervisor so please feel free to email him with any questions or
concerns. He just hired approximately 55 lifeguards for this season. Those who
work around Huguenot and Hanna parks know how important our lifeguards are to
sustaining our mission at the beaches.
·
JFRD Volunteers—Cc’d on this is all of our current
Suppression volunteers. We are proud to announce FF Josh Rickerson as our new
Volunteer Coordinator to take us to the next level. For those who don’t know
him, he is a nine year veteran who came on the job at Ladder 28 under Capt.
Lundy. For the last three years he has been a leading member of Fire
Prevention. Now, he has graciously taken on the challenge of moving our
volunteer force forward. I would like to thank FF Rickerson and all our
volunteers as I don’t think we thank them enough for all the time our JEMA and
Volunteers dedicate to our cause…thank you!
·
Sea of Blue---if you haven’t already, please take the time
to consider buying your Class A uniform coat. JFCU has the loan program and
there has been a rush of folks signing up. You can also just buy the jacket if
you have everything else. Tami in Logistics can help you with a vendor or you
can use Patrick’s. We have submitted permits to march on 10-10 for our Fallen
Firefighter Memorial. Imagine the 600 to 900 of you marching in support of each
other and our fallen. If you can afford the $18 a payday (that’s not a
dig, times are hard on everyone) please still plan on marching with us. The
important part is that you’re there building a sense of pride together. Initial
plans still include parking at the stadium / museum, getting a JTA bus ride to
station 4 and marching down Duval St. to station 1. After the ceremony we will
go back to the Museum / Metro Park for Union Bar BQ and fellowship. As for the
parade, we will be putting this out to the public to come watch; Don’t be
surprised on who will want to come out and support you!!!
·
New Rhyno Windshield Cutters—in 2015, new national safety
standards for cars will mandate laminated glass for side-passenger windows on
all new vehicles. This means no more “window-punches” for anything new.
Recently, to stay ahead of the curve, we purchased new window cutters for all
truck companies and the Squads. In October, we will purchase cutters for the
remaining heavy engines. Below are two links and TSF will begin contacting the
truck companies that don’t already have them in the next couple of days….pretty
cool stuff….
o
http://www.wecuttheglass.com/
·
Getting us out of the cancer game—it’s been awhile since
I’ve broached the subject, and for the last three recruit classes, Lt.
Smith(Hazmat) and I have not been able to deliver the Surviving Your Career
class like we normally do. The W4 policy was released in LA last year as a new
best practice at the Firefighter Cancer Support Network conference. All
the W4 policy is, is a way for Command to bring in fresh crews because the
paradigm shift is no more work in smoke filled environments. We have a least
one generation of firefighters to go before we can say this made an impact. I
call tell you we have members today, both active and retired, that are battling
cancer because of this career. Below is an email I receive from Eng. Jeremy
Pilcher letting me know about a case in Gainesville.
o
Chief, wanted to take a break from reading and drop a line to
you. A retired FF from the City of Gainesville, Steve Crawford, not sure his
age (late 50's) passed away this morning from a battle with Leukemia, so that is
what was relayed to me. I am not sure how he got it. His son was on JFRD and
resigned a few years back, Phillip Crawford. Here is where it gets worse.
Steve's brother Curtis, also a City of Gainesville FF (still on the job) is in
Haven Hospice in Orange Park with Cancer. From what I was told and Capt.
Burkhalter may have more info on Curtis is that he had Cancer and was getting
treatments and was improving then the Cancer came back and formed in the lungs.
Curtis is not expected to make it much longer. Very sad for sure. Again not
sure if Cancer is something that is in their family genes or if it had to do
with fighting fires. Either way both of these men are way too young to be
leaving us. Goes to show that we must protect ourselves at fires, well that is
if we want to live a long prosperous life.
o
Very sad and much too common. I checked with American Cancer
Society and only 5-10 percent of cancers are considered hereditary, Leukemia is
not one of them. Below is an abstract from a FF cancer study. Cliff Notes
version….if you stay on the job 30 years, your chance of developing Leukemia is
almost 3 times higher than the normal population. (that’s what the sumRR is; sum
of Reported Rates)
§
Risk of cancer among firefighters: a quantitative review of
selected malignancies.
Youakim S.
Author information
Division of Occupational
Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
syouakim@telusplanet.net
§
Abstract
Using the fixed-effect
model, the author quantitatively estimated the risks of cancers of the colon,
bladder, kidneys, and brain as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia among
firefighters. The risk of these six cancers was not markedly elevated when
cohort mortality studies were considered. When all mortality studies were
considered, however, there was a mild increase in risk for kidney cancer and
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, with a summary relative risk (sumRR) of 1.22 (95%
confidence interval [CI] = 1.02-1.43) and 1.40 (95% CI = 1.20-1.60),
respectively. A sub-cohort analysis based on duration of employment revealed
that firefighters with 30 or more years of employment had a significantly
increased mortality risk for colon cancer, sumRR of 1.51 (95% CI = 1.05-2.11);
kidney cancer, sumRR of 6.25 (95% CI = 1.70-16.00); brain cancer, sumRR of 2.53
(95% CI = 1.27 7.07); and leukemia, sumRR of
2.87 (95% CI = 1.43-5.14). After firefighters had 40 or more years of
employment, their risk of mortality was significantly increased for colon
cancer, sumRR of 4.71 (95% CI = 2.03-9.27); kidney cancer, sumRR of 36.12 (95%
CI = 4.03-120.42); and bladder cancer, sumRR of 5.7 (95% CI = 1.56-14.63). The
risk for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was elevated but not significantly so among
firefighters with 20 or more years of employment, with sumRR of 1.72 (95% CI =
0.90-3.31). Kidney cancer risk was significantly elevated as early as the second
decade of employment
§
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Crawford family. Please
protect yourself so you can have a cancer-free career and retirement.
Here are some of the runs we have gone on this week….
·
W3 SNGL FAM RES/FD31/7653 MELISSA CT N/IC E31 ON B-1
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FD17 W3 Structure fire to a church 5354 Verna Blvd TGB1..
·
W3 structure fire FD2 single family residence W16th and
Silver...TGb5
·
FD44/ WHITE POWDER SUBST FOUND/ 8014 BAYBERRY RD/ ADHANCED
RECOVERY/ JSO ON SCN/ TGB1
·
FD16/ ALERT II/ JIA/ TGB1
·
MCI 1 / INJ FROM FALLS INSIDE JTA BUS/ SLAMMED ON BRAKES/ 855 W
8TH ST/ TGB5
·
ALERT 2 JIA 44 SOULS ON BOARD ELECTRICAL ODOR IN COCKPIT...ST16 ON
SCENE REQUEST FULL ASSIGNMENT..
·
TWO DIFFERENT BARRICADE INCIDENTS; FD21: E21 & R20 Stand by 3145
Victoria Park RD. and FD20: E20 & R21 Stand by 3550 S University.
·
W3 structure fire FD7 single family residence 1569 W.8th St
...TGB1
·
W2 COOLING TANK FIRE/FD35/1160 EASTPORT RD/SOUTHERN TANK/F8 IC ON
B-1/HAZMAT 7 RESPONDING
·
FD12/ BRKN GAS LINE/ 2147 BERTHA ST /TECO ENT/ TGB1
·
FD33/ MCI LEVEL 1/ 6 PATIENT// TRAFF ACD/ ON DUNN AVE @ NEW KINGS
RD/ TGB1
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W3/FD11/ 654 E 11TH ST / HEVY FIRE/ SHOP BLDG/ TGB1
·
SECOND ALARM AT 654 E 11TH STREET. TALK GROUP B1
·
And these are just the ones we get paged on during the day.
·
And of course the couple of thousand EMS, Fire, and other types of
calls you managed and mitigated this week….well done!
Time to give some thanks….
·
To Capt. Reyes (on OT) and the crews at E32B and R32B. Today I
received a call from the dad of a child that was injured yesterday (4-10). He
went on to say how well the crew treated him and his son. They had no idea who
the dad was, but I did (a FF’s father) and he called to say thank you….great
job!
·
To Captain Powers who fed all of TSF, Fleet mechanics, and others,
his father’s famous Bar B-Q. Thank you for lunch, thank you for the
hospitality, and most importantly, thank you for the fellowship and hard work
from everyone at TSF.
·
To the Jacksonville Fire Chiefs Association who invited me to
their annual dinner at the River Club. For most the night I enjoyed simply
looking around the room in amazement of all the knowledge, skill, experiences,
and quality of current and retired fire chiefs on this job. Hearing stories of
past and present reminds me you are in good hands. It’s the brave men and women
who handle the organized chaos of our daily work: MCI’s, MVA’s, structure fires,
gunshots, heart attacks, water rescues, hazardous materials, confined space
rescues, the list goes on, and that chaos is managed by our chiefs. The
responsibility of making sure you all go home lands on them; I sleep well at
night knowing you are in good hands.
Well that’s it for this WIR. The weather will be
classic Florida gorgeous, and I hope you get to spend some time in it with
family and friends. Maybe if the bathroom gods are kind, I can get out on
Sunday. Continue to keep up the excellent work, please keep your thoughts and
prayers with our members as some of our folks are having some truly tough
times. As always, we thank you for what you do (fighting fires and saving
lives), why you do it (genetic disorder for putting your life on the line for
others), and for always showing why you are the Best Fire Rescue Department in
the Country!
Very respectfully,
Kurtis R. Wilson