Flaw In Firefighter's Last Line of Defense

For my brother firefighters on here, I'm sure this angers you as much as it angers me. I hadn't heard about it, so it especially upsets me. I'm passing the information on in hopes that we keep our brothers informed and get this situation fixed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16890732/

This story actually aired some time back and I managed to catch it. It is kinda sad that they are found to fail but, in their defence, neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever seen one malfunction in a fire. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the PASS device it is an alarm that goes off when a firefighter is still for more then 30 seconds, it sounds an exetremely loud beeping sound along with a strobe light. If you remember the videos from 9/11 it was the beeping that you heard in the backround. I'm not sure if these devices are mandated by law but they should be. Ours are actually integrated into our SCBA and automatically come on once our air supply is activated, the older version has to be manually turned on.

One must understand that anything is going succomb to heat after a certain temp and these are no different. I can say that in my last fire, while my goggles and helmet were melting, my PASS device was still working fine. It looks to me like the kedia found one or two cases and ran with them. There is some upkeep that is needed with these things, batteries etc. I wonder if they were being properly maintained at the time of failure. Also things age, were these devices past their time. They are kind of costly, while I will never put a price on a life I do see depts replacing more important things like window decals on trucks and new t-shirts for their crews before purchasing these things.

Point is this, don't always believe what you see in the news. If this was such a big problem there would have been a recall. The story aired in Feb or Jan and no recall has been made, at least not to the ones we use. If you beat on something long enough it is finally going to break.

The thing to remember here is that the PASS alarm might be muffled if a firefighter is down on his chest. We have definitely found that to be true during training. The only thing that would make it safer is a belt mounted manually activated one that would be used as a secondary. There again it is up to the guy to turn it on, which is why they integrate them now.

We too have the integrated PASS in our packs. Though they did remove the audible low air warning from it for some reason... it only flashed red at the PASS and in our face mounted HUD.

We also have the accountability system with ours. Each man has an electronic ID tag. We hit a button on our PASS and place our ID tag against the PASS and it associated that air pack with us. Our chief has a laptop in his vehicle that gets turned on on his way to a fire. Once you turn your cylinder on, you get logged into the system automatically. From the laptop you can monitor air levels, breathing rates, PASS activations and you can even send an evacuation order to someone (or everyone) through their PASS.

Neat stuff.

My thing about it Chris is that 15 firefighters lost their lives and they can relate them back to PASS device malfunctions. Now that's just since 1998. I agree the media is guilty of making things worse than they seem at times...but I'm not sure this shouldn't be looked at harder. In court...the President of Survivair stated that they wouldn't do a recall because they didn't consider a big enough risk. My answer to that is....Is it your life on the line inside that fire?

I thought this would make for a good discussion on the forums...let's keep it going.

Why were most of these guys that died alone? Freelancing? I never go anywhere without a partner, and I expect the people under my charge to do the same. Maybe that had something to do with it. How was their maintenance program? Did their PASS devices get properly serviced?

Then there are other circumstances like flashovers and explosions. Both extreme situations where searches would be hard and time consuming anyway.

And some were in warehouses. Which if you have ever had to search a warehouse, you know it isn't easy. Set a PASS off in a warehouse, and you will here that sound coming from ever direction... sound echoes in places like that.

I think when firefighters die, we need to know why. It is always convenient to blame them on equipment failures rather than firefighter fault. I ain't saying PASS devices aren't to blame here.

I honestly think that it comes down to a matter of training. I would be willing to bet that at least half of the departments out there (volunteers included) have never had any kind of formal RIT training. We owe it to our brothers and sisters to train hard, so that when the time comes when my ass is in trouble I know without a doubt the guy/girl coming to get me knows what to do.

I guess what I am saying here... is that I think a lack of training and experience has more to do with it than a PASS failure.

Here's a question for all that use them. How often are they tested for reliability in the field or at the Firehouse???

flagegl:

We test ours every morning Nick, but I do know there are depts out there where they are very rarely tested.

We tested ours weekly to make sure they were still working, however, we had no other way of testing them other than turning them on. Ours was the old style that you had to activate when you put your pack on. I had a helmet with a full face shield on it and as BD said it melted to my mask, melted the lieutenant stickers off my helmet, and shrunk my triple trim, but the pass device was un harmed(from external view).

Ours were mounted on the right side strap on top of the shoulder. Only time I ever had mine go off in a fire was when I had a ceiling fall on me, knocking me to the floor. I laid there kinda dazed till my PASS device snapped me out of it.....Truly annoying sound right in your ear. I pushed the sheet rock and insulation off of me, and what little else was was on top of me off, and got up to walk out. At the end of the hallway I met a 2 man team coming in to find me, cause they heard my PASS alarm.

The guy that went in behind me was going into his first structure fire. Well I didnt think anything by it because I had went through several evolutions at the fire academy with him. Well bein that it was an uncontrolled environment, he was nervous, and seein him nervous I had to say it. Sitting in the doorway as he got to me I told him, "If your scared I'll carry you in my pocket." We went in on a right hand pattern and saw the fire at the end of the hall coming from a bedroom. I moved in closer and he followed behind with his hand on my ankle.

As I got on one knee and opened the nozzle, it steamed on us. He didnt have his hood tucked into his jacket as the back side of his kneck was exposed. I felt him movin around and then he got still again. LOL when I closed the nozzle to wait to see if it was gonna flash back up I noticed his ass was gone! He started hyperventilating and got out of the house. Soon after that the ceiling fell on me(not the roof just the ceiling). When I got outside he was sittin on the back of the truck all freaked out lookin. I sat down beside him and told him, " I told you I'd carry you in my pocket". He just looked at me...grinned.... and said man it felt like bees were stingin the hell out of me. needles to say he always made sure he had his hood tucked in after that! candyass1:

This post has been edited by Joker on Jun 22 2007, 07:54 PM

I'm telling ya right now...if someone ever leaves me in a fire...I'm beating some ass! I don't care if you are scared...we'll be scared together and get out together. Ohhh that is a pet peeve of mine.

I didn't have to be ugly to him.....I'm sure he still gets ribbed to this day cause of it LOL

Don't worry your not going to be going to many fires on the medic unti anyway Nomex..... owned1 by the magbast; AGAIN!

If I'm going in with a new guy, I usually put him on the nozzle. I wear him like a fanny pack. That way I can pretty much keep tabs on him a push/pull him to where I need him to go.

adam;

That's exactly what I do. Put him on the nozzle and keep him in front of me.

We check ours once a week and after each use.

Our new SCBA's go through batteries like crazy. I think we're getting like 4 or 5 months from our PASS batteries, maybe 6 months life for our face piece hud. A small fortune to keep these new packs running.

Hey Nomex its probably not so much people leaving you in a fire. The problem comes in when there is zero visibility and two crews meet somewhere and a crew member leaves with the other crew without you knowing right away. 5 seconds later your alone and start looking for someone who isn't actually missing. You gotta keep control of your people in these situations so that doesn't happen