By Burton Clark
The 2013 International Fire/EMS Safety and Health Week, which runs from June 16-22, focuses on behavioral health. I thought I understood the construct of behavioral health; I looked it up on Wikipedia any way.
“In psychology, behavioral health is a general concept that refers to the reciprocal relationship between human behavior, individually or socially, and the well-being of the body, mind, and spirit whether the latter are considered individually or as an integrated whole.”
Since my prostate surgery in 2011, I have a new and profound understanding of behavioral health in regard to the body, mind and spirit at the individual and social levels as never before. Body and mind are the easy constructs; spirit is a more difficult idea to apply.
I should pause here to offer a standard disclaimer that these views are my own and do not represent those of any group to which I am associated.
Addressing the spirit
If the fire service wants behavioral health to help ensure everyone goes home, somebody needs to look at spirit as a way to significantly reduce our occupational risks, injuries and deaths.
Humans learn the construct of the lie very early in life; we do it our entire life, some better than others, and we may need the lie to be human. The lie is so common we may not know we are doing it.
One of the most powerful, funny, and disturbing movies ever is “The Invention of Lying.” It shows what society would be like if we did not have lying, how lying was accidently discovered, and the power lying can have when used for good or bad.
Lying has its place from the Tooth Fairy to, “You look good, did you lose weight?” Or in a not-so-good application from, “I did not have sex with that woman” to “God told me to kill in his name.”
If you are still reading, your next question is: “Clark, what the hell does this have to do with seatbelts?” Glad you asked.
On seatbelts
In 2012, nine firefighters and EMTs died in crashes without their seatbelts on.
NFPA 1500 requires all firefighters to be seated and belted when the apparatus moves. Every state governor and state legislator will tell you their firefighters’ safety is important to them.
Yet, 18 states exempt firefighters and EMS personnel from seatbelt laws — even the federal motor coach law exempts firefighters and EMTs when responding. If safety is important, why permit by law, unsafe behavior?
Can a state say that firefighter behavioral health is important if the state law exempts them from using seatbelts? Is this some level of lie, even if unconscious or unintended? Once this issue is realized and not fixed does, the level of lie increase?
Tales from the street
At the beginning of this year, I had the privilege to attend a high-level meeting related to firefighter behavior and safety culture. All the major fire service organizations were represented at the meeting.
The facilitator told a story of when he rode out with a metro fire department, explaining that seatbelts were not used. On a subsequent ride, there was no seat in the reserve apparatus, so the visitor rode on a milk crate — seatbelts were again not used.
I then told the story of a West Point Cadet who rode out with this same fire department; he too did not use the seatbelt all the time, just like the firefighters.
I asked my colleagues sitting around the table which organization will inform the fire chief of this department that their seatbelt policy is not being enforced and the fire department is not in compliance with national firefighter safety standards?
No one volunteered.
I struggled with this issue for a couple of weeks and asked friends for advice. Finely, I worked up the courage to write a personal letter to the fire chief and the three presidents of the employee labor organizations. It has been more than one month and I have not received any replies to my letters.
All the major fire service organizations say that firefighter behavior health is important and spend millions of dollar on training programs, CDs, videos, and printed and online materials. All of which are important products that can lead to behavioral health.
But, they could not write a letter.
Accepting the lie
If we see a wrong and do not try to fix it, is there some level of lie attacking the wellbeing of the body, mind, and spirit of our behavioral health quest? If there is a firefighter occupational death due to an unworn seatbelt in this fire department there will be a lot of finger pointing.
Saving our own is an inside job that starts in the fire truck. Capt. Tucker Palmatier is my hero; the inside story (see sidebar) is in his own words.
Seatbelts are just one example. Behavioral health is related to every behavior a firefighter does — from lighting a cigarette to taking SCBA off during overhaul, from going through a red light without stopping to running into a burning building without an attack line, from not reporting a seatbelt violation to receiving a medal of valor despite several safety SOP violations.
What level of lie does the fire service accept, consciously or unconsciously, about firefighter behavioral health and safety doctrine?
Captain Palmatier’s actions represent the highest example of behavioral health courage and valor. I encourage some organization to give him an award for exemplary fire service wellbeing of the body, mind and spirit. Or at the very least, write him a thank you letter for getting us not to lie about seatbelts.
Telling the truth will increase the spirit of firefighter behavioral health and get us one click closer to Everyone Goes Home. Ask this question for one of your drills during Safety and Health week: “Do we tell the truth?”
About the author:
Dr. Burton A. Clark has been in the fire service for 42 years. During that time he was a firefighter/EMT in Washington, D.C.; Prince George’s, Carroll, and Frederick Counties in Maryland; assistant chief in Laurel, Md.; instructor trainer for the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute; and operations chief for DHS/FEMA during presidential emergency and disaster declarations. He is the Management Science Program chair at the National Fire Academy and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University Center for Injury Research and Policy.
In 2008, he received a Japan Public Health Association Foreign Scientists Fellowship to lecture on the incident command system as related to Pandemic Flu. He has worked on 13 doctoral dissertation committees, has a bachelor of science is in business administration from Strayer University, a master of arts in curriculum and instruction from Catholic University, and Ed.D. in adult education from Nova Southeastern University.
He studied fire science at Montgomery College, emergency management at the Emergency Management Institute, national security at the National Defense University, and is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program. He is a nationally certified Fire Officer Four, past chief fire officer designee, and EMT-B. Burt writes, lectures, and teaches fire service research, safety, and professional development worldwide.