A question posted recently on Quora asked, “How do firefighters view LODDs?”, Firefighter Tom Knecht gave his opinion on the topic below. Check it out and add your own thoughts in the comments.
Every time I hear of not just a LODD but even a serious injury, my heart sinks. On the second training session in my career, at the young age of 15 as a fire explorer, we were shown a very graphic but valuable movie of firefighters dying or being seriously injured. The lesson was “Don’t take unnecessary risks. Risk little to save a little, risk more to save a lot; but always provide for safety first.”
I came very close to dying once. It was during a flood and I was near swift moving water. I wasn’t paying attention to my footing and fell in. My partner caught me by my boot. I’m certain I would have drowned had he not caught me.
And what would I have died for? We were just trying to divert some water to protect houses.
Homes get rebuilt. Businesses start again. The grass and trees grow back. Even if people are dying, or near death ... We didn’t start this emergency. It is better to help hundreds, nay thousands, of people with our training and experience than throw our lives away on a single event.
Every fire goes out, because of or in spite of our efforts. Every firefighter death is a tragedy. We honor our dead and are proud of our profession, but there is nothing but sadness and mourning about a firefighter dying.
