By Mike Hendricks
The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three and a half years after a young, inexperienced fire truck driver killed three people in a crash in Westport, and weeks after the city refused a payout for him, the Kansas City Fire Department has initiated a formal driver training program.
Like most of his peers over the past couple of decades at least, Dominic Biscari was in the process of learning to drive a 40,000-pound fire truck on the job when he ran a red light at full throttle while behind the wheel of Pumper 19 on Dec. 15, 2021.
The big rig hit a compact SUV that had the green light and was passing through the intersection at Broadway Boulevard and Westport Road. The impact killed the SUV’s two occupants, as well as a woman who was on the sidewalk. Her body was recovered hours afterwards from beneath the wreckage of a building that was also damaged in the crash.
The new training program is meant to prevent future tragedies like the one that haunts the victims’ families, ruined Biscari’s career and cost Kansas City taxpayers millions of dollars.
From now on, young firefighters who want to fill in as drivers on their way to becoming fully certified in that job will have classroom and hands-on training during a 40-hour course of instruction, the Kansas City Fire Department announced this week.
During a news conference on Thursday in the parking lot of the American Royal, Deputy Chief Steven Shaumeyer said the driver training program for “working out of class” (fire department lingo for filling in for someone in a more senior position) was part of an overall increase in emphasis on professional development within the department by his boss, Chief Ross Grundyson.
Response to fatal crash?
Shaumeyer would not respond directly to repeated questions as to whether the new training had any direct connection to the Westport crash, which in addition to the lives lost cost the city $3.6 million in settlements paid to the victims and owner of the damaged building.
And that bill could rise. The city recently refused to approve a more than $900,000 settlement to Biscari to settle a legal dispute over the fire department’s failed attempt to fire him. An arbitrator ruled that his termination was unwarranted, in part, because the department allowed firefighters to drive fire trucks without formal training.
The city took steps to terminate Biscari after he pleaded guilty while maintaining his innocence (what’s known as an Alford plea) to three counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2023 and was sentenced to probation.
Shaumeyer said it was “not within my purview” to discuss whether the new training course might have helped prevent the Westport accident or others and changed the subject to discuss the broader training program.
“Chief Grundyson, two years ago, set a big goal of expanding professional development within the KCFD,” said Shaumeyer, who heads that division within the department. “We’ve added approximately 15 people to our division, and so we’ve expanded training throughout the department.”
Atop the list is training for firefighters who want to work as apprentice drivers when no certified driver is available. As Shaumeyer outlined the program to reporters, eight young men who graduated from the department’s academy within the past two years stood in a half circle across the parking lot.
They were gathered around Capt. John Young as he lectured from the bucket of ladder truck No. 2 about a driver’s responsibilities on arriving at a fire scene.
On-the-job training
In years past, they would have been learning those skills on the job from a certified fire apparatus operator (FAOs for short) or captain on their crew during their regular shifts, Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins said.
“Once the firefighter’s captain was satisfied with the abilities of the individual, they were sent down to the academy to take a protocols test and perform a practical operation test for the apparatus they were getting certified to drive,” said Hopkins, the department’s public information officer, said in an emailed response to a reporter’s question.
A pumper truck takes certain skills, and a ladder truck others. A hook and ladder, with drivers on the front and back, is even more complicated.
The new “core competency course,” Hopkins said, ensures greater uniformity in the training, as each captain might have different standards.
Shaumeyer said training has also been beefed up for firefighters who want to someday be promoted to the rank of captain. New training courses will better equip them to fill in while working out of class as leaders of the four-person crews that captains command on each fire truck.
Same with better training for captains who want to be promoted to become one of the battalion chiefs who oversee multiple fire crews.
Federal requirements lacking
There are no federal minimum standards for fire truck drivers, nor are they required to have a commercial driver’s license as one would need to drive big commercial trucks.
Neither does Missouri have requirements, but the state’s Department of Public Safety says “it is essential that all fire departments utilize properly trained driver/operators who meet all pertinent requirements” set out by the National Fire Protection Association, which is a fire service industry group.
The Missouri Division of Fire Safety requires that drivers finish a training course based on those NFPA standards before taking a state certification exam..
Some states do have laws setting out strict requirements for training. Many other fire departments have voluntarily adopted formal training programs.
Federal fire safety officials say formal training is necessary because fire trucks are heavy and race to emergencies through regular traffic, posing danger to civilians and firefighters alike.
“On average, vehicle crashes are the second leading cause of firefighter line-of-duty deaths,” according to the federal Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Program.
Firefighters often die because they are not wearing seat belts at the time of the crash, despite requirements they do so, because they are putting on their gear en route to a fire. Or they leave them off because they believe removing a seat belt will slow their exit from the vehicle on an emergency call, the fatality investigation program says.
But serious crashes also occur that take lives and cause grievous injuries, even when everyone is strapped in. A Kansas City firefighter lost part of his leg while trying to avoid a crash 14 years ago. Several motorists and pedestrians have died or been seriously injured in crashes with Kansas City Fire Department trucks in the past two decades.
Shaumeyer assured reporters that the current training program complies with current NFPA guidelines.
“This is meeting the new national standards that were updated in 2024 as part of NFPA 1010, which is a standard for professional qualifications for firefighter and fire apparatus operators,” he said. “It is meant to make our drivers safer and better able to increase the capacity of the department and increase our proficiency in what we do.”
Asked why KCFD was slow to initiate a formal driver training program when other departments adopted them long ago, Shaumeyer provided only a partial answer.
“We always are looking to increase our training overall,” he said. “You know, I can’t speak to what other fire departments do and how they train them, but we are doing this so that we are meeting the new national standards.”
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