SHOP TALK (SPECIAL)

Less than 48 hours after the city of Flint, Mich., laid off 22 firefighters and cut operations at two local fire stations, an alarm sounded for a house fire on Bennett Avenue.

Though cutbacks had idled the ladder and water truck at Station No. 5, its crew still was closer than any other, so Mark Kovach and two colleagues sped toward the burning structure less than 2 miles away in the station’s equipment vehicle.

Kovach says they arrived at a chaotic scene where neighbors were frantically directing attention to the second floor where a 47-year-old man with a heart condition was trapped.

With no ladder and no water, Kovach and a partner attempted, then quickly aborted, a rescue mission that nearly killed them, he said. When they dived out of the inferno, Kovach’s helmet and jacket were in flames, but there wasn’t even water to “put me out.” LINK

Kovach now says that the department cutbacks, specifically the lack of water, slowed the unsuccessful rescue effort at the eastside home, where the homeowner was killed and three firefighters, including Kovach, suffered second-degree burns.

BY: CAPTAINAMERICA

PART ONE OF TWO-  This post took on a life of it’s own so I did it in two parts. This is not a criticism of PFD command, as I believe they would not make any unsafe department budget cuts unless forced to. It is essentially an assessment of where we are at this time.

It was a slow night for us at work one shift this week. The city was really quiet. It was probably due to our recent wet weather. It’s been raining like Seattle for two weeks here. That all changed about 3 AM.

It’s amazing how quiet even a big city like Philly can be at that hour. The streets are clear and even the heart of the normally bustling downtown is eerily quiet. It’s like a Will Smith disaster movie sometimes. No humans left on Earth.

The house lights went on and before I knew where I was I found myself in the front of our truck heading toward the highway for a reported motor vehicle accident. As I shook the cobwebs out of my foggy head, I opened the truck window to let in some cool morning air. Only our sirens could be heard. Even the radio was quiet. I began to focus on what carnage we might find at this hour of the morning on a lonely crosstown expressway.

When we rounded the rising curve we could see the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars about a half mile ahead. Sometimes just finding the wreck on our network of highways with the multiple on and off ramps can be a challenge. People call in accidents from their cell phones and by the time they give the location they can be miles away from the crash site. Getting the location right can literally mean the difference between life and death for someone who is seriously injured. Giving us the wrong direction can send us miles out of our way wasting precious time – as anyone who ever missed an exit on the interstate can relate to.

This time we nailed it with the help of the police. When we arrived we had a two-car accident but only one injury. The one person injured was unconscious with a serious head injury. There was a good amount of blood from the area of the injury and debris scattered across the roadway. Luckily we had our own ambulance with us due to it being a slow night. This night the victim wouldn’t have to wait.

We secured the scene and helped the medics package and get the person into the ambulance. The victim was lucky the accident happened in America. Within ten minutes, (he / she) would arrive in a trauma center and get state of the art medical treatment – no questions asked.

I said it was a slow night because that was our only call. It required one ambulance, one engine and one ladder as well as the police. One call doesn’t sound like a lot, and quite frankly for us it isn’t. We are more used to responding to a half a dozen calls per shift.

Some people in city government love to use statistics to slash emergency services. That is not only shortsighted, but foolhardy as the above article about Flint Michigan points out. After a tragedy, the City Fathers always seem to find the money to restore the cuts they shouldn’t have made to begin with.

We are seeing an epic of public safety cuts going on across the country these days. Budgetary shortfalls are being blamed for unsafe public safety cuts across the board. Yet we hear almost no in-depth reporting from the MSM about the impact these cuts will have on the life and safety of our cities and towns. Somewhere along the line they have forgotten that public safety is supposed to be a budget priority, not a liability. Nowadays, public safety budgets are viewed by the politicians and bean counters as impediments to their social experimentation and engineering. Emergency services are viewed as ripe for cutting.

Philadelphia is a dramatic example. Nearly a quarter of its population live at or below the poverty line. It has a FOUR BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET. Last year it had one of the highest murder rates in the country. Yet despite these problems, Philly is still one of the most livable cities in the country. It has major assets that most cities can only dream of. Location, entertainment, employment potential, arts, culture, educational institutions, etc. make Philly a city that is perennially close to being truly world class.

But despite all our potential, Philly suffers from malignant government ineptitude, corruption and terminal shortsightedness. You can’t be a world class city if people are getting murdered, dying needlessly in car wrecks or having their lives, businesses and homes destroyed by fire.

CONTINUED IN PART TWO.