Transcript of Everyone Goes Home: Promoting Firefighter Safety through FESHE

Voice of Denis Onieal:

     You see a sacrifice is what those who are honored here made on the last day of their life. It was everything they had, and they gave it willingly.  Honoring the living as we do here this morning is the least that the rest of us can do.       
     
Voice of Ed Kaplan:

     The Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education program or FESHE started in 1998 with a small group of people that the National Fire Academy brought together to basically lay out what does the National Fire  Academy need to do to reach out to the colleges and universities that offer fire science degree programs around the country. At that meeting they devised the participants devised a mission statement, and in essence, the mission statement is the idea that post secondary institutions will promote higher education for the fire service  to enhance the fire service as a profession and perhaps, most importantly, to reduce the  loss of life and property  due to fire. And over the years, our first conference, we call it National FESHE Conference was held in 1999. Every year since then, we've had conferences that have built on previous year's accomplishments.  And as a result, we have seen great products that have come out of these conferences for the purposes of the colleges and universities to adopt.  
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:
     
     The principal goals of FESHE is to standardize the fire science curriculums across the country so that when an employer or when a fire department hires someone with a degree, they'll know what that degree means. If you go to an engineering school, mechanical engineering degree means the same thing in Kansas as it does in Florida. A medical degree in Boston means the same thing as a medical degree in California. And a nursing degree in Washington State means the same thing as a nursing degree in Ohio. In the fire service we dont yet enjoy that privilege. We have a number of degrees around the country but in each place, they study different things and they achieve different goals, and what FESHE's primary objective is, is to make sure that everybody's studying the same things-that they have the same basic knowledge, the same basic skills and the best understanding or the best practice of understanding what the research in the field is. 
     
Voice of Narrator:

     On December third, 1999, the Worcester, Massachusetts fire department responded to a call of a fire at an abandoned cold storage warehouse. After receiving report that two homeless people may still be inside the burning warehouse, several firefighters entered the building to begin search and rescue. 
     
Voice of John Sullivan:
     
     The Worcester fire department had no thermal imaging cameras. Our search and rescue, large area search and rescue techniques were very limited. We didn't really understand the scope of what we were trying to accomplish. 
     
Voice of Narrator:

     Six firefighters lost their lives in the Worcester cold storage fire. My life changed completely that night. 
     
Voice of John Sullivan:

     My life, my personal life, and my life as a fire officer, changed completely that night.  I don't believe anybody thought they were invincible; but we certainly weren't expecting what happened to us to happen to us. And it became very real very quickly  and very succinctly  it became real. As a fire officer, my my focus is always on the safety of the firefighters. 
     
Voice of Ron Siarnicki:
     
     In 2004, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation added to its mission the importance of preventing firefighter fatalities. And before that, we really just honored fallen firefighters and assisted their families. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that because that's our critical mission. But we felt the need to work at preventing firefighter fatalities as well. Each year there's a hundred plus firefighters that died in the line of duty and we felt the need to do something to change that. So we developed the Everyone Goes Home program. 16 firefighter life safety initiatives that address the blue print for making a change in the fire service to make it safer and to reduce line of duty deaths. 
     
Voice of Ed Kaplan:
     
     In 2005, Chief Siarnicki, the Executive Director of the Foundation, gave the keynote speech at the at our annual FESHE Conference. And he spoke at the 16 firefighter life safety initiatives and the programs of the foundation. At that point we had probably 100 people in the audience, people representing fire science degree programs most of who were firefighters and fire officers themselves. We had state fire training people, we had local training officers, we had fire chiefs in the audience and there wasn't a single person in that auditorium who didn't understand what his intentions and what his goals were for the foundation. 
     
Voice of Ron Siarnicki:
     
     Through the foundation's efforts to reduce line of duty deaths, 16 firefighter life safety initiatives were developed from a national summit that was held in Tampa in  2004. Program entitled, Everyone Goes Home, encapsulates those 16 initiatives and an array of other programs related to reducing line of duty deaths.  
     
Voice of Ed Kaplan:     
     
     And our audience responded with passion and a commitment that I have rarely seen in my many years here at the Fire Academy. And what they committed to at that conference was the idea they were going to do whatever they could to change the culture of the fire service as it relates to firefighter safety, through education. That was the piece that they knew the piece of the puzzle that they knew was missing. 
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:     
     
     If you look at the differences between education and training. Training is about history, about the perfection of technique. Education is about knowing. Education is about dealing with the environment, dealing with the future. And in today's very complex society and complex communities, the fire service needs those education tools to help them better deliver services to the American public.  
     
Voice of John Sullivan:
     
     We're still an aggressive career oriented fire professional fire service and none of that changed. What has changed is, at least for me, my view of the big picture - understanding better the the ramifications of every minute decision that you make.  
     
Voice of Ron Siarnicki:
     
     Since then we have been  working with FESHE to develop higher education programs, outreach, and most importantly a knowledge base within the  fire service to understand what that blueprint is all about and how we can work together as  partners to increase the awareness of firefighter safety, well being, and most of all  survivability and by working with FESHE we have been able to reach out to a larger audience dealing with the higher education component to say there is a way that we can make this happen. A reduction of firefighter fatalities of 50% over the next ten years through knowledge and information, through learning, and through education. 
    
Voice of John Sullivan:
     
     It's no question there is no question that a firefighter who is well rounded both in training and education, will make better decisions on the fire ground. They will be more aware of their environment because they will have had a broader opportunity to study things like building construction and fire behavior, and principles of combustion, and all of the the higher level learning that comes in the education side that can now augment that training that they received as a firefighter in their, you know, beginning stages and recruit school and also through their developmental training and proficiency training on the department.   That broadening of the knowledge base by the education component and FESHE's initiatives is instrumental in especially the Fire Officers but everybody on the fire ground. Having that prerequisite common sense approach that can only be obtained by having that broader based knowledge than what an essentials type of training environment is going to give you. Experience, training, education all  have to come together in order to make that well rounded, well disciplined  firefighter and the Everybody Goes Home campaign is about raising  awareness. It's about making sure that all firefighters have what they need physically, in the equipment, but also mentally. That they're sharp. They  understand the consequences of their actions, they understand the  consequences of their peers actions on their actions  and the broader scope the higher level, if you will, learning that goes on with education gives them a much better chance of making correct decisions, more often. The fire ground is always going to be a dynamic place. It's always going to have factors that are unforeseen or unpredictable.  
     
Voice of Ed Kaplan:
     
     And so thanks to the foundation, we have have done several things. One is brought to the academic programs the importance of Everyone Goes Home and what it takes to make that happen.  Secondly, they have provided us the curriculum to do that through their funding. 
     
Voice of Ron Siarnicki:     
     
     The whole theory is that at the end of the day, the end of the shift, the end of the visit to the fire station, firefighters should pack up and go home to their families. So they can return the next day to serve their community. And that's where the title of Everyone   Goes Home, comes from. It's designed to bring into awareness all the elements that are affected when decisions are made on the fire ground and that affect on the family unit and the fire service. And sometimes we as firefighters don't always realize that. We're thinking about providing those services. We're thinking about responding to that emergency, but we don't always think about the consequences of some of our decisions.  And what happens is the families are the ones that are left to go on. 
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick

     When Kenny was killed, I never imagined, I never imagined what it would be like to lose a child. It has been several years since that incident.  The pain is there, and the pain will always be there. I have developed what some call a new normal life. My life prior to Kenny's death was normal, since then I've had to develop a new normal without him. It has been very difficult.  
     
Voice of Ed Kaplan     
     
     And third, they worked with us in creating what we call the FESHE node on the walk of honor.  
     
Voice of Denis Onieal     
     
     I just want to commend all of you for taking the time and effort and putting the money up to dedicate a node of bricks to this memorial walk. And I just want to share with a few thoughts because my office is over here, and everyday I walk this walk and I walk over these bricks and it's a very important place to me mentally and emotionally. We all have friends who are honored here, and there's a reverence and a solace to this place that can be found nowhere else on campus. It's a good place to think and remember. Eleven friends of mine were memorialized on September 11th with the collapse of the World Trade Center. In 1993, I gave a friend of mine firefighter Carlos Nagron an order at a fire and he was killed trying to accomplish it. At his funeral, another friend of mine came up to offer his condolences to me. His name was Lewis Sheets. And that night he was killed in a fire when a chimney collapsed and hit him in the head. This memorial is the great equalizer. There are no stars next to anyones name. They are all equal, neither braver nor less brave. None ranks higher or lower, no big cities and no small towns. They are all equal. And the reason they are all equal is that each of them gave everything they had. This walk on the other hand that you're going to dedicate and you're going to contribute to, in my mind is a different place. While the memorial is about the deceased, this walk is about the living.  This walk isn't so much about the heroes; this walk is about the survivors. 
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick     
     
     The pain is always there. His memory is always there. He is with me everyday. But it has been made a little easier to deal with, in some respects, through the National Firefighters Foundation and their efforts in their fire service survivors' network. The survivors in each state in this country come together and support each other either through phone calls, e-mails, letters, notes, cards. And we come back together again each October at the National Memorial Services weekend. 
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:        
     
     You see, each brick here represents something. Every brick represents the care that one living person has for another living person.  Every brick represents a spouse who received counseling or a family who was otherwise unable to attend the annual memorial service.  
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick:       
     
     When I first came to Emmitsburg, when Kenny was honored here at the Memorial, we were offered group sessions the Saturday prior to the national memorial, and I thought okay I'll go. Another counseling session, it can't hurt. What I didn't understand was they broke the families up into different groups according to their relationship to the firefighter. So I was actually put in a room with other mothers. My husband was put in a room with other fathers. My mom, Kenny's grandmother, was given the opportunity to be put in a room with extended family, other grandparents. It was the first time in almost 18 months that I was able to be in a room with people who truly understand what I had gone through. I didn't have the fear of I'm gonna break down and cry. If I did in that room, they're not going to say, "Why are you crying?" They understood. That began my journey of healing. 
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:      
     
     If you take a few of these bricks and put them together,  that represents a  surviving child who was able to get a scholarship or perhaps a counseling project the size of the Foundation's  New York City response in September of 2001.  A brick represents a mom or a dad who knows that their child is going to be remembered everyday by the staff who work here and the students who study here. 
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick:     
     
     As a mom of a fallen firefighter and as a member of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation my message is:  Do everything you can to learn, to train about your profession. Knowledge is the key to reducing firefighter fatalities in this country, and I think I want you to know that through that education and through your support of each other and through the support of the families everyone will be able to go home at the end of their shift.  
     
Voice of John Sullivan:     
     
     The techniques that we would use today in order to affect that search and rescue would be dramatically different. We would have a much better handle on the scope of what it is we were trying to accomplish. It would be sort of corded off from the fire itself and a separate command would be set up for just search and rescue. Instead of we had one chief who was pretty much trying to do both things at the same time. The coordination would be much better. That's all as a result of the fact that our techniques were much better.  We know how to do it safer, quicker, more effectively than we did at the time. So if I had the same resources, the same knowledge, the same everything today that I had then, I can say that we, and myself, probably wouldn't do too many things different than we did that night. But today we have a lot of new, better equipment, resources, knowledge, experience, certainly, so we would do a lot of things a lot of things different.  
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:     
     
     So when I walk across this walk everyday, and look to the memorial, the memorial to me is an inter sanctum. In Latin, that's sancti, sanctorum the holy of holy places but the walk is a way of exuberance and of life. The place, this walk is a place is a place where there is a future and there are accomplishments and there are giving of helping hands in every section. So when you see this walk, or the searching for names, remember to quietly say thanks to the people who donated a brick. Use the monument to remind yourself that there are people in our profession who took a moment to honor the dead but actually made a personal sacrifice to help the living and the survivors.  
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick:  

     We felt such a support and actually felt the fire service wrap their arms around us. It was such a good feeling, it was healing for us that survivors came back in numbers every year. 
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:       
     
     You see a sacrifice is what those who are honored here made on the last day of their life.  It was everything they had. And they gave it willingly.
     
Voice of Cathy Hedrick:       
     
     My son Kenny was killed in a house fire attempting search and rescue. During that time that was probably and is the most difficult time in my life. Kenny wanted nothing more than to be a good firefighter and he had accomplished that.  That was his career, those were his goals. That's why he was going to school. That was the purpose of all his training.  
     
Voice of Denis Onieal:      
     
     Honoring the living as we do here this morning is the least that the rest of us can do.