Fire & EMS Leader Pro The job of old firefighters is to teach young firefighters how to become old firefighters!

So, how much do you know about FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) as an employee? As a supervisor? If you’ve answered, “Not much” in either capacity, there’s a potential for real trouble “down the road.”

My hearing loss is for certain sounds in the high frequency range of speech; for me those sounds are predominantly th, s, f, and ch. Who knew that the sounds for different letters and letter combinations come out of our mouths at different frequencies? Did you?

In the words of noted public safety risk reduction expert, Gordon Graham, “Predictable is preventable.” What are you and your family doing to prepare yourselves to “rough it” when a disaster strikes your community? Don’t just think about it. Do something about it!

The firefighter diagnosed with colon cancer today may have first been exposed 15 to 20 years ago (1998 to 2003). What did we know then? How well were we protecting ourselves then? These are questions that should be scaring the hell out of firefighters. They do me because my career spanned the years 1982 to 2007!

Said Wheldon, who has worked with firefighters in her private psychology practice, “In my own work, and in speaking with other psychologists who’ve treated firefighters, I’ve come to learn that that firefighters are different. They’re different from police officers, who I’ve also worked with, and they’re the general public. And I think they need a different kind of psychologist. They deserve a different kind of psychologist.”

Until I went the following year to a specialist who understood autoimmune issues and said that the previous tests were incomplete as most docs do not understand how to test for the full thyroid spectrum.  My former male fire officer [with Aurora Fire Department] also has Hashimoto's (though it’s much more common in women) and I know women firefighters that have had thyroid cancer as well as Sjogren's syndrome—a really terrible autoimmune disease, worse than Hashimoto's.

This is not some “pipe dream” of mine. There is such a system and it’s been available for the better part of the last five years. It’s the Fire-ED Interactive System developed by my colleague Tracy Last. And if you don’t know Tracy and the Fire-ED Interactive System, then you don’t know fire and life safety education for the 21st century.

They learn that to truly be successful in this career—especially for a woman—you have to be physically fit and mentally sharp at all times. ‘Cause as a firefighter you’ve always got to have your eyes and ears open and taking it all in, and if you don’t you could get yourself or someone else seriously injured or killed.

Do any of you know a firefighter who’s completed an Ironman Triathlon in full PPE with an SCBA unit on their back? I do, and her name is Diana Woolf. Check out her story here and see why she does it.

Chief Avsec highlights the importance for scholarship and research in the fire service with this post that features a new research paper from Firefighter Lydia Wilcox on the topic of women entering the fire service in Ontario, Canada.