Most people envision a firefighter looking like the first image - strong, muscular, and wearing all the necessary protective gear. Those with experience however, might think of someone different - perhaps more similar to the second picture. However unlikely, no one likely imagines a firefighter who looks like me. At 18 years of age, I pursued a career in firefighting through Cardiff and have now been operating this service for the past 17 years. During this time, I have acquired an impressive rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner in London Fire Brigade. I may not fit the traditional firefighter image, and I often had to challenge that stereotype throughout my time as a firefighter. However, this freedom to be different has been incredibly empowering. Because of this liberty, I have been able to redefine existing boundaries and create my own rules related to firefighter safety.
Close your eyes and imagine your home. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to hold hands or sing Kumbaya. Instead, just spend a minute with me and contemplate the warm feeling of being home. Coming home after a long day and seeing the faces of the loved ones at the door brings a sense of joy. Stepping inside your home, one is enveloped with a feeling of comfort. Everywhere you look, on the walls of your home are memories: the spot where your kids first took steps, where granny celebrated a birthday, or where your old dog used to sit as a puppy. It's not just a flat or a room - it's YOUR home. My own home is full of sentimental trinkets, books and stuff toys, making it a special place for my little girl. She also thinks of it as her own and I am too sentimental to throw any of these items away. These things together with the memories we’ve shared in them make this place our home. Your home, your memories, and your life - it can all be gone in a moment anyway. It's a situation that I have witnessed countless times throughout my career. Gone just like that. In the middle of the night, standing disbelievingly and watching on the roadside you saw how those flames ruthlessly destroyed the home you pictured and held dear. Picture two people, both of you wrapped up in blankets, surrounded by acrid smoke, their faces full of emotion as they look at what once was. The pavements are cold against your bare feet and the tears roll down your face as the dump color of your pajama shirt sticks to your neck. Despite this, at least you got out - not like the nine-thousand people a year who get trapped in fires, the equivalent of the population of St. Ives.
The intense heat sears your lungs, and the heavy black smoke chokes you. Despite your cries for help, your coughing makes them sound stifled and desperate. The taste of the smoke clings to you, settling on the back of your tongue like an acrid reminder. Terrified and lost, what if this was our last birthday or last laugh together? How would you feel right now? Hopeless, perhaps. Desperately hearing my name get called out, you sense the presence of someone you love outside the house - longing for a sign that you're still alive. Every year, in the UK, people rely on firefighters to save them- approximately 700,000 times. Individuals trapped inside burning buildings or in crashed cars or struggling to stay afloat in lakes seek assistance from them. Firefighters tirelessly rush to reunite individuals with their family members and to ensure their safety.
Firefighters are essential to us, as they face life-threatening danger in order to protect and save lives. As a commander, I am responsible for ensuring that the correct personnel were placed in the right place at the right time - entrusting them with this huge responsibility is an honor. Last year, nine thousand one hundred two hundred and sixteen people were trapped in fires and firefighters responded to the rescue: providing a symbol of hope, relief and an escape route - being the last thing standing between a dying breath and another day. Out of these very same people, eight thousand eight hundred ninety were saved. What drives us to run in when everyone else is running out? It is our awareness of the inherent risks associated with our job. We know that it can be dangerous, and that sometimes we put more than just our own lives in danger. In moments of fear, grief, and loss, we felt real sympathy for those who were like us; the strength to push through adversity coming from the sight of their pain. Smoke, heat and darkness often surrounds us, but this serves as an inspiration to keep going. Firefighters promise to do their best to help you find a way out of any situation - even at the cost of their own safety. We want to ensure firefighters remain safe, so they can protect you - that is our responsibility. Our experience and some dangerous moments have taught us that we are not invincible - fear and flaws, despite our instinct to survive in tough conditions, remain a part of us. No matter how hard we try, sometimes our limitations hurt us. In England, a total of 2516 firefighters were injured while on duty last year. This is the equivalent of 32 double-decker buses full of professionals and sadly 130 had sustained major injuries.
Nearly 15 years ago, I had made a powerful memory of the first time I witnessed a colleague get injured in a fire and that experience was instrumental in propelling an extensive research program focused on advancing firefighter safety. Before Mike and I got married, we were both firefighters at neighboring stations. Now, we are husband and wife with a daughter, Gabriella. I was on a crew that was dispatched to an emergency involving a firefighter who had been severely burned. There was only one fire engine at the scene, which made me realize there was a one-in-four chance it could be my friend Mike. The bells were ringing and two men were huddled around the teleprinter, all of them appearing surprised, as I entered the appliance base. I could tell something wasn't right due to the expressions on their faces as they studied a piece of paper. I was about to leave, pulling on my boots and buckling the braces over my shoulders, when a murmur of voices caught my attention; though I couldn't make out what was being said, I felt strangely disconnected—like I was in a movie and the camera circled around me. Every day I saw people living out their ordinary lives; people who awoke to corn flakes and a normal routine, yet never knew how quickly their world could be turned upside down. On this day, that thought struck me- would such a thing happen to me? The four-and-a-half minute journey seemed like the longest of my life. Worries raced through my mind, as I thought about Mike - was it really him? Was he injured or scared? I struggled to reconcile myself with the dual roles of a concerned lover and a trained responder.
When I got off the truck, I noticed a pair of legs sticking out from beneath a group of firefighters wearing soot-covered kneed pads. All that could be heard was someone in agony groaning. At that moment, I thought I was going to be sick; however, when Mike rose up, my relief was immense and the scene before me changed drastically. Rushing towards the throng with a medical kit and oxygen tank held firmly in my grasp, I attempted to stifle my tears by clamping down so hard on my lip that a scar remains even today. Taking on what firemen are trained to do, we as a team took control of the situation. For a long time, that incident weighed heavily on me with a huge sense of guilt because I had felt relief that Mike wasn't hurt but someone else was. Even though he was our friend and colleague, this man had been severely injured and I struggled to come to terms with it. Crossing my fingers and hoping it wasn't Mike, in the end someone else's family got the dreaded phone call. They had to experience months of recovery along with tears, anger and ultimately rebuilding their loved ones life. Mike and I were both lucky enough to avoid that but for someone else this was a reality. Whose responsibility is it then to prioritize firefighter safety so that they can concentrate on protecting us? This is an important question, especially in light of incidents like the one described. It is essential that procedures are in place to keep firefighters safe and prevent any similar situations from occurring.
80% of firefighter injuries are attributed to human error, which is the equivalent of 25 double-decker buses. Interestingly, this figure highlights how even a small mistake can have large consequences. It is thought that 80% of injuries are not a result of a malfunctioning piece of equipment, insufficient policy, or an incorrect procedure - but rather from human error. People were getting hurt due to misjudged decisions that resulted from a failure to process information correctly. These wrong choices occurring in the wrong place at the wrong time caused serious injuries for many. The reality of this unfortunate situation was and still is too incredible to ignore. Sometimes, human error is not a representation of an individual's skill set but rather a reflection of their circumstances or just the basic limits of being human. Consequently, don't dismiss these lapses since they are often unavoidable. When working in high pressure, highly stressful situations, human error can affect the effectiveness of decisions made in the fire service. To improve our chances of making required decisions accurately, we need to understand what causes human error and how to mitigate them.
Being human requires understanding our boundaries so that we can expand them. By exploring what it means to be a human, we can strive to become more than what's expected of us. It became clear that fire safety was a critical, high-risk area which had not seen the same attention as other industries such as medicine and aviation when it came to reducing human error. Knowing how important this was, I decided I wouldn't just stay idle - but instead take an active role in making progress. At age 15, while I was homeless, I decided to make my own way through life - plowing my own furrow. I took my GCSEs and final exams while sleeping rough and relied on the Big Issue for nourishment. This continued for a few years until I had just enough to eat every day. At 18 years old, I had to put my education on hold, so I joined the fire service. Although I lacked the proper qualifications to do something meaningful at first, I kept persevering and eventually managed to make a positive contribution. A behavioral neuroscience PhD from Cardiff University was the outcome of my journey, which began with a psychology degree from the Open University; all done part-time while I maintained full-time service. I worked very hard, particularly since I had a child while doing so. Nevertheless, I was adamant to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Therefore, I decided to research SIRT (Selective internal radiation therapy) and how it utilizes queues when making decisions in various situations.
For up to 10 years, our research group at Cardiff University has been closely examining the judgments made by leading officers in the field. These judgments are not made in a lab setting but instead the decisions are being studied in their true environment while they take part in real-life operations, aiming to potentially save lives. We've worked hard in the field, breaking apart people's decisions and reconstructing them with virtual reality at training grounds - even going so far as to burn down old buildings - all in the name of science. Now, we know the results of our work are only getting better. It was often believed that decisions made at incidents were the result of analytical reflection. However, recent evidence suggests that many of these decisions are actually driven by intuition rather than careful consideration. The processes associated with the brain are distinct and separate; they occur in different areas. These processes can be divided into two categories: those that happen in one part of the brain, and those that take place in another. Our policies only acknowledged analytical decisions, even though these decisions happened only 20% of the time. After we did this work, our models were used to retrospectively evaluate how accurate our decision were 100% of the time.
Using analytical processes is an important part of decision making but for us, it was also important to explore how we could help commanders when they were engaging in intuitive decision making. This is a normal and natural part of the decision-making process, so we wanted to be able to provide support in this area. Fires pose immense stress to both firefighters and commanders, affecting their thinking and decision-making ability. This is due to the overwhelming strain it puts on the brain, reducing its processing power. Commanders, due to the increased oversight and decision-making placed upon them, are most likely to make mistakes in situations. This can have dangerous consequences; people may be hurt due to misjudgment, overlooking details or responding improperly. We wanted to ensure that commanders could remain focused on their operational goals, even in high-pressure environments; therefore, we had to concentrate on ways to support them. When it comes to situational awareness, the findings indicated that when responding to a situation on the ground, those making decisions had limited knowledge of what was occurring and lacked preparation and anticipation for future possibilities. Interesting results! By using the results, we've developed a decision control process that takes into account both analytical and intuitive thinking. This process encourages commanders to consider three simple questions: What is their goal, what do they expect to happen, and is the benefit worth the risk? This should help reduce errors and make decisions more effective. The findings from national decision trials indicated that these decision controls were beneficial in assisting commanders to direct their efforts towards achieving the objectives, irrespective of any complex situations. Moreover, they intensified the commander's situational awareness beyond comprehending the present scenario to forecasting future occurrences without compromising on the speed at which decisions are taken. Our UK National Command policy for fire and emergency services has now adopted the new techniques we have developed, which are also being exchanged with other countries. The results of this are that these new approaches are now standard throughout the UK, bringing us all improved levels of service. My guilt stemming from my experience drives me to continue striving for the betterment of firefighters' work environment. I'm quite proud of being able to call them my colleagues, and even more fortunate when they are also my friends. Thank you for allowing me the freedom to be different, which has enabled me to redefine boundaries. It only takes one single person to influence another, but it’s only with the power of collective minds that we can create real change in our world.
See also: https://mygodsentangels.com/