Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> ...so "learning safety" means that if the building is about to explode,
> they just don't go in there? [As I originally asserted.]

Yes, to a very great degree. However, risk has to be balanced. E. g. your 
training and experience may say "no" but you have to balance that against a 
report that a person (or persons) are still in there.

Also, there are many firefighters who will go in anyway (sometimes against 
training and doctrine) if they -know- that civilian lives could be lost if 
they do NOT at least -TRY-. I'm convinced this is part of what happened to 
the 300+ firefighters who died on 9/11, for example.

Sometimes you just have to do what is needed, no matter the risk, or the 
odds, or what the personal cost to you might be - pretty much like a soldier 
who knows he is going to certainly die but keeps on firing as fast as he 
can.

You cannot do this type of work with an "is it safe?" mentality limiting -
EVERY- action. You always try to do it with a kind of "how can I do this the 
SAFEST way?" mentality. Unfortunately, missing the smallest detail can have 
fatal consequences. That's were training, experience, discipline, and having 
a good officer around comes in.

The type of personalities I worked with in the fire service are the kind 
that WILL charge a burning building, in order to save a life, and are then 
content to die trying, if that is what is required.

Sure that sounds macho and crude maybe, but in the heart of any person who 
does this for a living, year after year, it is a simple fact that is 
accepted, and then moved beyond. It actually is kind of liberating once you 
realize that. Of course, if there is -ANY- way at all, you'll save yourself, 
but what then follows is what separates soldiers and civilians, firefighters 
and mere men - they are willing to lay down their lives at a moment's notice 
for someone else.

Somebody who stops fighting (and trying) removes even the -possibility- of 
success. Survival and victory is always a possibility, as long as you don't 
give up. 

"We don't expect kittens to fight tigers and win, we merely expect the 
kittens to try."
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

Post a reply to this message