AED in the OFFICE

It is not often that I am able to apply my EMT/Fire Skills during my day job but today I just took possession of four HeartSine AED for our company. We have a physically large footprint for an office building with attached warehouse. And until now all we had was a small medicine cabinet located in a few spots for headaches and bandages.

But starting in a few weeks we’ll have 10 full trained first-aid and CPR responders; four AED’s with Oxygen and Medical ERT bag. I think our safety committee is planning on surviving some catastrophic event……because now we can perform just about any triage/emergency outside of open heart surgery.

Training in the light of experience:

Right Seat Training: The last two weeks have been all about preparing the non-officers on how to manage an incident for the first few minutes (first on scene) in order to keep a squad safe and make the right decisions which typically impact the way an incident will be handled. It is amazing how few incidents we have which makes our training that much more important.

I am also in the midst of FAO (Fire Apparatus Operator) training which means I’ll be driving the big red truck pretty soon. Driving is one thing……Operating the water pumps, flowing water and making sure everyone on the end of the hose has enough water…..this one will take a number of months of practice, driving and more practice.

And last month I took the Fire & Life Safety Educator class which….well gave me some great insight into the effort, progress and infrastructure behind training and prevention. So, since we don’t see a lot of action I am taking advantage of all the training and practice I can get. ….but I’d still prefer a big ripper someday soon.

Waterous

Just finished a tour of the Waterous pump company. Although I am not a motorhead it was very impressive to see the innerworkings of a water pump..... And how they are manufactured.


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Fire / Rescue & Prevention

Just spent the weekend up in St Cloud MN attending the FITOAM (Fire Instructors & Training Officers Association of Minnesota. I was able to get my Fire & Life Safety Educator State Certification I.

This has been interesting for me as I have a whopping a 18 months of Fire experience under my belt and the average attendee at this conference was at least 18 years (mostly suppression)....but that is okay. The whole goal behind prevention is prevent the (negative) experience. There are enough examples out there of what not to do….our job is to make sure people are aware of those (negative) experiences to prevent them from happening again.

Plus, the better we do the less actual suppression experience we get….which for a fire fighter can be a bummer but I hope we’d all agree that our adrenaline rush is not the right reason to stop prevention.

So I had an epiphany this weekend….see 100’s of fire fighters all walking around with their Fire / Rescue sweatshirts at an education conference….why not add “prevention” to our identity?

FIRE / RESCUE
PREVENTION

Battle of the Badges

Finally some healthy competition between cities. Eden Prairie Fire is going head to head agains Bloomington Fire to see who can 'donate' the most blood (aka, Battle of the Badges.

I have no idea what the 'awards' are but we going for the most pints and most Fire Fighters as a percent of the total. Friends and Family are welcome (just be sure to mention Eden Prairie Fire when you do donate.

My donation took place earlier this morning.......This is the first time I have donated blood.....it was pretty simple and realatively fast.

A new start 2010

Last night was the only evening when the EPFD is totally out of commission.  Thanks to our neighboring cities (Chanhassen and Hopkins Fire to cover our city) we were able to the evening off and celebrate our 2009 Holiday Party.

Station 4 hosted this year event at Olympic Hills Country Club.   a great turn out with 150 or so current and past FF’s.  

sNOw Emergency

Living in MN has many benefits like cold and snow (yes i Love them both). But it can pose a challenge if and when we need to tag a hydrant. As you can see with all the hydrants we have across Eden Prairie we need each resident to do an occassional 'dig' following a snow storm.