Category: 2020 Safety Stand Down

The Windber (PA) Fire Company is a volunteer department that prioritizes the health and safety of their members. They recently developed and implemented a traffic incident management policy, and they also have an agreement with a local gym for department members to join and start becoming more active and fit.

For the 2020 Safety Stand Down, they completed baseline vitals on their members, turnout gear inspection, rig inspections, and inspections on all of their EMS/rescue gear and extrication equipment. In honor of this year’s theme of safety during roadway response, they also educated members on the 10 cones of highway safety.

The department will keep these initiatives going throughout the year. They will continue to inspect their turnout gear annually and have weekly inspections of their rig and EMS equipment. They will also maintain an up-to-date record of baseline vitals that are easily accessible to offers and EMS personnel while following all HIPAA guidelines.

The Baltimore County Fire Department in Towson, MD, is a combination department with 1,000 career and 3,000 volunteer members. The department takes the safety of its members very seriously and used the week of June 14-20 to conduct a full educational program focusing on the Safety Stand Down theme of protecting responders at roadway incidents. This included the following components:

• A joint fire/police public education initiative that included staging electronic sign boards at career and volunteer fire stations along busy thoroughfares to reinforce the “Slow Down, Move Over” law
• Social media coverage/public education effort
• Roadway safety messages transmitted on TG-1 at the start of each shift
• A new department “visor card”/roadway safety “TAC” card to provide a quick reference for major apparatus, including EMS transport units
• Distribution of a traffic incident management guidebook to all career/volunteer fire stations, provided by MDOT/CHART for use in training
• Several live offerings of a TIMS refresher, provided by MDOT/CHART (1 hour)
• SOP 400-21A revision release (Roadway Safety Operations) (effective July 1)
• Four installments of an “Arrive Alive” bulletin aimed at safe emergency vehicle driving/operation, including driving distractions and driver fatigue
• Station visits by members of the safety and logistics divisions, fire maintenance, EMS supervisors, and chief officers to discuss topics related to roadway safety

To make sure the safety initiatives have lasting impact, the department reinforced safe practices by updating their SOPs and working in conjunction with the Maryland Department of Transportation to offer several four-hour traffic incident management responder courses.

The department has an ongoing commitment to keeping responders safe on the roadways and has ordered 16 new fire engines, three new ladder trucks, and 22 new EMS transport units with enhanced safety features such as rollover protection, harness restraint systems for EMS providers in the patient compartment, emergency lighting/siren upgrades including traffic advisor arrow bars, lower step and hose bed heights, and cleanable apparatus cabs.

The Georgia TIME Task Force was created in 2002 to address the critical issues of mobility and safety related to transportation incident management in the Atlanta metro region. The task force has since expanded to include incident responders from throughout Georgia from transportation, fire, rescue, police, towing, EMS, and other related agencies. Supported by the Georgia Department of Transportation, the task force shares the message of safe, quick clearance with responders both on the front lines and behind the scenes.

The 2020 Safety Stand Down theme of protecting our responders on roadways was especially relevant to the TIME Task Force as they develop regional and local traffic incident management (TIM) teams which meet quarterly to share ideas, experiences, and to get to know one another all in the interest of safe, quick clearance of roadway incidents. To mark Safety Stand Down, they invited Chief T.J. Nedrow, the National Volunteer Fire Council’s Washington director and TIM subject matter expert, to participate in two of these meetings to share the messages of Safety Stand Down with these groups. The online sessions were well received and were recorded so they can be shared with other TIM teams.

Said task force representative Scott Malcolm, “The information was invaluable to the group and tied in perfectly with the mission of the GA TIME Task Force and all of its regional TIM teams.”

The Georgia TIME Task Force will continue to advance roadway safety for all responders throughout the year through its quarterly meetings, training for all disciplines, biennial conferences, and other programs. The work of the group has had a significant impact on responder safety in Georgia, from the successes of their TIM teams, to near-miss incidents that had positive outcomes thanks to safe, proper vehicle positioning at crash scenes, to some of the highest SHRP2 training numbers in the state.

“Many fire, law enforcement, EMS, towing and recovery, and other agencies have adopted safe operational policies and procedures based upon the training and interaction of the task force and local TIM teams,” said Malcolm.

The Valley Safety Officers in the Phoenix (AZ) metro area focused their Safety Stand Down 2020 training on operating safely on the roadways and during wildfire incidents. They created the above video as well as a Safety Stand Down Bulletin with resources that departments can use for crew/battalion level discussions and tabletop training.