Command and Control = (Accountability)

Well, after two weeks doing battle with the worst scenario's that can be thrown at a fireman, I'm back.
An explosion in a chemical factory, an acetylene bottling plant fire, a massive wild fire surrounding a church full of children at sunday school, a chemical spill with toxic cloud, a collision between a loaded school bus and a truck delivering bottled gas, a fire on a super tanker at a dockside, and last but not least a fire in a whiskey distillery (Jamersons) in Midleton, which just happens to be next door to where my son go's to college. It is quite frightening to think that three months ago I was just an ordinary fireman just going about my duties as a medic or a breathing apparatus team leader. Now with these two bars on my shoulder comes great responsibility. The above scenario's are based on worst case, but all have happened, or could happen, and my response as overall officer in command are based on my crew being first on scene. As first officer on scene I could conceivably be in charge of the whole incident for at least the first hour, we call this the golden hour. The decisions made within that hour will have a huge bearing on the incident, and of the lives of not just my crews, but of the public as well. Am I up to it? I hope so. According to the records I finished in the top ten per cent on the coarse. The computers say that I kept all my crew members alive, which is good. However it also says that I didn't manage to save all the members of public, or prevent all the fatalities, but the numbers were kept below the expected norm!
It is odd too think of someone's husband,wife,son,daughter, as a number, or to say that they are one of the expected norm! I suppose it is only human nature to dehumanize the unthinkable by giving it a number, one in ten, one in every fifty, the expected norm! etc, etc, but people tend to forget, or at least don't want to be reminded that these numbers have faces, have lives, have loves, have families and homes that they are expected to go home to at night. My only hope is that I can do my best for all of them if and when the unthinkable happens.

I'm off too Clonmel.

Sorry all those in blog land, I am off on my next adventure into the unknown, and will be off the cyber thing' for the next two weeks! For those that are interested I am one of only eighteen that have been selected to go on a Junior Officers coarse from around the country and the only one from County Waterford. This coarse is designed to give the officer in charge of an incident the latest up-to-date knowledge in keeping his crew and the public safe. This can be highlighted this week with the sad deaths of two fire fighters from England, who died fighting a fire in an apartment block, who were hit by a delayed back draught, (my opinion). Also a little nearer home by the deaths of two kayakers caught in a weir not two hundred yards from a fire station in Portlaw County Waterford! This coarse is designed to test  our leadership, our knowledge, and our skill, while teaching us hopefully how to minimize risk. It should also give me an opportunity to learn new skills from my peers on the coarse some of which I know will have been in the service a lot longer than I have.
It is also designed to show us how to teach these new skills to our own crews, as well as best practice when it comes to designing imaginative and realistic training for our crews while keeping them safe at the same time. I am looking forward to completing this coarse as it is a huge advantage  when it comes to the next promotion step on the ladder, and I'm aiming high!

Victory In Youghal.

A while back (see  'to Oliver' post) I described how my son won a place on his college rugby team. Well, on Wednesday afternoon in front of a crowd of over a hundred, which included both sets of his Grandparents he and his team eclipsed even their wildest dreams.
Youghal Rugby football pitch sits on top of a hill that overlooks an ancient walled Harbor town, once owned by Sir Walter Raleigh, and has views onto the Mountains that I have spent a lot of time on recently putting out fires. The occasion, The Munster College Final, the teams, Midleton JCT's V Newtown, Weather bright, pitch soft.
Before the whistle both teams formed a huddle as the two captains fired up their respective men, then in silence each man took up his position, faces bristling with anticipation, and the eagerness of youth. The whistle was met by a wall of noise from the Midleton supporters, and the battle was on.

The first five minutes saw Newtown test the Midleton defence, as wave after wave of attacks were seen off in scenes reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylia. Then out of nowhere Midleton made a break down the right hand side, the forwards rucked and mauled in perfect unison, each man picking up the ball and driving on, then came the mistake! The Newtown number eight put his hands on the ball whilst off his feet, Penalty!!! Up stepped the Midleton captain and number ten, and with a sweet right foot put the ball over the bar from thirty-five yards, 3-0 Midleton. All over the pitch each man had his own battle with his opposite number, Oliver was no different. As Midleton's open side flanker (No.7) it was his job to carry the ball into contact and set up a maul, it was whilst doing so that his opposite number decided to give him some extra treatment, in the form of an elbow to the face. His nose took the impact and blood freely began to fall. In rugby if you have a blood injury you must go off! Until it is stemmed. Oliver with clever use of his second rows shirt and shorts in the Scrum managed to hide the blood from the Ref, and when the perpetrator of the crime reported it to the ref, there was no blood freely running so he was able to stay on. 

Five minutes later saw the same man with the ball running at Oliver, and in front of the partisan Midleton crowd saw Oliver make a tackle that completely upended his man, that won the applause of his peers, and of his Headmaster in the crowd, but more importantly won the ball for his team. Off this tackle the ball was fed out to the Midleton back line that went wide to the right, then as the Newtown defence were massing on that side saw an inside pass back onto the left hand side and into the gap that had been created by Oliver's tackle. That was all that was needed for the smallest man on the pitch, Midleton's wing, who had bright yellow boots. These boots hid the fact that he really had golden feet, for he is the quickest fifteen year old I have ever seen. His speed caught the Newtown boys napping and with two minuets to go in the first half he scored the games only try. 8-0 Midleton, The number ten then made this10-0 as he converted from twenty-two yards.

The second half started much the same, but the Newton boys were on a mission! They rampaged across the pitch and broke through the Midleton lines on numerous occasions. After wave after wave the Midleton defence finally broke down and gave away a penalty in front of the posts, and the Newtown Number ten stepped up and slotted the ball over the bar, 10-3. The Midleton boys answered the call of the crowd and rallied around, the forwards once again controlling the ball at the breakdown. The Midleton full back controlled the ball from behind catching high ball after high ball, and sending it back down the pitch with interest, and great accuracy. The Newtown boys were beginning to panic, and as another Midleton break went down the right they committed another penalty, and again the number ten in Midleton blue and black sent the ball over the post, 13-3. the game went on and as the minutes ticked by hundreds of voices began to count down the seconds, then as the ball was won off the back of the scrum by the scrum half, he saw the ref look at his watch and promptly kicked the ball out, game over! THEN!

Came the pitch invasion, the players had no chance of escape from the hoards of excited Midleton pupils and staff as they were swamped. Oliver's hand can be seen raised triumphantly, finger pointing sky ward. Thirty-two years is a long time to wait for any College to bring a title back, especially a college that prides itself on its Rugby.

As with any final, there has to be a loosing team, the Newtown team had put up a good fight, but were beaten for pace and fitness in the end, and the better team won. For the players who took part this will be a day they will never forget.  For the people who watched, we will never forget either.

Even Mum gets a hug!

That winning feeling!

Oliver bloodied' but happy with Jackies parents who came from England to watch.

The team! and happy Coach.

The spell is broken.

The cold dry spell has finally been broken. The Irish spring has arrived. For the last couple of weeks we have had more Mountain fires than I would care to remember and last night it began to rain which should bring them to an end. This has been a hard season, three of the crew got burnt, me included! Not serious burns rather more like loosing your eye lashes and eye brows and a bit of fringe, with some superficial reddening of the skin, or the odd blister.

I suppose the toll is harder on the families. Take mine for example. It got to be a station joke that whenever my wife cooked a roast dinner that we would be called out just as I sat down to eat it, this had a knock-on effect of her wanting to sit down and enjoy a nice dinner together so she would cook another one on another day! Same thing! Six times this happened. So when it came to her birthday meal which my son was home from school for with his girlfriend visiting, I decided not to let Jackie cook just incase, and ordered a nice Chinese,  only to have the lovely beef in Black bean sauce put onto my plate and with my taste buds exploding with anticipation took the first mouthful. Thats all I got to have of that, and it's not good for your digestive system if you eat it cold for breakfast!

Each years mountain fire season however refreshes my memory banks with renewed enthusiasm for the mountains at night. There is something that touches me deep inside, the silence, the vast skies, the stars. At night after the light of the fire is out and you sit and rest on a tuft of Un-burnt heather your senses somehow become even more aware of the landscape around you and the different effects of moonlight and shadow. Sound in the absence of light seems to become more amplified, and above the smell of ash you can catch the perfume of the small pink flowers of the heather. Over the years I have been the pathfinder on the mountains to our crew, quite a lot of responsibility! They will follow me down the mountain back to the road or track where the engine was left, or where we can get it to pick us up from. I do this by night vision only, no torches! I have tried to explain about the rods and cones that make up the shapes of the light sensitive end of the human eye but it tends to fall on deaf ears.
The tracks that wild animals make have been laid down over hundreds of years, and if you know what to look for you can see them light the way for you. On one occasion it was a full moon that lit the way on a cold cloudless night, and the light shone silver on the surface of the tiny spring that I was following, and the moon shadows fell magically over dead land or depressions which we stayed clear of. If you relied on torches all this magic would disappear in a man made orange glow, the kind that hides the stars over every town and city even on the clearest nights. You would become reliant on this glow rather than your senses. You would miss out on the feel of the changing geology under foot, the different textures of the bog, the subtle hollow ways through the waist high heather made by generations of sheep, the wool of which shines out like cats eyes snagged on branches, not a golden fleece, but moon silver.

So I bid farewell to my beloved mountains, even if it's a temporary one. The next time we will be up it will be usually to the sad sight of sheep with lambs that have been caught out by the flames of careless campers or pick-knickers with portable barbecue's, or to the drastic cry of the Hen harriers as they circle over head as the flames and smoke engulf their nesting site. In a way I hope that it remains wet for the spring to enable the wild life to recover from the ravages of man, and for us to recover from the exertion of this years busy mountain season.

Trials, Tribulations, and car crashes!

You're trying to imagine the scene that will greet you as you speed along the road to the crash. The first signs suddenly light up in the headlights as they reflect back through the fog, some debris and a bit of wall, some glass, oddly a single shoe, and then the long black line of rubber that terminates at the twisted reck of the car. A person is walking around as if in a dream, small splashes of blood already drying to a crust, speckle his aspirin white face, and he is preoccupied looking for his iphone. Beyond him you can here the screams of people in pain, and other people in shock trying to pull their friend, their brother, their sister,mother, father, son, or daughter, out of the wreckage, not realizing the dangers of spinal injury. What looks like an old sack lies on the road at odd angles with hardly any identifying features save for one hand that lies almost severed in the near perfect round of body fluid. In one of the cars you can see a young man slumped over the steering wheel, his ears are blue, in the other car a young girl is screaming in pain her legs are trapped by the dashboard of the car that has crushed around them and pinned them in, her four year old son lies motionless and quiet, still strapped into his baby seat in the back.
You are in charge of a team of five men, what do you do first?

This is a scenario that fire brigades all round the world sadly have to deal with every day. As more cars are on the roads the number of accidents are on the increase every year. To try and combat the number of deaths that happen to people who become trapped in their vehicles, or suffer serious spinal injury resulting in full paralysis by either improper extrication procedure, or good willed help by the public. The fire brigades of the western world formed an organization dedicated to the standardization of best practice training around the globe in Extrication. Each year the participating countries hold a national team challenge day, where each brigade put forward their best team of five who then compete against each other. The challenge is on two timed scenario's, firstly a twenty minute challenge, one responsive casualty, with spinal injury, the second, a ten minute rapid extraction of an unresponsive, time critical casualty. Each of these are carried out and are assessed by three world assessors who are experts in the three main areas, Medical, Technical, and Leadership. The best three teams then go forward to represent their country in the World Championships, this year the Worlds are being hosted by Cork City here in Ireland. This weekend I took part representing my County.I have been the Waterford County team medic for three years now and managed to compete in one World Championship two years ago. Our team this year was made up of two new recruits to help them gain some valuable experience in RTC (Road Traffic Collision) training that they might not get otherwise, consequently we are not expecting a top three placing this year, but you never know!

I'm not the blonde!

A new season part deux!

I had just sat down to a cup of tea and was about to take the first bite from my sandwich when my alerter did it's job. I could see a column of smoke rising in the north east. It's usual brown was reflecting almost gold from the low winter sun. We were being called to aid the neighboring towns firefighters who were already on their way. The only way to the seat of the fire was through narrow forestry tracks used only by loggers, and the occasional rally car.

The fire engine 'a twenty ton truck' is not the ideal machine for the traversing of such paths and we had to abandon her with the driver and make our way on foot. The fire was on a ridge line above a plantation of Fur, and in the absence of any noticeable wind was making slow but steady progress up the slope. Our way to that slope was guarded by a considerable gorge that had been eroded out by the heavy rain of the winter. The force of which had ground out a scar some twenty foot deep and about the same wide.  Some of the stones which it had tumbled down were as big as pool tables, so god only knows what they weighed! It's hard to imagine the force created by nature even in this small isolated place, let alone on the scale it seems to be unleashing around the world recently.

As we got to the ridge line the flames had gathered strength and were making great in-roads into the heather that was exploding with great efflorescence, the radiant heat of which was causing an endless  cycle of  combustion. The line of fire by this time was about a mile across and was set in deep heather making the task of extinguishing the flames all the more dangerous and unpleasant. As the sun dropped down below the horizon in the west, the smokes golden colour was replaced by the bright orange glow that was fresh in the memory of us all from the other night. The memory that the backs of our legs, and shoulders, and lower backs, were determined to remind us of each time we took a step. We followed a fire break up to the bright orange and began to do battle with the beast. 

  

The flames were so intense that at the slightest puff of wind it would be to hot to be within twenty feet of it, which rendered our beaters and long handled spades useless, we were at the mercy of two of the elements, wind, and fire, and found ourselves wishing for the third. But there was no hope of rain tonight, the sky was clear and the stars were beginning to show their selves above us in the nights sky.

The fire had a life of it's own, the best we could do was attack it's flanks, taking it in turns to spend time at it's head, before retreating from the heat and allowing two more in your place. The flames danced upwards in a mesmerizing hypnotic dance which if allowed would send you too sleep. All was quiet, save for the noise of the exploding heather, and the rhythmic 'whack' of the beaters, as they sent burning embers floating on the breeze.

It was late in the evening when the last of the flames were put out. I had missed my fathers Birthday retirement bash that was being held at my sisters house. Ironically from where we were on the mountain we could make out the lights of her house, and as I sucked from the small carton of warm orange juice, and took a bite from a melted chocolate bar, I thought of the roast venison, and wine that was being consumed in his honour. It was then that his words from my childhood reverberated through me like a drum beat,

"duty before pleasure" 

"duty before pleasure".

River side Walk.

Today the sun came out! it glowed orange through the mist that shrouded the river in the valley. Towards midday it had burnt away all but the most persistent of it, that stuck to the river banks obscuring all behind with nature's own smoke screen. I started my walk along an ancient track that traversed the lower earth walls of the 'Lios' (fort) that the town is named after. It made it's way down to the banks of the river and by the time I got to the waters edge the last of the mist was steaming from the vegetation. Across the way two swans made their way up stream against the current, their heads bobbing up and down like an unfit cyclist coming up against an incline. The current surged against their slender bodies forming a wave that would every now and then break over their downy backs as they made their slow and purposeful way towards a quiet tributary and away from the relentless pull of the river.

All along the banks were signs of the resent floods and mans impact on nature, plastic bags hung in trees and shrubs caught on briar or blackthorn like Grey shrike offerings. Uprooted grass and shrub formed the woven warp and weft of an intricate tapestry that hung on barbed wire and wrapped intricately around the lower branches and stems of willow that bent into the breeze of the day, as plastic bottles lie half submerged, suspended, caught like fish in pools left by the receding water of the floods.
I stood for a while to listen, above the noise of the traffic coming from the road on the northern banks, I could make out the familiar 'tick-ick-ick-ick' of a robin that made up the first of three such encounters on this walk as I passed from ones territory into the next. Each one seemed to meet me at his boarder, then hand over the responsibility of escorting me onto the next, and so on, and so on!

The ancient path passes from open marsh and willow into steep sided wood and becomes dark and foreboding, ancient trees cling to the almost shear bed rock laid down and chiseled out by the last great ice age. The path hear was used by the first Christian settlers as a means to their fishing grounds, and forms a link with the ancient settlement and the monasteries that were formed hear by St. Carthage. The water of the river lies deep and malevolent hear, it swirls in black unseen currents around the submerged forrest of fallen trees. Time seems to work differently in this dark place, we pass through it largely unnoticed by the river or trees, for they are working to a different pace measured in millennia. The landscape hear has seen man come, and will know doubt see us go, as the dark waters continue their way downstream carving out new channels. As I made my way out of the wood and back into the marsh I looked up to see the vapor trail of a plane mirroring the bend in the river, as it made it's way to america, a migration of humans. The marsh is made up of straw colored reeds that have been laid low by the flood water, you can see the patterns of flow that the water took as it surged over the land. Every now and then a run off had formed mud channels deep into the flood plain. It was in one of these that I saw the tracks of an otter who had recently made his way into one of the many pools left high and stranded. I have often seen the otters here their graceful elegance, matched only by there skill at fishing. Sadly though their numbers are dwindling again due too the netting of salmon and sea trout that takes place each year at the confluence of the river and sea, where the fresh water of the mountains and valleys mix and mingle with the salt of the estuary. This effectively stops the natural migration of the spawning fish upstream and has a hugh impact on the fish numbers. Ironically the otters who are so greatly effected by this man made problem, have an unlikely alliey in the local fishermen who are fighting for a ban on netting. My walk was nearing it's end, the path once again winds it's way up into the steep sided woods as it makes it's way to the ramparts of the castle, who's walls stand on a sharp vertical bastion of rock over the water. The sight of which was chosen to house the first Monastery in the area, however after three raids by the Vikings the Monastery and town had to defend it's self and built fortifications. The castle today bares no resemblance to the old, and is a 18th century rebuild.   Where the marshland meets this path is an old stone wall with a turn style gate made of iron. this marks the start of a walk named after one of the daughters of the owners of the castle who liked to open up trails in the lands that belonged to her father. Most of these trails have been lost to nature, but this one is maintained by the local fishermen and town council and is a favorite for dog walkers or tourists. The later rarely venture out into the more rugged and wild of the marshland and miss out on a land largely untouched by modern man.