Reaching New Heights for Safety!

We are on our way to the local civic arena to test the latest crop of rookie in their job skills abilities. Our department uses this test to measure the skill level that a new person has achieved in the first year of joining our department. I arrive, on the ambulance that day, to see our 105’ ladder truck sitting up proud and beautiful against the parking garage sixth floor wall. The guy’s are finishing up the final preparations to administer the test. While we are waiting I noticed a captain climbing the ladder. He had his ladder belt, helmet, gloves, and turnout’s on as he ascended up. You could tell that he was comfortable with the ladder but was still paying close attention to the climb. Then it hit me, wow what a concept. Here he is climbing our 105’ truck with all his safety gear on and he’s totally focused on safety. When was the last time that you climbed a ladder truck and was not 100% focused on safety? I think that we could put the perspective of climbing the ladder truck to work in our everyday routine as firefighter’s and Ems workers. When was the last time that we did any task with 100% focus of safety? You might be thinking that everything that we do doesn’t have the dangers associated with it like climbing the ladder truck. Well maybe that thought get’s us into situation’s that end up hurting or even killing us. Please join with us in this article as we compare climbing the aerial ladder to safety procedures in our everyday operations. “Reaching new heights for safety” is not only a slogan for our behavior but a topic that we should all preach and follow through on every day?