"No Go Team"

[MrYuk]

Interesting article.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16991877/

Sounds like the CDC is involed in something they want no part of.

The program does not have a 24-hour telephone line so that it can be notified of fatalities. "We do have a voice mail," said program manager Dawn Castillo. "If the call comes in on the weekends, we check it on Monday."

[MalahatTwo7]

I think I am accronym challenged here. I thought CDC was the Centre for Disease Control? Which then brings up the question why would they care about FF deaths, unless there was a HAZMAT/BIO/CHEM situation where an unknown substance was involved.

[MrYuk]

Which then brings up the question why would they care about FF deaths

Because no one wanted to take on the responsibility. If the U.S. can have a government agency (NTSB) to investigate aircraft crashes, then why can the fire service not have it's own government entity to perform fire fatality investigations?

The CDC wants about as much to do with investigating firefighter fatalities as we want them investigating it, which is why they pass the buck off to NIOSH who in turn has no one with any knowledge of the fire service writing reports giving us recommendations on what we should do better next time.

Let the NFPA handle it. Or create a new entity.

[MalahatTwo7]

then why can the fire service not have it's own government entity to perform fire fatality investigations?

Which I kinda thought fell into the perview of the Fire Marshalls office, along with the Coroner jointly..... all of which brings to mind that I never really gave it much consideration from a technical point of view - on the assumption (ya there we go LOL) that there was a delegated government agency that was assigned to deal with investigations.

Although after having read the story and followed the previous links, I am still wondering why 1) CDC would care, and 2) why they would accept in the first place?

Almost sounds like a military operation: "I gave you the order because you were conveniently handy at the time...."

[doughesson]

I thought the NTSB existed due to the interstate and international nature of the transportation business.
Fire departments are local and though we have NFPA and other standards to live up to,don't we all pretty much do the job "our"way which translates to"whatever works here is how we do it."?
I do agree that there should be a national clearinghouse on how fatalities and injuries come about.I just don't want to see the congressional hearings about how to pay for it or who's in charge and especially how far the agency's authority will extend.I doubt any IC would want someone breaking in on the fire ground frequency to tell him what to do and later learn that the voice wasn't even in the same state.

[MalahatTwo7]

You have some good comments there Doug, but I am thinking that the folks at CDC are there for post-incident investigations - I think. And ya, I'm with ya on the 'break in on radio to....' bits.

[Dalmatian190]

The National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health is one of the Centers for Disease Control.

[MalahatTwo7]

The National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health is one of the Centers for Disease Control.

Actually I did know that - but only by "accident" But I just didnt see the relavancy of the CDC itself doing the investigaitions; seems better suited to say NIOSH is conducting.... Oh wait.... this is government AND reporters in the same sentence. LOL

[doughesson]

The National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health is one of the Centers for Disease Control.

You forgot to say"Centers for Disease Control AND PREVENTION".(emphasis to show what's different not humiliating you)
That's what the full name of the office is,isn't it?

[DonSmithnotTMD]

You forgot to say"Centers for Disease Control AND PREVENTION".(emphasis to show what's different not humiliating you)
That's what the full name of the office is,isn't it?

And that's the problem. Prevention can cover whatever you want it to cover.

[NonSurfinCaFF]

Well they may have done a bad job but at least they don't go running around trying to put the IC in prison every time there is a fatality. OIG seems to think every wildland fire fatality is a criminal act, just look at what they did to the IC on 2002 Cramer fire in Idaho and what is currently going on with the IC of the 2001 30 mile fire in Washington. They have twisted the 10 & 18 into inviolate commandments instead of the reminders that they were intended to be. It would be like taking RECEO and determining that your actions were not based on these priorities (which like the 10/18 are very open to interpretation).

Again untrained investigators making their own uneducated assumptions.

I would be all for an agency or organization that included actual fire qualified accident investigators.

I'm pretty sure the NTSB investigators are knowledgeable about transportation accidents, probably not to many ex grocery baggers on those teams, so why is it ok to have a criminal investigator or epidemiologist on a team to investigate firefighter fatalities?

It should not be that hard to have a small national coordinating organization providing oversite and training and using investigators loaned from local departments to handle LODD's, thankfully they are fairly infrequent so it couldn't be to much of a drag on resources for individual departments to loan out personnel for a few weeks following a serious accident or fatality in their state.

Probably makes too much sense and not enough money involved to get kick backs from to get any attention in Washington.

[FlyingKiwi]

And therein you will get your problem.

NTSB is staffed by specialists in their fields.

You will get Govt appointed pukes and signtists what never seen no fire, and they will proceed to tell you how to be safe in the future.

If you want to sort it out right, you had better do it once, do it right, and do it at a nationaly agreed level.

At 100 per annum average a full time staff of investigators is needed to handle the cases.

Just ask George what goes into a correctly run investigation.

Localy sourced investigators is a REAL BAD idea.

[LVFRENG1]

Just a thought why doesn't the IAFF investigate firefighter deaths. We pay them alot of money each month. I know they spend alot lobbying, but what is more important. I think a lot of retired firefighters would jump at the chance to continue helping thier fellow brothers. Only then would we know that the important information wouldn't be hidden by some politician.

[hfd326]

NIOSH? NI not!

I think the original idea was to have a nationwide 3rd party conduct independent investigations of fire fighter deaths. This would allow tracking of trends that may not be visible with out a nationwide perspective (ie: PASS failures) CDC got it cause NIOSH does occupational deaths. The problem seems to be lack of funds, inexperienced investigators with out substantial back ground in fire fighting led by a typical bearucrat who was more interested in getting reports off her desk than having them be through and accurate. I read the CDC hand book for fire fighter fatality investigations and it was definately written by somebody who hadn't done field investigations. It also appears that this Castillo broad was telling her investigators to do the exact opposite of what the hand book said to do. It also appears that she has no back ground in fire fighting or conducting investigations. She seems to want her investigations and report to be short, clean, and not ruffle any feathers.

NonSurfin metioned criminal investigators. Personaly I think they should be an integral part of the team. Not to bring charges but because they should have substantial interviewing experience and be able to elicit the greatest amount of information from witnesses.

What should have happened is that the team should have been lead by a person with substantial investigative and fire fighting experience. The investigators should include persons from a varried back ground with an emphasis on fire fighting, investigations and expertise in fire fighting equiptment, operation, and engineering. They also shouldn't be worried about where the blame may land. They should work to the truth and then lay it out. If mistakes were made they need to be brought out so we dont make them again. If equiptment failed that needs to be brought out so it can be fixed. If everbody did everything right and aprocedure was wrong we need to know that so we can change how we work. If it was just a freak thing that happend then so be it. It seems like Schmidt? the fire protection engineer was the only one trying to get to the bottom of things so we dont have the same failures or mistakes killing more firefighters.

[MalahatTwo7]

CDC got it cause NIOSH does occupational deaths.

Ok, thanks, and that makes some sense. Well... mostly anyhow. And I am in full agreement that it should be a national 3rd party. But again, it would be a government funded/staffed function, however hopefully with fully trained fire investigators - one would hope anyway.