Firefighters Use Literacy to Communicate? By: Ali Stigler

        Sirens and pagers going off at all hours of the night are what I have grown up around my entire life. These aspects along with many other features of my father’s career of choice have always intrigued me. Firefighters and paramedics have their own vocabulary and means of communication that would seem completely crazy to anyone outside of their discourse community. My research will be focused around their literacy practices and how they incorporate them with the way they communicate. This project will include the run reports they write, the pagers and radios they use to keep in touch, and the vocabulary they must know in order to understand it all. By interviewing my father and using him as a main resource, I will be able to obtain my goal in this project which is to realize just how much literacy is incorporated into their communication and how they communicate effectively. Through my personal experience, interviews, and on-site observing I have been able to pick up on the literacy practices firefighters use daily that I would not have ever expected.

This is the bay area at the headquarters of the Delhi Township Fire Department where all the emergency vehicles are kept, such as the truck, the ambulance, and the ladder truck. Their gear is also laid out on the floor so they can just jump in it and go as quickly as possible.

        Picking the topic for my research was easy, but digging deeper into what I already knew was going to be the challenge for me. I have visited my father at work since I was a child, however I just knew that he got to wear cool equipment, had to take some classes here and there, and he saved people’s lives, and that is all. The amount of knowledge he has to know in order to perform his job to the best of his ability is more than I imagined. He has to take classes every year called refresher courses that are paid for by his employer to ensure that he knows the vocabulary you need to make it as a firefighter/paramedic. The amount of literacy that is used in any college class is exactly what he goes through each year. This enhances his language which in turn provides the best communication possible among his bosses and co-workers. Many medical terms are necessary to be able to understand in order to complete the daily tasks of a firefighter/paramedic. When I was talking to my dad about it, I asked him if he got upset if any of his newer co-workers said the wrong term or phrase for something and he said “Yes, it can get irritating however we take the newer boys under our wings and just simply ask them to repeat whatever they were trying to say and usually they get that they messed up by that point.” Not only do they have to do in-class training, but also physical training called live fires. They have run down buildings that they use to practice live fires in using all of their equipment; they practice their communication skills using radios during this time. 

This picture is an example of a few of the guys getting ready for a live fire.

       My dad has pagers and radios everywhere; whether they are on a shelf that is custom-built in his Suburban, on his night stand, or on his belt, he constantly has access to whatever is going on within his discourse community. I just figured he was truly passionate about his career, which he is, but these pagers they use are the primary source of communication. While doing some of my research, I found an article on the United States Fire Administration website that focused on radios and communication along with a 71 page study that focuses on radios and their effectiveness. In the article it states that “Firefighters are unique radio users. The life safety of both firefighters and citizens depends on the function and usage of these communication tools in the harshest and most hostile of environments” (USFA). The radio system is much more complicated than I could have ever thought, but after talking to my dad I was able to clear it up. First of all, each station is identified by a number and Delhi Township has three different stations: 30, 33, and 36. Each emergency that is reported is called a “run”, I have no idea why that is just what it is. The primary dispatcher is the Hamilton County Communication System which operates on channel FD WEST and once a run is received the dispatcher says the station number and which fire ground to turn to. Each of these four fire grounds is on the DLHI FD channel and once everyone is on the channel the dispatcher gives, all of the information about the run will be given there. Not only is the information given on the radio but also on the pagers that everyone carries at all times, the full time guys have their own radios and the part time guys have to check theirs in and out once they get to the station. In case this particular run needs back up, the radios have access to 6 different stations that are located in the area, as well as the Delhi Police Department’s station in the case of a stabbing or shooting. The radio and pager system is continuing to be updated as technology upgrades; for example, the radios actually say which fire ground you tune in to as they change between channels so if they happen to be in a building or an area with a lot of smoke, they can at least hear it if they can’t read the screen on the pager or radio. These are key concepts of communication in the firehouse because it is how they receive their assignments and determine how they are going to assess them. So these radios and pagers are a main source of communication, so what about the literacy they utilize and do firefighters even knows what literacy is? The answer is yes and you’d be surprised at just how many literacy practices are incorporated in the lives of firefighters and paramedics.

       This board looks like a dry erase board with a bunch of numbers and letters on it to anyone besides someone who works for the Delhi Township Fire Department. This is their primary tool of communicating who is in charge during that shift on that day and if one day you happen to see one of these, you will understand just what it means. First, there are 5 people on a shift at a time per station. On the upper left hand, the Q33 means quint 33 which is their station number and quint is another name for their fire truck. Underneath that, FAO means fire apparatus operator, which is just a fancy name for the person who is in charge of driving the truck. Next to that is the CO which is the company officer and he is the guy in charge of that shift. FF1 means firefighter one and he is next in command after the company officer and sits behind him in the fire truck, FF2 is firefighter 2 and he sits behind the fire apparatus operator in the truck and FF4 is firefighter 4 who sits across from FF1. The FAO and FF2 are in charge of search and rescue/ventilation which means they break windows and pry car doors open if necessary. FF1 and FF4 are the ones who attack the fire and actually go inside to fight it. On the other side, M33 means Medic 33 which is the station number and medic means paramedics which are firefighters who also have been certified through a program to perform advanced medical procedures on patients. There should be 3 paramedics out of the 5 people on the shift. This crew is in charge of the ambulance and the driver is pretty self-explanatory. The medic is the also called a chaser and he is the guy who gets in the truck and follows the ambulance to the scene. BLS 33 stands for Basic Life Support and this person has to be a paramedic and he floats between the fire truck, ambulance, and truck and basically goes wherever the rest of the team needs him to. SCBA means Self Contained Breathing Apparatus and each person has their own and is in charge of it to ensure that the level of air in their tank is maxed out, and if it isn’t, they have a filling station on site to fill it up as soon as they get there. This dry erase board is one of the many literacy aspects they used in order to facilitate the flow of the shift on that particular day. 

Mailbox Wall

        Other literacy practices that are incorporated at the firehouse are e-mailing, letters in each other’s mailboxes (see picture), texting, post-it notes on random things, bulletin boards around the station, and run reports. Their e-mail system is one that they can only use at work therefore it is their responsibility to check it while they are at the station in order to be updated on any news around the station. They have a wall of mailboxes where all the paperwork for each employee goes. Texting and post-it notes are simple ways of communicating that everyone uses, but still a literacy practice. The bulletin boards that are hanging up around the station are home to thank you cards, pictures, and newsletters that allow the firefighters to know what is going on in the community they are serving and protecting. This newsletter is published every Thursday in order to be as updated as possible. I believe the run reports are the most complicated form of literacy practice they perform and this is where many of their vocabulary and knowledge of language is incorporated.

Bulletin Board

        The run report is larger than a normal 8x11 sheet of paper (see hard copy attached) and has tons of information on it. While talking to my dad on the phone one day, I asked him what exactly this run report was and how vital it was. He said, “A run report is documentation of EVERYTHING you did on the run.” He also told me that their motto is “if you didn’t document it, you didn’t do it.” That to me signifies the importance of the information on this document. Information such as the person completing the report, the name, address, chief complaint, social security number, date of birth, phone number, medications, allergies, and the treatment of the patient is all recorded on this sheet of paper. To give you a better idea of what information has to be written about what happened once the firefighters and paramedics arrived on the scene, my dad wrote a fake run report for me to show the type of vocabulary he uses and how you have to document every detail about the accident. The run report is of a 26 year old male who seems to have overdosed on Oxycontin and he uses abbreviations throughout such as pt. (patient), b.p. (blood pressure), b.p.m. (beats per minute), u/a (upon arrival), b.v.m. (bag valve mask), and a few others (see hard copy). The way it is written is formal and describes each step of the process in detail and also provides some background information in order to provide a better understanding of the situation at hand.

         After reliving my personal experiences, partaking in interviews, and on-site observations, I can say that I now know exactly how many literacy practices are incorporated into the lives of firefighters and paramedics. These literacy practices that they use daily are the way they communicate with each other and with other firefighters all across the country, while they might not use the exact same terminology, they are all part of this discourse community that stress the importance of public safety and all work together in order to save lives. Without the use of the literacy practices and means of communication they make use of, these firefighters would not be able to serve their community like they do today.

References

Henderson, N. D. (2010). PREDICTING LONG-TERM FIREFIGHTER PERFORMANCE FROM COGNITIVE AND PHYSICAL ABILITY MEASURES. Personnel Psychology, 63(4), 999-1039. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01196.x

USFA. (10 June 2010). U.S. Fire Administration home page.  <http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/fireservice/research/safety/communication.shtm>.

Voracek, M., Pum, U., & Dressler, S. G. (2010). Investigating digit ratio (2D:4D) in a highly male-dominated occupation: The case of firefighters. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51(2), 146-156. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00758.x