Chris Anderson looked forward to sleeping in Friday morning. As assistant chief for Santa Fe Fire and Rescue, a volunteer fire department, Anderson's plans changed when the phone rang minutes before 8 a.m. "I never would have thought this would have happened to our community," Anderson said. It did happen.
- PUB DATE: 5/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KPRC-TV NBC 2 Houston

An investigation into complaints of bullying and sexual harassment at Spokane Fire Department Station 2 found five officials violated city policies. Yet the investigation is being criticized as one-sided and thus, incomplete, by those named in the report and the union that represents them. The city’s Human Resources Department issued a report April 27 following a two-month-long investigation that named Battalion Chiefs Don Waller and Darin Neiwert, and Lts.
- PUB DATE: 5/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Spokesman-Review

If you are one of the thousands of Anne Arundel residents with CPR training a new phone app can alert you to a nearby heart attack or another cardiac emergency in a public place. The county activated PulsePoint Monday, an app that will notify CPR certified residents who sign up to participate and provide the location of public automated external defibrillators — a portable device that checks the heart rhythm and can send an electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm — they can grab on their way.
- PUB DATE: 5/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CapitalGazette.com

Active shooter training exercises are becoming more commonplace across the country; which is a good thing. However, without proper planning, many of these well-meaning exercises leave the responders no better off than before or possibly even worse. A strong, multi-discipline exercise design team, a solid exercise plan and buy in from the responding disciplines are critical ingredients for success.
- PUB DATE: 5/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

Joey Kauppi already knew his Dad wouldn't be able to attend his graduation from George County High School last Friday night. What he didn't know was who would. Gautier firefighter Lt. Dan Kauppi was seriously injured in an accident a little over a month ago. On his way to work, Kauppi's truck left the roadway on Gautier-Vancleave Road and overturned, ejected Kauppi from the vehicle.
- PUB DATE: 5/23/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Mississippi Press (Gulf Live - South East Mississippi)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected next month to roll back chemical plant safety reforms that the Obama administration proposed after 15 people died in a fertilizer plant explosion in West. The rollback means the disaster, which exposed wide safety gaps in the industry and its oversight, will result in no significant federal regulatory changes, as the Austin American-Statesman reports.
- PUB DATE: 5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MySanAntonio.com

A firefighter became trapped inside of a burning apartment building Friday after the roof collapsed. According to a Facebook post, the Otsego County Fire Department was battling an apartment blaze when an evacuation was ordered just before the roof collapsed. “Two of three firefighters cleared the front of the structure immediately prior to the collapse,” the department said.
- PUB DATE: 5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: FireRescue1

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) supports the use of mobile technology for citizen response in conjunction with community cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) programs. In a Position Statement adopted May 9, the IAFC Board of Directors cited the PulsePoint mobile phone application (app) as a unique solution to increase survival from sudden cardiac arrest by bridging the gap between a cardiac arrest event and arrival of medical assistance.
- PUB DATE: 5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: International Association of Fire Chiefs

The Zanesville Fire Chief pleaded guilty to one count of conflict of interest, a first-degree misdemeanor, May 17 in Muskingum County. According to special prosecutor, Doug Stead, of Franklin County, Eric Waltemire was fire chief in October 2015 when his son, Jacob, was hired as a firefighter. Stead was called in to prosecute the case after a complaint was filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission.
- PUB DATE: 5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Zanelsville Times Recorder

For one Montecito, CA, man who was trapped in his home when mudslides ravaged his neighborhood, nothing represents the sacrifices of first responders better than a pair of shoes. The kicks mysteriously showed up at his front door months after he gave them to a barefoot firefighter. In the hour after a mudslide tore through Kevin Rittner's home, he signaled for help with a flashlight.
- PUB DATE: 5/22/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFXG-FOX 54

PHOTO - A Southeast Kansas firefighter is under observation after a medical emergency causes him to lose consciousness resulting in the truck he was driving to leave the roadway. Shortly after nine the morning Columbus Fire and Rescue was responding to a fire alarm. The driver of the truck suffered a medical emergency causing him to pass out while driving.
- PUB DATE: 5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KSFX/KOLR-TV FOX 27 Ozarks First

Two firefighters were struck by an SUV while responding to a hit-and-run accident on northbound I-95, officials say, an incident which left multiple people injured and one dead. Miami Fire Rescue received a call of a hit-and-run crash shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday. When crews arrived at the 62nd Street exit ramp, firefighters worked to rescue the driver of the Nissan SUV involved in the hit-and-run.
- PUB DATE: 5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC Miami

Starting in September, fire protection for Winfield Township's 3,500 residents will come from other communities. Township supervisors say they will direct Butler County 911 to stop dispatching the Winfield Fire Department to calls within the township because of what supervisors say are long-standing failures by the department to comply with changes sought by supervisors.
- PUB DATE: 5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

EMS prehospital care reports have not been the focus of much research but there is a growing awareness that health care documentation in general is often incomplete and inaccurate. A team of researchers1 wanted to explore the role that memory error may play in how well EMS providers record prehospital care of patients.
- PUB DATE: 5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: U.S. Fire Administration

At the age of 98, Jo Miller remembers as well as ever the last time she saw her late husband and fishing buddy suited up for work. It was three decades ago — 1988, the year Ben Miller retired from a career with the Santa Rosa Fire Department that he’d launched in 1956. After a huge City Hall retirement party, Ben and Jo Miller relocated to rural Oregon and spent many good times hooking salmon and steelhead in the Chetco River.
- PUB DATE: 5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Multiple people have died as a result of a shooting Friday morning at a high school in the southeastern Texas city of Santa Fe, two law enforcement sources told CNN. This is the third school shooting in the past seven days, and the 22nd since the beginning of the year in the United States. A suspect in the shooting at Santa Fe High School has been arrested, assistant principal Cris Richardson told reporters near the school.
- PUB DATE: 5/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CNN

It's not just the fire that presents a danger. For firefighters, it's common to be exposed to a range of harmful toxins while extinguishing flames. Some of those toxins have been shown to increase the risk of developing cancer. A bill, which has passed the Senate and is in the House of Representatives, calls for the creation of a national firefighter cancer registry.
- PUB DATE: 5/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Poughkeepsie Journal.

Former Show Low Fire District Chief Ben Owens will pay $124,656 in restitution to the SLFD after pleading guilty to three felonies in connection with his daughter-in-law Natalie Bingham. Bingham stole about $1.8 million when she was district administrative manager, an amount likely to be the largest embezzlement from a special taxing district in Arizona history.
- PUB DATE: 5/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: White Mountain Independent

A campaign to oppose three proposed City Charter amendments backed by the local firefighters union began Thursday with the forming of a political action committee expected to raise “well north of half a million dollars.” The PAC, called San Antonians for Fiscal Discipline, was set up soon after City Clerk Leticia Vacek told the City Council that the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association had collected enough valid signatures on its petitions to force a charter-amendment election.
- PUB DATE: 5/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Antonio Express News

Rosemarie Melanson can barely remember hearing a man speak to her after she was shot in the Las Vegas massacre. She soon blacked out and wouldn't recall anything about the next few weeks. The mother of four would spend six months in a hospital and endure nine surgeries. Last week, she finally got a chance to meet the retired Los Angeles firefighter who her family says saved her life.
- PUB DATE: 5/18/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CNN