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My Body Survived My Career Because of Health and Wellness “Culture”
By: Robert Avsec Make no mistake, fire and emergency medical service is physically demanding work — always has been and always will be. Despite the technology that has made the job safer and less...
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Life after Firefighting
By: Robin Lawson with Robert Avsec Note: It gives me great pleasure to “hand over” the blogging duties for this one to Robin Lawson, formerly of the Las Vegas (NV) Fire Department. I invited Robin...
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Life After Firefighting: It’s a Matter of Time
By: Robin Lawson with Robert Avsec Breast cancer—and probably most cancers when you think about it—lulls one into a sense of complacency. The first, and even the second time, I was diagnosed with...
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Life After Firefighting: The Financial and Social Impacts
By: Robin Lawson with Robert Avsec I was fortunate enough to have had a great career as a firefighter and good health insurance with good benefits. It did not come easy; it took me four years to get...
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My Life after Firefighting: What I’ve Learned
Note to My Readers: This post is the fourth and final in a series that Robin Lawson has written for this blog. I want to thank her for her courage is sharing her story about her fire service career...
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The Long and Winding Road: A Firefighter’s Battle with Cancer
By: Frank Vento with Robert Avsec I was having a good career at my department. I put in a great deal of time working on projects and studying hard for that lieutenant promotion that I really wanted....
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Readers Weigh-In: Why aren’t We Changing Our Ways?
By: Robert Avsec If you are a fire service leader who’s REALLY interested in attaining zero firefighter deaths and injuries, you must take 32+ minutes to watch this video that was produced by Dr. Burt...
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Frank’s Journey to Fight Cancer Ends Too Quickly
Dear Readers, Lieutenant Frank Vento, Seminole (FL) Fire Rescue Department Seminole, FL I pains me to inform you that Lieutenant Frank Vento, of the Seminole (FL) Fire Rescue Department, and author of...
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What You Don’t Know about Smoke Can Hurt You
By: Shawn Longerich The Fire Smoke Coalition has been a leader in the fire service industry about the dangers of fire smoke. Firefighters and departments throughout the US have embraced the...
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Tampa II: Additional Food-for-Thought
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Well the folks at Tampa II have been hard at work for a second day in their efforts to make continued progress in developing strategies–and refining existing...
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What You Don’t Know about Smoke Can Hurt You
Editor’s Note: Robert is on a golfing vacation this week, so he’s giving a “replay” of an earlier post that you might have missed. By: Shawn Longerich The Fire Smoke Coalition has been a leader in...
View Article5 Ways Officers can Keep Firefighters Safe
Nobody in a fire department’s chain of command should have more influence on the safety performance of its firefighters than the individual company officer. Think about that statement for a moment and...
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Suggestion for Revised Firefighter Oath
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Suggestion for Revised Firefighter Oath: You have a duty to act. You do not have a duty to act stupidly or recklessly. There is no honor in dying on the job...
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Is the Diagnosis Really PTSD?
By: Dr. Will Brooks, Ed.D I’ve been involved with firefighters and the stress reactions they experience for over 25 years, so the recent trend to using the PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) term...
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Being the First-line Supervisor Ain’t Easy
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer A while back I received the following comment to one of my blog posts in this space from a newly appointed first-line supervisor in a fire Our Mission The Fire...
View ArticleMy Body Survived My Career Because of Health and Wellness “Culture”
It seems to me that many fire and EMS organizations are a bit "Johnny-come-lately" when it comes to the health and well-being of their people, and some still have not come to the party. I was very...
View ArticleLife after Firefighting
This story is written from my perspective; it is simply my own experience. My breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent legal action combined for my “early exit”, so the “sudden end” was really not so...
View ArticleLife After Firefighting: It’s a Matter of Time
In many cases the most important component of their treatment will involve time. The time to get a diagnosis, get the proper treatment, and recover from that treatment. A caring and empathetic manager...
View ArticleLife After Firefighting: The Financial and Social Impacts
Then “sticker shock” set in. When I first saw how much of a difference there was between my regular paycheck and my disability retirement check…I knew big changes were in store.
View ArticleMy Life after Firefighting: What I’ve Learned
Thinking back on my 14 years with the Las Vegas Fire Department as a Firefighter/EMT-I, I realize that it was one of the most challenging, strength finding, and courageous things I’ve ever done in my...
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