The A-ha Moment That Changed How I See Safety

What if the way we handle emergencies could also be applied to everyday life? In this episode, Jimmy breaks down the safety hierarchy, who to take care of first in an emergency, and why this is important even outside of the safety field. He explains why prioritizing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s strategic, and how this shift in thinking can make you a stronger partner, leader, team member, or decision-maker.

But the real a-ha moment? A conversation with his wife. Jimmy realized that the Incident Command System (ICS) - originally designed for emergency response situations - might offer some insight into navigating daily personal responsibilities too. 

Whether it’s tackling workplace challenges or managing family logistics, Jimmy explores how reassessing priorities, adapting to changing situations, and working as a team can create a more effective, less stressful approach to both crises at work and in everyday life.

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Emergency Response Training in Real Life
• 17:15 Effective Incident Command System Implementation

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

What's happening. It's your boy, jimmy, with another life and safety podcast Going solo. Today, meg started school and our schedules just have not aligned. So here I am sitting in this office by myself with just my notes and we'll see what happens and see what comes out. So today we're going to talk about emergency response training in real life and how we can use the things we learn in class and apply it to life, or at least how I do it.

Jimmy: 1:01

This isn't going to solve the world's problems. It's not going to, you know, do anything like that. It's just kind of an interesting thought that created a spark, that created a wildfire in my head from a conversation I had with the wife the other day driving. So what do I mean by that? What do I mean by that? So if you've ever taken a safety class, a medical class, they always tell you, the instructor always tells you you know there's a hierarchy in safety and the number one, most important person there is yourself. And if you don't take care of yourself, you can't help anybody else and, honestly, no truer words were ever spoken If you can't take care of yourself, you're not going to help anybody else. You might be able to do it short term, but long term it's just not going to work. And that might be you exercising, meditating, throwing a baseball, cheering at a baseball game or painting, or whatever. It is right, no judgment, you know, as long as it's, hopefully it's healthy and something you need to do for you and it makes you happy. You got to do it In that scene safety.

Jimmy: 2:33

In my class I always teach the next group of people or the next person is your teammate. So if you take care of yourself and you take care of your teammates, you're going to be okay. You're going to give that patient a pretty good chance of you know, pretty good care. I should say it that way. Not a chance of survival. That's not up to us. It's just we're going to give that person the best chance Now in an emergency situation. That's awesome. How does that work at home? Well, if I take care of myself and I'm good, I can then go and take care of my family. I can make sure the kids are good, I can make sure my wife's good, I can make sure my siblings are good, my mom's good, the buddies are good. Whatever it is, I have to be in a good, healthy spot for myself to be in a good, healthy spot for them. And it's just true, it works. You have to be that way. Now, in my class I teach the patient is next. Actually, I think I teach equipment. Those are your tools, whatever you need to do to keep yourself happy and your family happy. I'm not going to get into that too much. But after that you're patient.

Jimmy: 3:51

So it's pretty straightforward when somebody needs CPR, that's your patient. We're going to check the scene, make sure they're breathing or not breathing, start compressions, call 911, get the AEDs. It's a dance, right. We just got to know the steps and we got to do it. Now, outside of that, you know that patient may be somebody in need, that somebody may need, you know, a tire change. That person may need 10 bucks, who knows what. It is Just the problem and if I'm not good, and I'm not good with my family and I don't have things going on, I can't help that person, right? So it's really pretty simple.

Jimmy: 4:48

You know those first four things, five things we got to do, and in my class I always ask is there anybody left that we have to worry about? And usually it's the friends and family of the patient. So if it's somebody in need, maybe they got sick. We should ask how's their family doing, ask their, you know, if it's a family friend, reach out to their siblings, to their mom, their dad, whatever it is, see if they're doing it Good. You know the fire department, the police. You know they always have, they're always doing some kind of charity work with. You know, burn victims or people with different situations going on in their lives, because they're taken care of, hopefully, and they're able to reach out and not only help during that emergency but continue to help and be there and be supportive, because that's what people need. So, safety first. Take care of yourself, your teammates, your family, your equipment and then your patient and that could be lots of folks like I just kind of talked about.

Jimmy: 6:08

Now, where's this coming from? Well, first off, I want to tell everybody I'm okay. I don't want anybody to be like what's going on? Jimmy, are you good? This is pretty deep for you. Yeah, it totally is, for sure, for sure.

Jimmy: 6:27

But one of the things I kind of just had this light bulb moment kick in. Jenny and I were on a road trip driving back from a client. I got to take her to. You know, just kind of show her what I got to do, sometimes One of the perks of being the bosses, I guess. And we were talking about our plans.

Jimmy: 6:49

And those of you that know me outside of work know that I do not handle my planning, my schedule at all. Our office manager tells me where to go and what to be at, monday through Friday, from about 7.30 to 8 o'clock at night usually, and my off-duty coordinator, my wife, tells me what to do when I'm not there. I do not like making plans, I do not like talking about plans, I don't like any of that stuff. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. And I like to tie this into the incident command system.

Jimmy: 7:36

So the incident command system was a system that was invented in the 70s during the Malibu Hills Palisade fires that you know. This maybe kind of sparked this also. That just burned again. What happened was a lot of firefighters, a lot of people, showed up at these big fires. There was no plan, there was no way to communicate and there was nobody in charge. And I've always just kind of lived my life like that, because I kind of grew up in the fire service and working on the, you know, ambulances and what have you. So I'm just I fall in line.

Jimmy: 8:18

You know, maybe folks from the military career military kind of realize this and kind of maybe kind of I don't know understand this a little bit more. But I've always had an instinct commander. So that person tells me what to do because they have plans and objectives. They have plans and objectives and my incident commander, my wife, always has these great plans and these objectives of what she wants to get done is, if it's, you know, planning our weekend, planning where we have for dinner for the week, whatever it is, I usually fall into what they call the operation section. So in the incident command system there's an incident commander person in charge and there's an ops section, a logistical section, a planning section and finance HR, if you will.

Jimmy: 9:16

Well, I guess I said earlier, I've always either been the incident commander or the operations person. The incident commander makes the plan, tells the operations team this is what the plan is, go make it happen. So that's my mentality. I take that plan and I put my head down and I run through the wall and put the fire out or do whatever I need to do. And I run through the wall and put the fire out or do whatever I need to do. But I'm getting older. Now obviously there's other plans that are happening, there's things that are just going on in life and the business and things like that.

Jimmy: 9:55

And I've always been a little bullheaded about these things. And one of the Jenny kind of talked to me during our conversation on our road trip, like I was saying, and she said we've got to reassess our plan. And I looked at her, not directly because I was driving, I didn't take my eyes off the road, but I kind of out of the corner of my eye. I kind of went wait, what'd you say? And she said we have to reassess our plan. And I went oh my gosh, all these years I've been fighting you and arguing with you about all these crazy things. I I never thought of it that way.

Jimmy: 10:41

And let me kind of break this down team. In an emergency, the incident commander assesses the situation, creates their plan, tells the ops person to go do it. The ops person comes back and says this is what's going on. I need more support. The logistics person goes okay, Excuse me. The incident commander says okay, logistics person, I need you to support this person with supplies and equipment. And then the incident commander is going to say operations person, what's going on now? Then the operations person gives a situation report. We've done this, this and this. We've stopped the fire here, we've provided medical care, we're going back, we got the building evacuated. Whatever the situation is, it's a progress report that allows the incident commander then to reassess the situation and ask questions how come we haven't stopped the fire at this block? Or how come the people are still standing outside because we evacuated them so long ago? Do they need shelter? Do they need water? Do they need a place to use the restroom? Whatever the reassessment is, and let's make a plan about it or change our plan.

Jimmy: 12:16

And I've just never really been a person to be able to do that until recently. I mean, we just had this conversation a couple of weeks ago. So I'm still learning, still learning. So I'm still learning, still learning. But I just thought it was really interesting that I've kind of always put the way I responded and I've tried to be the same way in life. So that's safety first. I've always lived by that, so to speak, sometimes better than others. But I've also never looked at life like using the incident command system as far as it's a joint or unified command, and that's usually when there's multiple agencies together, all kind of an interest of we've got to protect certain things, we've got to put the fire out. I'll use that and, you know, keep people safe.

Jimmy: 13:09

Well, I've always looked at a relationship, if you will, and our life as single command, one person in charge, and it's truly not that. And it's kind of silly that Jenny and I have been married almost 20 years and I'm realizing this now that I guess we both get to be in charge. We just have to talk about it. And I know when Jenny listens to this, to edit it and to publish this, she's going to laugh because she's always told me we're in this together, you big dummy. It didn't connect or click until Jenny said use that reassess word. Now circle it back to the incident command system. You arrive, you assess you action plan, you reassess Right and then you adjust accordingly. Now that's life. You arrive at the situation, you assess it, you make an action plan, you reevaluate it Right and you adjust accordingly and I don't know, it just kind of worked. It kind of worked.

Jimmy: 14:31

Another good life example I give people when I teach the incident command system in my classes is when I used to coach Jameson's little League baseball teams. I would always kind of be like all right, I'm the head coach, I need a manager. That manager is going to be kind of my right hand. I'm going to tell them this is our practice plan. I need you to go do this, set up the field this way. Right, this is what I want to do. Go and I just have them do that.

Jimmy: 15:04

And then my logistics person would always be my team mom, doing things that I definitely did not like to do. Can you communicate with the team, other parents? Can you communicate with the league? Can you make sure you know we're doing the right things, our schedule is up to date? You know our snack schedule's good to go, those kind of things. And then you know finance. I'd always kind of have to manage that a little bit and the team side of things like the Little League stuff. You know any kind of fundraising and things like that. I'd kind of have to help with that just because I was in charge and ultimately I was responsible for it. Going to have to help with that just because I was in charge and ultimately I was responsible for it. And then, making plans, I'd always have somebody, a team mom, and maybe a helper or another couple parents being my planning group going. Hey, you know, we have the end of the year party, what do you all want to do? Or, hey, I think it's going to be really nice after this game on Saturday. Or we're traveling, we're going to be at this really cool park, let's set up a barbecue after the game on Saturday. Or we're traveling, we're going to be at this really cool park, let's set up a barbecue after the game. So that's kind of cool.

Jimmy: 16:08

So I've always used the kind of used the instinct command system, but I've never. I used to use that example when I taught, but I've never, I don't know. I just really applied it to myself. So it just kind of hit home the other day. So that's kind of why I'm talking about it and I just feel like there's lots of lessons here. There's lessons in everything, I guess. So, with that being said, team, I just wanted to kind of get that out there and say, hey, emergencies in real life, emergency training in real life, they go together, they go together.

Jimmy: 16:44

Maybe another group thing you can think about, the planning group from the incident command is, you know, preparedness. You know, is your house safe or is your house prepared. You know whatever that means for you. Do you have food and water? Do you have you know emergency shelter, a tent? Do you have food and water? Do you have you know emergency shelter, a tent? Do you have you know, just a way to communicate with your family, all kinds of things? There's all kinds of things like that, so you can use the incident command system in your life lots of different ways.

Jimmy: 17:16

Adjust it as accordingly, which is how the incident command system is designed. It's based on the incident commander's needs and the resources they have. So look at your resources, plan accordingly and obviously, think safety first. Think safety first. Think care of yourself, your family and then the patient, whatever that problem is. Lean on your resources, your teammates, family, friends, all that kind of stuff, and then anything else that comes up after that, act accordingly and hopefully you're in a good spot to help those folks. All right team. Thanks for listening to my ramble by myself, but I had to get this one off my chest. Be safe, think safety first and peace.