A very important task that fire companies often are assigned to support is public relations. This can include conducting events at which we educate the public on a variety of fire safety-related topics, or setting up a display of apparatus and equipment to show citizens how tax dollars are spent.
Fire officers are hard-pressed to show members that any of these activities can be considered a training opportunity, but an exception can be found in events organized by Courageous Kids Climbing (CKC).
Gaining a foothold
CKC provides opportunities for children—and others—who have special needs (physical or developmental), including cancer survivors, burn survivors and wounded warriors, to experience various forms of rock climbing at events that are held in the western United States. To date, the organization has conducted 67 events that included more than 750 participants and their families.
Since the organization’s inception in 2014, firefighters have played a very important role in these events. From the beginning, firefighters, particularly those who have rope rescue skills, were encouraged to attend the events in their rescue harnesses. Roaming around the event, they point to the kids who have special needs: “Look. When I do my job, I wear a harness just like you are wearing.” The firefighters also are encouraged to coach the kids while they climb. (What could be more fun for kids than to have a firefighter as their climbing coach?!)
For some kids who have developmental challenges, the climbing opportunity helps them with their focusing and problem-solving challenges. For others, it builds self-confidence and lessens their fear of heights. For the kids who have physical challenges, climbing provides an opportunity for them that they might not get anywhere else.
At the first events, tours of fire apparatus weren’t encouraged. The organization wanted all energies to be directed toward the therapeutic benefits of the climbing opportunity. However, at one event, a mother approached CKC event organizers to express her appreciation for letting her son sit in a fire engine. It was the first time that the boy saw an engine up close. This resulted in a policy change. Now, tours of apparatus are encouraged.
Because of some of the fears of people in uniform as well as vocalization issues that some children have, the kids themselves are encouraged to ask the firefighters to look at the apparatus. In addition to a very positive experience for the children, this helps the firefighters to better understand the challenges that many of these children face, and that information could be beneficial during an emergency response.
Try it on for size
Tours of the fire apparatus resulted in kids wanting to try on firefighters’ turnouts, but this was a big concern initially. Some children have medical issues that CKC event organizers feared could be triggered by contaminants on the turnouts.
CKC decided that it was time to acquire their own turnouts that they could keep clean. Advanced Fire and Rescue Services of Santa Clarita, CA, which is a private rescue service that specializes in motorsports events, including NASCAR, answered the call. The company acquired small-size structural turnouts that were cleaned and sent to CKC. These turnouts are loaned to the firefighters to use during apparatus tours. This has resulted in much positive feedback from parents as well as firefighters.
CKC boasts that they can take anyone who weighs 300 pounds or less to the top of a climbing wall. Much of the equipment that is used is found on apparatus. There’s specialized lifting devices and adaptive harnesses, too.
RIT Safety Solutions provided two EZ Donn confined-space rescue harnesses (retrofitted specifically for CKC) to be used in various ways to haul kids who have physical challenges up the wall safely. (One of the harnesses was donated to the Boise, ID, Fire Department. In 2019, the department’s technical rescue team was recognized for their support of Courageous Kids Climbing when they received a Community Service Award from Firehouse Magazine.)
Binder-Lift provided five of its lifting devices to CKC. The devices are designed to help EMTs and paramedics lift patients from difficult areas, such as in a bathroom, while reducing the chance of injury to the EMT/paramedic. Constructed with several handholds, the device wraps around the torso. CKC event volunteers place the lifting device on the climber. With a grip on the handholds, a volunteer walks the child or other individual to the climbing wall and then supports him/her as he/she climbs the wall.
It isn’t just businesses that support CKC. Upon hearing of the challenges of supporting a child who lacks upper body strength in one of the specialized lifting devices, a retired firefighter who lives in Arkansas sent a new Kendricks Extrication Device (K.E.D) to the organization.
And the training ensues
As interest in the climbing events continues to grow, the role of firefighters also grows. In the beginning, a single engine company might support an event, and the personnel who were assigned to that apparatus would talk and interact with the kids.
Today, it isn’t uncommon to see multiple fire apparatus at an event. Often, utilizing their own equipment, firefighters now set up haul systems to lift kids to the top of the climbing wall, similar to what the firefighters do in a high-angle rescue incident. The entire on-duty technical rescue team of the Spokane, WA, Fire Department did that as well as climbed alongside kids.
Learning is a valuable part of these events for firefighters. At another event, both urban search and rescue (USAR) teams from the Kern County, CA, Fire Department attended. The battalion chief commented that the CKC event was one of the few times that both USAR teams had the opportunity to train together.
At another event, when asked whether his rescue team gets anything out of hauling kids up the wall, a captain said the team would go back to the station to re-write their procedures for dealing with kids in a cliff rescue.
At an event in Las Vegas, a young man attended who has spastic cerebral palsy, is confined to a wheelchair, and is deaf and nonverbal. Members of the Clark County, NV, Fire Department’s technical rescue team took the man out of the horizontal world and let him experience the vertical! Wonderful. However, after the event, firefighters and event organizers reflected back on the circumstance and wondered about how to rescue this man from a burning building. If this man experienced muscle spasms during rescue, how do you remove him down a ladder safely without him knocking firefighters off the ladder?
We’re still trying to figure out the answer to that question.
As kids leave the venue, there often is a delay in packing up the specialized equipment, a significant amount of which is designed to be utilized by firefighters. It isn’t unusual for firefighters to experiment with it. Because CKC maintains a close relationship with some of the manufacturers, the organization provides feedback from the firefighters to the manufacturers.
More than meets the eye
Public relations is a vital activity that’s performed by all fire companies. However, it is often a one-sided opportunity. Through Courageous Kids Climbing, the effort is reciprocal. These events are a win-win for everyone involved.
Jeff Riechmann
Jeff Riechmann is retired from the Kern County, CA, Fire Department, where he served as a firefighter for 23 years. Riechmann also retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a deputy fire chief. He has taught fire technology and fire science at the college level. Riechmann can be reached at [email protected].
