When I was a little girl, my grandmother’s best friend had cancer. Everyone whispered the word “cancer.” It was as if you might get it yourself if you said it out loud. Fast forward to today and our ... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Wellness

Decon is the hazardous materials equivalent of catching the hydrant on a structure fire. Everyone wants to be on the nozzle, but if no one is securing the water supply not much is going to get done o... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Hazmat

Oftentimes firefighters hear about the chance to join the HazMat team and are immediately transported to their unpleasant experiences with high school chemistry. And while it’s true, understanding ch... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Hazmat

When the subject of air monitoring is brought up, it is almost always in the context of hazardous materials response. Rarely do hazardous materials responders discuss air monitoring as an integral (a... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Hazmat 2020

The old adage of “you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives” come to mind when thinking about our public safety community. I believe that we can all prove this saying wrong in that ... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Responder Mental Health

Several years ago, I had the privilege to spend a weekend learning from Chief Alan Brunacini when he came to the South Piedmont Community College to teach. I even had a larger privilege of spending s... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Feature

Being Competent (This is part two of a seven-part series on leadership.) During this series we will be examining the seven qualities that are necessary for a leader to be successful in le... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Leadership

When we train on the Incident Management/Incident Command System (ICS/IMS), we often discuss the roles of the general staff — operations, planning, logistics, and finance/administration. However, we ... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Feature

Testing emergency plans for response agencies, governmental entities, businesses, and schools is a must to ensure that plans on paper actually work under emergency conditions. An untested emergency p... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Emergency Planning

All agencies of all sizes, from mountains to the coast struggle with staffing at times. Recruitment can be difficult for everyone, as all branches of public safety and healthcare struggle with pay sc... Read More...

Relevant Tags: NEWS FROM THE NC BUREAU OF EMS

We are in that time of year for seasonal changes, temperature dips and spikes, deer/turkey/duck seasons, and of course, preparations for the EMS Symposium in Myrtle Beach the first week of March! As ... Read More...

Relevant Tags: NEWS FROM THE SC BUREAU OF EMS

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) delivery systems across our state are just as diverse as the amazing men and women that provide them. While we wrestle with high-level industry questions surrounding o... Read More...

Relevant Tags: SOUTH CAROLINA EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES

Transparency is truth. When I raised my hand as the 28th Treasurer for the State of North Carolina, I promised to bring transparency, instill this value as a culture in departmental operations, and t... Read More...

Relevant Tags: News From the N.C. State Treasurer

Public Safety faces and addresses numerous issues regarding change in the workforce on a continual basis. In the sixties there was racial tensions that lead to riots across various communities throug... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Recruiting & Retention

The time has come for even those of us in the warmer climates to start seeing some occasional cold and ice. The next couple of months brings in calls that we don’t see very often, or for years at a t... Read More...

Relevant Tags: Rescue