TEXAS DOUBLE LODD TRIAL CONTINUES:

TEXAS DOUBLE LODD TRIAL CONTINUES:


From firefighterclosecalls.com

Ladder Belts, SOP's and The Death of Two Firefighters
Any LESSONS LEARNED here for all of us? Apparatus Manufacturers? Apparatus Dealers?
Kilgore Firefighters guiding the hands-on drills for their new ladder/platform truck in 2009 knew the operations manual told them to wear safety belts that could have saved two from a fatal fall, according to department testimony Monday in a suit against the truck's maker and retailer. Those safety belts, which harness a firefighter to the ladder platform, or bucket, had not been delivered with the 95-foot truck made by E-One. Meanwhile, safety belts sat idle in a ladder truck no longer in service, one officer testified. The suit, against E-One and retailer Hall-Mark Fire Apparatus-Texas, brought by the family of fallen Kilgore Fire Department Firefighter Kyle Perkins, who with fellow Fireman Cory Galloway, died in the Jan. 25, 2009, training exercise.

"I started slowly rotating over to the building," 26-year Kilgore Fire Department Instructor James Sanders described guiding the 18-square-foot platform above the rooftop lip of 8-story Stark Hall dormitory at Kilgore College.

Two four-FF crews had completed their training mission to achieve the roof of the city's tallest building. Leading the third group, Sanders was steering the platform, called a bucket, carrying Perkins, Galloway and Robert King.

He guided it to within 18-24 inches of the overhanging roof parapet, and he needed it to be nearer.

"It dropped rather suddenly," he recalled. "That's when it made contact with the wall."

Sanders testified to telling the men to stay calm and keep their weight steady.

"I looked over the front to see if I could see any obstruction," he said, describing the light touch, called feathering, he used on the hydraulic controls.

Sanders later testified he had operated hydraulics all his life, from his father's farm to construction work to a stint on a county roads crew.

He said he "feathered" the boom function, which bends like an elbow from the truck below.

"And nothing happened, it just sat there," Sanders said. "I feathered again, and shortly thereafter I was in the process of looking over (the front) again when it broke loose. All of a sudden, we were going backward."

The violent rocking that ensued pushed Galloway and Perkins outward through corner doors designed to open inward only. "Myself and Robert managed to stay in the bucket. ... It seemed like an eternity. I couldn't tell you how many forward and backward jerks it made. ... At some point, (King) was very close to the door, and I reached over and grabbed him back. Pretty much, in that time, we were in survival mode."

On Thursday, Doug Fleming, instructor for ladder truck maker E-One, also testified to neither using nor asking potential customers to use safety belts. Sanders and Capt. Kyle Huckabee both testified Monday they had never gone up in a platform ladder, in early sessions with the new one in 2008-09 or during sales demonstrations.

Neither the fire chief nor the mayor had worn a safety belt during a platform sales demonstration in 1988, Sanders said.

However, he also testified he included safety belts in the Standard Operating Procedures manual he wrote for a non-platform ladder truck purchased in 1989.

Huckabee testified the Standard Operating Procedures, or SOP, manual was being written for the new ladder/platform truck when the tragedy occurred.

Like Sanders, he said he knew of the safety belt instruction in the truck's operating manual. He said he did not know whether or not anyone had sought, before the fatal drill, to retrieve safety belts from a ladder-only truck that was out of service.

He also testified Kilgore city policy forbade putting equipment in service before an SOP is written, despite the new truck being used in a fire at Cancun Dave's restaurant weeks before the fatal training exercise. "At least, in that context," defense attorney Keith Slade told Huckabee, "the city of Kilgore failed to have an SOP in place before the equipment was placed in service. True enough?

"True enough," Huckabee agreed.
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