Recently, I finished a year-long project with a large and very active fire department in western New York. The project was to design, build and initiate a complete line-of-duty-death (LODD) pre-plan strategy, procedure manual, and Emergency Contact Form (ECF). For me, this was the culmination of years of needing procedures in place and knowing that we lose an emergency responder in the line of duty every 24 hours.
Working on this project has taught me a few key things:
- All too often, providers mistakenly believe that, “We are too small a department to worry about a LODD.”
- Alternately, they will assert, “We’ll use our state’s funeral protocol to guide us.”
- Lately, “budget” seems to have become a four-letter word, effectively precluding many agencies from even beginning to allocate funds and time for the design of an LODD pre-plan — or even updating an existing plan.
- Sadly, I have heard this frightening statement: “We will depend on our state, regional or local officials to take care of LODD issues.”
For the record, many good resources do exist for EMS, fire or police agencies to tap into should a serious injury or LODD occur. However — and this caution comes directly from many of these fine resources — you still must have something in place within your own department to use as a guide for those critical 12 to 24 hours immediately after the tragic event.
Let me ask this question: Is it feasible to use identical protocol(s) of a neighboring agency to run your day-to-day operations? Would you elect your officers the same way each year? I can go on, but I think you get the point.
There is also a whole other perspective outside of the LODD loss (Level 1) death to consider. What does your department do when an active member or employee dies suddenly, while not on duty (Level 2)? And how about when there is an “expected” loss of the member due to old age (Level 3)? What do you do for that loss?
As you can see, these three basic levels all bring widely different expectations and responses. There will be a variation in terms of the surviving family’s needs and determining what is considered fair or appropriate for funeral options for all parties involved.
Regardless of the nuances surrounding a department death, there seems to be general, genuine resistance from departments to work on a pre-plan that deals directly with a LODD. As a certified grief counselor, I’ve learned that most Americans are generally uncomfortable talking about death or even planning for end-of-life issues. But uneasiness should not be used as an excuse to avoid this topic.
Many COOs, family of department members, commissioners, and other personnel have expressed a great sense of relief upon implementing reliable procedural standards — a complete list of outside resources, local resources, and department-wide operation guidelines should a LODD occur.
I often teach in my LODD training program that a crucial goal is to avoid asking these two haunting questions after any LODD:
Did we do enough?
Did we do it right?
These two questions will frequently be on the minds of those who are in charge of the overall response and coordination of the surviving family support, surviving department support, and the logistics and financial matters that envelop any LODD, or even the unexpected death of a member or employee from other causes.
To be clear, it takes time (months), finances and a great amount of passion, perseverance and determination to take on this intimidating topic. And it takes courage to begin planning for what will be, perhaps, the most tragic event in your personal and departmental history.
I would suggest three primary guidelines in tackling this mission:
1. Fully realize that a LODD will happen in your department sooner or later. Remember this statement: “It’s no longer a matter of if, but when.”
2. To help address the resistance to implementing a LODD SOP, approach it and speak about it simply as another regular protocol. Protocols have become everyday necessities in EMS and approaching LODDs in this fashion can ease some discomfort for those involved.
3. And finally, John F. Kennedy gave us a quote more than 40 years ago that is still quite relevant for this topic: “The time to fix the roof is not when it’s raining.”
I couldn’t have said it any better.
In closing, let me make you this offer. If you have any questions on how or where to begin, please contact me. I want to help as many departments and agencies as possible — regardless of budget constraints, leadership apprehension, or any other difficulties that arise. Your department can not only survive this type of tragic event, but also grow from it. Surviving versus thriving — it’s a big difference.
Until next time, be well!
If you’d like a sample of our death notification pocket guide, mentioned in my last column, please contact me at cism79@frontiernet.net or by visiting www.cismperspectives.com.
