Silent Alarm; On the Edge with a Deaf Firefighter!

Official Retirement Picture

2011-10-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

Frankly, my dear. I don't give a damn!
New York City - Time Square

Officially Retired:

2011-05-26T07:41:00.001-07:00

As of today, I have retired from the fire department and gone fishing. I am still currently maintaing my EMT certification. Will be focusing on writing books and spending time with my family and grandchildren. I will still be in the reserves as a medic. I will continue to maintain this blog and will post more information as needed. Thank you.

NEW REVIEW FOR SILENT ALARM

2011-01-20T06:52:00.001-08:00

5.0 out of 5 stars well written, could no put down, quick read , more please, October 22, 2010

steve lewbowski "gman" (sf bay area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silent Alarm: On the Edge With a Deaf EMT (Hardcover)

As someone whom is in ems, and fire, this book found me and I it. Also, I am taking ASL. Very few books keep my attention. The author writes well
and keeps my attention page after page. This book covers the subject of ambulance work along with firefighting but mostly medical responses. I've not
had the experiences so intense as the author. I would have like to read more about his sister, and his work in the morgue at a hospital. This
book could have easily been longer and full of more stories. Leave them wanting more. That is definitely the case with this book. Not since Jar Head
the movie and book and Catch me if you can, book and movie have I enjoyed a book like this. This book is shocking yet heart felt. Anyone in ems will
easily relate. Enjoy

Salute to the FDNY

2011-01-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

How To Be A Deaf Firefighter In Virginia

2010-11-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Good evening Mr. Schrader,

First of all, I want to share my appreciation on your blog about the deaf firefighter issues. Recently, I saw your vlog about “support” deaf firefighters. Your statement was straight forward and bold, I had to agree with you. I understand how you feel about other two deaf “support” firefighters who want to get on the truck and drive it right away. Impossible! Let me tell you about myself a little bit, I was born deaf, my parents are deaf too. I am a pilot and to learn how to fly, we had to learn how the dynamics of airplane works first before getting in the left seat.

Back to the point, I was trying to ask you a question. After researching about deaf firefighters, it has been my long time passion to be one of them. I am living in Staunton, Virginia. I have applied with the volunteer fire dept. The volunteer coordinator came back with this information, that stumped me. I was not sure how to answer her question. I hope you will be more than willing to give me the feedback how to become the “support” firefighter. I am more than willing to do the roles as support firefighter. Let me exempt the email from her…

Stanley – here is some info – and it was suggested from both our training Captains to get you the info for both the Virginia Department of Fire Programs and the Office of Emergency Medical Services, since there are some restrictions with both.

Virginia Department of Fire Programs (VDFP): Chief Don Brown (Division 3 Chief)

Captain Weaver: I have spoken to Chief Brown from VDFP and he said we could put him in a Firefighter I class but one of the requirements is that you can hear an emergency EVAC tone and evacuate the structure.

Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services: (VOEMS):

Captain Hearn: VA OEMS will not certify someone who is 100% deaf

http://www.vdh.state.va.us/oems/

What is your advice on how I respond back? Hopefully they will take me in as a support firefighter. I am 100% deaf… that is the dilemma for me, I can wear the hearing aids but don’t like to wear it because I will only hear few different sounds but will not able to hear which direction the sounds come from. You can say I am profoundly deaf. From what I learned that E VAC tends to sound off from the truck by air horn, that I could feel it like 50 feet away.

Mr. Scrhrader, I want you to know that I already placed an order on your book today but won’t get it for another couple days through Amazon. I want to congratulate on your book. I can’t wait to read it. Hope you will be more than willing to give a feedback about my situation. I can reply back as soon as possible to that person who emailed it and hopefully I can still become a support firefighter.

Thank you, Mr. Schrader.

Cheers,

Stanley Juchno

NOTE: I will post my response to his letter.

New Update:

2010-10-10T13:10:00.001-07:00

Defining a Deaf Firefighter

In the 21st century, there’s appeared to be an extraordinary, if not somewhat cynical, an explosion of a modern phenomenon of those who claimed to be deaf firefighters. If they are members of a fire department, most likely as a volunteer, they are merely ‘support’ firefighters in the same way a ‘reserve’ police officer is in law enforcement. There are exceptions for those who succeeded in becoming a deaf firefighter without restrictions and receive a paycheck.

But, it becomes necessary to set a precedent and define what a deaf firefighter is. A profound deaf ‘support’ firefighter cannot conduct interior firefighting, but can with exterior firefighting. He has almost no chance of hoping for a career with a fire department when his adversary, also a deaf support firefighter, retains some residual hearing and has a better chance of becoming a career or a volunteer support deaf firefighter. To be a deaf firefighter does not include those who became deaf from trauma or illnesses, but, rather is defined as having been educated in a school for the deaf and is a member of a deaf community.

A career deaf firefighter would have no restrictions in performing all of the job functions of a firefighter in all operations of a fire department. Until a deaf firefighter has been specifically assigned to a nozzle, on a first-in attack line for an interior structural fire, he is a deaf ‘support’ firefighter. Of the rare exceptions fo those who succeeded in becoming career deaf firefighters forgot they were deaf and had some residual hearing.
Just as J. Albert Pierce, a deaf educator, recommended in 1921, to forget being deaf in society is the same key to becoming a deaf firefighter today. He may even needs to divorce himself from the deaf community and leave behind all his deaf traits. He can always return when and if he succeeds. If a deaf man failed, it took courage to even try. It takes more courage to fail than to succeed.

Deaf or not, support firefighters do provide valuable manpower and assistance for other firefighters engaged in interior firefighting in all aspects of exterior firefighting, overhauling, salvage and mop-up operations. Depending on a fire department and where he lives, a deaf support firefighter can drive emergency vehicles, mainly water tankers or support vehicles, while other fire departments will not permit a deaf support firefighter to drive fire trucks during emergency responses.

The term; ‘support firefighters,’ may not be applicable in other states, but in Florida, Marion County incorporated a countywide career fire and rescue service in 1979. The volunteers were reduced to ‘support’ firefighters in support for the career stations. Each support firefighter is responsible for paying his own tuition at a local fire college to advance to ‘combat’ firefighter, a rather imaginativeness term invented by the county fire department.

When it used to be simple, nowadays, the fire department is getting too big for its britches. It becomes more complicated. Many fire departments are considering, if not already, are consolidating with the police department as a single entity in public safety, just to save a buck or two. It is my opinion that the fire departments are more concern with its own safety than it is with civilians because of insurance and politics. As time marches on, the deaf will be left behind and forgotten, as usual. With the consolidation of all law, fire, EMS, and rescue in the county, will be less than one name and one budget, then there will be no volunteers.
As for a support firefighter, the only different are the career does interior attacks. Anywhere else, it might be basic and advanced firefighters or either you are or you’re not a certified firefighter. While it may be difficult to become a deaf firefighter in one place, he would have a better chance as a support firefighter in Marion County, Florida, but not as an Emergency Medical Technician, even if certified by the state. The counties enforced a policy for EMTs to, essentially, repeated the entire course again to become a firefighter and EMT all over again.

While there are severe restrictions imposed upon a deaf ‘support’ firefighter against interior firefighting, the same deaf support firefighter could be a deaf wild land firefighter, practically without any restrictions, in states plagued by wild fires. In Florida, he’d be on the nozzle constantly and even operated a brush truck on his own. It all depends on where you go and live. He could run an entire fire station all by himself and respond for fire and rescue calls. He’d be the only firefighter in town.

The Unwritten Policy

Of the three of us deaf firefighters, Johnny and I were deaf-educated. Stanley had mainstreamed in a public school system. Both of them were from up North. New Jersey and Connecticut. I was from Georgia. One of us was smarter than the others. The qualities of education between us were significant, remarkable and very obvious. We were three totally different deaf firefighters with different backgrounds, education and experiences. Still, what was the odd of finding three deaf firefighters in a fire station, much less, runs the station by us.

I’ve considered it the greatest challenge of my life. While I’ve adjusted and overcame obstacles with society, having to deal with another deaf firefighter was the ultimate contest. It was much harder than having to be a member of a deaf community. While I extended my hand and was willing to teach another deaf firefighter, it was nothing more than to deal with his frustration and dismay of not being allowed to fight fire and drive an emergency truck on the first day.

The mentality of a deaf firefighter has it in his mind the ADA would set him free and permit him to bypass the rules of society and in a fire station. He is convinced that all deaf people are the same, therefore, he can share the same responsibilities I have had to earn in thirty years on his first day as a support firefighter. It would not be fair to him because we are the same. No fault of his own, I am convinced he grew up in a generation that embedded the ADA law in his mind to deal with society, if not force the social system to commiserate for his discrimination. If he could adjust his attitude, further his education and ‘forget’ that he was deaf, there would be no social control.

While the other two deaf firefighters may think their success in signing up as deaf support firefighters was from the fear of the fire department not complying with the ADA and the threat of a lawsuit, there were already a discrete, undocumented, and underhanded interdepartmental verbal policy against hiring Johnny and Stanley as deaf career firefighters. The policy, itself, might be right for the obvious limitations of the other two deaf men, but Marion County Fire Rescue did feel humanities and pity toward Johnny and Stanley. They permitted them to be support firefighters with severe limitations imposed and rely on a fire station to get rid of them.

There were never any disputes with the policy of ever hiring a career deaf firefighter for the Marion County Fire Rescue. There would be no implications, lawsuits, complaints, investigations, or to fear the obvious consequences of employing a deaf firefighter and causing the death of a civilian or another firefighter because he could not hear and they hired him.

It could be argued that advanced technology in suppression and rescue could replace the sense of hearing, but the insurance companies would never approve the hiring of a deaf firefighter for that specific reason. Regardless of the ADA law. It was the insurance companies, and the fire department’s tradition, common sense or being mind-seated of the impossibilities that a deaf man could actually fight fire. They could never be career firefighters in Florida when there is a better chance in another state using the National Fire Protection Association standards. Florida does not agree with the NFPA. The fire departments in Florida are essentially ruled by the insurance companies.

Even if a deaf man failed, it took courage to try and be willing to risk his life. But by chance, he succeeds, he is committing suicide or risking the lives of other firefighters and citizens alike. Mine included. But his biggest fear should be being the first and only firefighter on a structural fire. Only then a deaf firefighter will understand his limitation and realize he is just as valuable assisting the other firefighters to do what he cannot do in the first place. Being the first deaf firefighter on the scene and unable to communicate with the child’s mother, to her location in the house, is tantamount to manslaughter.

There are no amounts of modern technology that can ever replace the sense of hearing a small child crying out for help in a house fire. If he was not charged, the mother would receive a settlement from the fire department for the simple and logical reason that if he was not deaf, her daughter would be alive. The moral of the story is for a deaf firefighter to be last on the scene of a working fire and provide support.

The deaf firefighter can be utilized for exterior firefighting and pairing up with another buddy on the same nozzle. Again, there is no amount of training and pairing with a buddy and being inside of a burning structure that will prepare a deaf firefighter in the event of his partner’s death by a falling piece of burning debris or a back draft. He’d be unable to communicate by portable radio for help. He would not hear the command to evacuate when the building collapse and cut off his escape route following the hose to the outside. Again, the deaf firefighter would best be utilized for exterior firefighting with another partner.

When the deaf firefighter and his dead partner are unaccounted for during roll call, the chief will be forced to attempt a search and rescue. More firefighters will be hurt or killed to rescue a dead deaf firefighter. It’s not likely he’d be given a ride in his casket on top of a fire truck during a funeral when his dead partner will. There would never be another deaf firefighter in this fire department again. A firefighter is willing to die so others shall live, but, not because of a deaf firefighter who caused his death.

Firefighter/EMT Steven L Schrader (Ret)

Battle At Station 23

2010-09-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

WHO IS STEVEN L SCHRADER?
Military 201 File
Professional Resume'

By his own admission, Steven Schrader says he suffers from an identity crisis. By its own definition, such a crisis is a period or an episode of psychological distress when he seeks a clear sense of his role in society. The distress, as it is in his case, can be derived from confusion as to what his goals are and what his priorities is as a deaf firefighter in a hearing world. While he is not the only deaf person coping with this struggle, his journey is unique in that neither the deaf or the hearing world believes he belongs to either of them.

Deaf since birth and educated at a school for the deaf, one would think that his identity was without question; being deaf. But since he has a ‘voice,’ he is rejected by his own people. When enrolled in a public school, his ‘voice’ sounded odd and so he was rejected by his hearing classmates. After graduating, it was then he began his life-long struggle to find his true identity as to where he belongs. He constantly reinvented himself to adjust, adapt and overcome an obstacle. He is keenly aware of his circumstances and what he must do to be a part of both worlds. The opportunity for desolation is tempting, but that is not the course he chooses to take.

Communication takes a lot of effort for him. With his ‘voice,’ he must work to be heard. To hold a conversation takes an abundant of energy and concentration. He worries about projecting his words when speaking. Certain words are harder for him to say. The sides of his mouth often crack from forming sounds that don’t come naturally to him. Certain vowels are difficult to pronounce. Most people never knew he was deaf, only assuming he had a cleft. Although, he can speak, he cannot not hear himself. Plugging my own ears, I was quick to realize how uncomfortable it was to be deaf. As for him, it is not an option when he can pull cotton swabs from his ears and hear again.
There are times when he gives up and simply walk away from people during a conversation, always wondering the true cause of abandonment and his frustration or if it was typical of a deaf man. I only know that is what he does. If you are not listening or understanding him, he loses patience and walks away. He cuts and rums. He needs time to go off and think. After awhile, he comes back, settles down and is ready to try again.
The tone of some people’s voices are easier for him to understand, not always, but just enough to carry a short conversation with other people. He picks up on the rhythm of that person’s speech, the up and down of the tone they project and of all the other elements of body language and facial expressions he can put together. With his disability, he is an expert at being able to communicate with either the deaf or the hearing world. You do your part and he will do his.

There are times when he prefers to be deaf. Every now and then, you can see him become exhausted and choose to opt out of an conversation with a ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude and dismiss himself to a quiet place to be alone. Sometimes, he says, ‘let’s not talk anymore.’ In no fault of his own, he possess, as a normal man would, the protective mechanism of tuning out people in defense of his self preservation when overwhelmed or feels manipulated to protect his vulnerable side. In that aspect, I decided it is no different for a deaf man. But, on a fire and rescue operation, the possession of his protective mechanism gave me the assurance that I will be safe as his partner. In the midst of chaos, he remains calm, focused and in control when no one else would.

Then there is his passion for firefighting. I never imagined a deaf man could bring his limitations into an arena filled with split second decisions on a fire ground operation. It is only then, when engaged in firefighting, he brings out the best of us and would never put himself, fellow firefighters and civilians in harm’s way. I believe this is what makes him a deaf firefighter he was yesterday and is today. However, his sincere compassion for people precedes his own reputation as a great firefighter.

He is always encouraging others to better themselves, to reach their own goals and to simply be the best they can be. He has years of experience and shares that with the people he meets and with new firefighters like myself and I am not deaf. In spite of it all, discrimination and whatnots, he continues to go against the tide to follow the strong desire he has for firefighting and to open doors for others to follow in his footsteps.

Steven Schrader taught me to take the life God has given me and go into the world and make a difference. You can choose to use a handicap as an excuse or use the same handicap to make a difference, if not for yourself, but for him because that is what he wants from us wherever life finds him. As for me, if he is willing to put up with what society had done to him, then we should, at least, embrace this deaf firefighter for which we can benefit from his passion and known ledge. Not only is he one, but I believed he is a silent messenger from God. His sole mission is to remind people not to put a stumbling block before the blind nor to curse the deaf, said the Lord.

Robin Grant - Reporter/Photographer
The Voice of South Marion