NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 37

NFPACONFERENCE&EXPO
SANANTONIO2019

HEALTH AND TRAINING FOCUS
Clockwise from right: SAFD firefighters
prepare at a training facility that can be
configured to present potentially disorienting fire situations; a comprehensive
health and wellness program serves the
needs of SAFD personnel; and turnout
gear is stored away from living quarters
in SAFD facilities to minimize exposure
to potentially harmful fireground substances, including carcinogens.

of our department-we were really
beating up our paramedics, and we
were running out of ambulances every
single day," Hood says.
Hood stressed to all of his officers
that safety and worker health were
now top organizational priorities. He
also made moves to end the stagnation that had seemingly crept into the
department, and demanded that his
officers find cutting-edge national best
practices and tailor them for implementation in San Antonio. Officers say that
ideas, innovation, and improvement
were soon valued across the leadership.
"Everybody was hungry and ready to
go, so when this new guy came in and
cared what we thought and asked us
if we'd do the work to get something
done, we were like, 'Hell yeah, we'll get
this done!'" Giusti says.
"All I have to do is go into one of these
offices and say, 'Hey man, we have to do
this.' I don't tell them how to do it, I let
them go and figure it out," Hood says.
"That's the beauty of the people I work
with. They come up with really good

solutions to problems I give them-
sometimes things I never expected."
After more than a decade, that can-do
culture has proliferated. The atmosphere at SAFD today resembles an
ambitious startup, where the quest for
efficiencies is ongoing and ingrained at
every level of the organization.
I see evidence of this when Hood
takes me to the department's new
supply and logistics center. The center
is a Costco-sized warehouse with pallets stacked on shelves 40 feet high,
containing every piece of equipment
a SAFD firefighter or paramedic could
ever need-medications, hoses, skillets,
lawnmowers-all ready to be shipped
on-demand to any of the 56 firehouses
across the city. The manager, Eric
McGowin, a former supply manager at
a local supermarket chain, pulls Hood
aside to show him a pilot program
about the launch. He points to a large
cabinet with two swinging doors that
open to reveal rows of numbered blue
plastic bins. Next to it on the warehouse floor sits a gray, 6-foot-tall office

cabinet, its four shelves crammed with
boxes and bins.
"Most fire stations have this type
of medicine locker now," McGowin
tells me, pointing to the gray cabinet.
"Imagine one of these with bins just
shoved in there, with no uniformity,
no standardization, and you have to
dig through it at 2 a.m., after you've
already been up 25 hours straight,
trying to find a specific medication."
Then he opens the new cabinet. Each
medication is neatly stored in numbered, sliding bins. The cabinets and
bin numbers are the same throughout
the city, so no matter what station
EMS personnel are in, they can quickly
find what they're looking for. "It's one
of those ideas that was intuitive and
born out of necessity," McGowin adds.
"If we can find simple things like this
that benefit both me and the folks in
the field, that's what we're going to
do." Hood, who is just now learning
about the new lockers, inspects them
closely, then nods in approval. "Very
cool," he says.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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NFPA Journal - May/June 2019

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