Recorded 6/24 @ 11:00 - USAR expert and legend, Joe Hernandez, talks about the Miami Condo Collapse response and recovery mission from the tactical perspective.
Operations are currently underway in Miami, FL. due to the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condo. Only a few weeks ago, Joe and his company, Disaster Medical Solutions hosted a medical urban search and rescue certification conference in Orlando. Several of the students & instructors are based out of Miami.
Joe walks us through actions they are taking, provide advice on next steps, and explains strategic level operational control.
The Disaster Tough Podcast and Doberman EMG are proud to support our USAR counterparts and hope for their success and safety in this major incident.
Mental First Aid:
A portion of our conversation involved addressing the need for mental first-aid for responders and their families who deal with catastrophic events, such as this building collapse. If you are experiencing high stress, or you have been involved with an incident- talk to someone about it (a friend, a relative, a professional). One of the most brave and tough things you can do is to seek help. If you're looking for an outlet of resources, please contact info@disastermedicalsoltuions.com or our podcast parent, info@dobermanemg.com. Do not hesitate to address this lifesaving, life-sustaining issue.
This Podcast has moved to the Readiness Lab.
Host: John Scardena (0s):
You've just entered the Disaster Tough Podcast, the place for emergency managers, first responders, and humanitarians who want to get the job done. Stories, lessons, and tips are provided by field experts. I'm your host to John Scardena, owner of Doberman Emergency Management and former federal emergency response official who's responded to some of the most extreme disasters. Disaster Tough is our mantra, it combines experience, training, and analytics in order to be successful at any stage within the disaster lifecycle, it means being a professional in emergency and disaster services, Doberman Emergency Management lives by this. If your organization needs to fill a gap, please contact us we can help. Contact info is in the show notes.
We also support other products and organizations that will increase your ability. For example, if you fight wildfires, hurricanes, a pandemic, any disaster in the field, at a hospital or command center, listen up, you're missing out If you do not use L3 Harris for your radio coms, they are secure, portable, mobile, and scalable, which is great news for us in the field. A truly disaster tough radio system. Check out the XL family of radios by clicking on the show notes, or simply go to L3Harris.com.
When you think of situational awareness, you need to think of Futurity IT. They are disaster tough because they saw a gap and figured out how to close it by creating the Orion and Athena applications. Situational awareness is all about speed, coordination, and accuracy of information. Futurity IT’s Orion app collects and provides preliminary damage assessments and integrates all incident action plan documents with web EOC. The Athena app allows for planning, contact tracing, and customizable group coordination in every single phase of the disaster life cycle. The best part, futurity IT made both applications extremely intuitive, it's so easy to use. Click on the show notes today to schedule a free demo.
Host: John Scardena (1m 53s):
Welcome back to the show everybody, it's your Host: John Scardena! Man, I am excited for this episode, but I'm excited in a different way than I probably have been before in the fact that we kind of have a legend back on the show, Joe Hernandez, to talk about implication of world events. The reason why it's an excitement in different ways, because unfortunately why we are having Joe back on the show is to talk about a real-world event that’s happening right now. We cued this up with everybody yesterday on social media with talking about the Miami condo building collapse or partial collapse. We're going to be talking about that from the urban search and rescue perspective as if you've been listening the last couple of weeks, we've interviewed two fire chiefs. We've had Joe on the show before, we're really interested in that cross-sector collaboration, especially with our partners on the tactical level. So Joe, welcome to the show.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (2m 56s):
Good to see you again, John, and thank you for having me on.
Host: John Scardena (2m 60s):
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I said this two weeks ago, and so I need you to make sure that you hear it. I was blown away by the flawlessness, by the tempo, by the professionalism that you provided at disaster medical solutions at the conference. What I call, I'm in naming it for you guys, the 2021 medical USAR training and certification because I thought that's really what it was and my perspective, and the 20 instructors there, everybody was pro, absolutely to the max. The students watching their progression throughout that week and all that credit, all the instructors actually, namely Walt, who was on the show who appropriately did this, and I'm going to say it as well. Everybody comes back to knowing that Joe Hernandez, you sir, are the reason why that training is so great. Just hats off to you and I'm again, really impressed with that training that you provided. So, I'm grateful to have you back on the show and to keep learning with you and from you.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (4m 11s):
Thank you, and you're only as good as those that you surround yourself with. I am extremely grateful and honored to have those particular instructors that carry that mantle to teaching that next generation. It looks like John, you kind of build a new niche for yourself in helping those new generations understand a particular part of the whole arena. That just isn't, it's a missing link and really an important link as well.
Host: John Scardena (4m 38s):
Yeah, it's interesting like I keep on finding myself in these areas where I'm like, Hey, this seems really important, but we're not talking about it, like these gaps. I don't necessarily look for the gap. I just happened to find myself realizing, Hey, this is disconnected. One of the disconnects is the principles of emergency management, command and control, attacking a situation, span of control, all these different things and how to do that. We do that every single day. So, the communication piece that was happening with all the USAR students, you know, understanding that they were actually attacking multiple roles at the same time because they weren't there to do command and control. They were there to learn medical for sure. But I kept on going back to thinking, oh, what we do applies to what you're trying to do and trying to teach them those skills throughout the way, and then on the opposite end of the spectrum, I was inadvertently just gaining all week at that conference. I was like, man, this applies so much to what I'm doing. So, I'm on a huge kick right now of like, Hey, the tactical and strategic, screwed, like the separation, we need to coordinate so much better because we'll be more successful if we gain those traits from both sides of the house.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (6m 0s):
Absolutely train as you fight, fight as you train.
Host: John Scardena (6m 3s):
Bingo. I actually said that on one of the posts this morning, so that's awesome. Let's talk about the meat of the topic in Miami right now, literally right now, operations are underway. Well actually let me cue it up one more time. The students and the instructors that were there are from Miami, they operate in Miami. So, the skill sets that they were learning at the conference there actually could be applying right now. Can you provide us the context of what happened to the building, what we know of right now, and then start walking through the temple what's going on and maybe kind of help us see around the corner a little bit?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (6m 43s):
Sure, and as you mentioned, students that we've had the pleasure of having in there, and I don't even like calling them students because of decision that sits in the class as a participant, but their level of, so absolutely a lot of participants in previous classes, including a lot of instructors, both in B as paramedic firefighters within those agencies and medical directors coming out of the hospitals now to assist with those decision-makings. Should there be God forbid, a need for an amputation for somebody that may still be in trapped from underneath that rebel? Absolutely. A part of the urban search and rescue component, as well as just a local fire agency just happened to be lucky enough to have that type of an infrastructure within their own backyard. So, we can take it a little bit further up the coast that might not have had that infrastructure immediately available to them and now waiting for the Calvary to come, oh, it's not anybody's fault, but however just is with infrastructure and how well those communities and those agencies build up their civil protection for those citizens, you know, as high rises continue to go up and numbers grow. So, should their protection, both in law enforcement and in fire rescue protection ID, here we got a building collapses and say, what is fire rescue has to do with that? Basically everything.
Host: John Scardena (8m 11s):
I was going to say that is the response, right? It's a fire response. Yeah.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (8m 16s):
Correct and in that agency being what we call a cross trained dual role fire EMS base, they were able to bring in their own structure of medical control and set up a casualty collection points, et cetera, and triaged system within their own agency as victims were being brought out, walked out into a rescued out by elevated beings.
Host: John Scardena (8m 40s):
Yeah and I think it's Florida taskforce one and two that are deployed there right now. Right?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (8m 47s):
Correct. It is task force one jurisdiction. It is a section of unincorporated Miami-Dade County that sits between city of Miami and Miami beach a little bit further north, about five miles north of the craziness down at south beach and a little bit quieter community, pretty much the center of Miami beach, about 15 miles from where I grew up as a kid and where I worked for my career. They had the luxury of having local units. Then of course, the ability to call neutral aid. From my understanding over 80 initial units responded to that event.
If you take 80 units out of any type of city, then you would strip it citizens of any perfection. So, any smart dispatch center and commander that's there will begin to do what we call mutual aid. That's the brother from another mother, Hey, you saw her in USAR will you come lend a hand? We need this game.
Host: John Scardena (9m 49s):
So what information do we know now? Like, do we know any possible leads of like why the building collapsed? We don't think it was a terrorist attack. We don't think it was a natural hazard, it was just like age and competence of the building and the like what?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (10m 9s):
The building was built in 81, it's an older building. It's definitely on the coast and surrounded by the intercostal waterway and the ocean on either side, they have had recent construction within the building. Some of the units were for sale since it was an older unit built in 81 and they were building a new building in the surrounding environment. So, did any of the implications of hammering the ground, et cetera, have anything to do with it basically that's probably where their eyes are going to go. The dispatch recordings from the initial dispatch did have, one of the officers mentioned that one of the victims within the building said, it sounded like a bomb going off.
However, I'm sure 13 full stories of concrete crumbling sounds like hitting the ground. A friend of mine from the US department of Homeland security, Miami office, they're on scene as well, they kind of feel the same way, that it most likely looks like a possible structural event, which leads us back to saying it doesn't take an ugliness, but somebody doing some violence and it doesn't take a tornado or an earthquake, it just takes nature and construction. So, disasters happen when we least expect them. That one happened at 01:30 in the morning.
So those that went to bed and were able to say their prayers, we pray that were met very well during that evening. If it was their time, there are still approximately 50 plus people unaccounted for, you know, you might want to say they're all high value targets because to me, every single person within an entrapment is a high value target. However, we know that there are several family members of these, first lady from one of our South American neighbors who are in that building and still missing from that. So, you don't know who's living in a building and or what the intentions are. So, at this time, they don't think any intentions, it was just a natural event happening at that time. The responders and what they're doing, they're all rested, not expecting to get up out of bed, shake. I believe that first arriving officer did a fantastic job on not losing his marbles, was steady and falling out the units when you call a priority. He kept on going through the numbers for already four, five, six, a hundred, this might be seven things that we haven't talked about, things that you, as an emergency manager saying, okay, for a multi incident, we've got certain priorities. But man, for one incident at one time that we can have maybe a hundred victims right here, right now in a square block, that's a lot.
Host: John Scardena (13m 2s):
Yeah. Did the amount of resource it required just to, even if they were able to get out of the building, the triage that would have to happen. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we just talked about Pulse Night Club last week, incident commander, Chief Davis was on here. Same ideas, like the triage component is so complex when you have potentially a hundred people, plus where do you send them all? Can the healthcare infrastructure even deal with the inventory there of assets and people? So, it's 01:30 in the morning, building collapses, I would agree that 13 floors of concrete falling sounds like a bomb. That's kind of what we had to deal with in hurricane Katrina too, right. The local residents of the ninth ward thought it was a bomb going off when the levy blew and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water rushing in an instant. Actually, somebody asked on social media, if the saltwater in the air or the humidity in the air would have played in a factor of a building collapse. Is that something that you had to think about or is that kind of outside the realm?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (14m 26s):
I'm sure that the structural engineers are going to go in there and look at all the rebar, let's see what the conditions of that rebar is. You know, when it rusts and expand kind of crumbles, it's kind of there to help the concrete or the concrete from having big crack and if it does crack, hold it together. Possibly, I know that it's almost like a seawall, anybody that lives on a coastal area and has a seawall, they could see the damage, constant salt linearity within the air, really rusting out thing they have, eventually what they call a dead man, which holds that seawall back rusting out and having to be replaced with new technology. So, I'm sure that that will be heavily looked at. As you said that a lot of people will make comments based on certain ideas, factors of what they're seeing.
The one I keep hearing, and even from my own friends, family members, that are asking, why aren't they on the pile? Why do I keep seeing images on Fox news or CNN or whatever source they're watching, people not aggressively delay in the pile and looking at it, now, why. What I wanted to say is if you stood there and you looked up all those widow and widower makers that are hanging in suspended on rebar, they're going to come down. So, if you stand underneath one ID, a nurse with a lot of incredibly well-intentioned rushing into the Oklahoma City bombing, wanting to be helped to save somebody and was killed by a widow maker upon entering the building.
Now we saw the aftershocks and the Haiti earthquake and how some of those didn't feel comfortable staying within the secured structures at the rescue techs built by the shoring areas. They were running in and out of the building. The same thing kind of falls into this area of wondering that same thing. So even getting into the building that was already, like you mentioned, a quarter of it fell down, those victims that are still in the building and the pack or three orders that had to be rescued. So a command decision had to be made and I believe that it was, and they do it.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (16m 43s):
It's called life over light, versus limb by absolutely. So, the command decision was made before we can even get the structural engineers here to begin to make the decisions of is it safe for us to go in that building or not guess what they were doing? They were going in the building when, so why most people run out of a building during dangers and disasters. We had first responders entering a building saying, okay, I know that there's a risk that it could come down while I'm in there. I'm willing to take that risk to be able to bring down somebody and that's what they do it for, so hats off to them again. They're continuing and then, you know what the support from the emergency management and from their counter base to deal with the emotional support that's going to come out of that rescue that we know that affect certain individuals in certain ways, not only the victims.
I liked that decision of going in there and begin wrestling people with their high rise. It's one of the commanders decided to call out a full TRT component because they knew they would need to be technical roles, et cetera. As you saw, being able to bring people out of areas that aren't a norm, it doesn't fit a structure. It doesn't fit that wheeled stretcher, an ambulance can't get on scene. Everybody says, why aren't there firetrucks closer to the building? Well, if the building's going to come down, you can't lose all the firetrucks on fleet, people wouldn’t have an RV anymore. So, there's a lot of lessons learned and a lot of good information that can come and share within the different environments and saying everything is done in a controlled environment. It sure was that they handled it on dispatch, that four minutes of dispatch, and then setting up their medical staging. You can see how they knew there was going to be a need for medical spacing. Let alone first was the rescue and then was the treatment and a jam up job on that initial response crews and setting everything up.
Host: John Scardena (18m 41s):
Well at the conference, he talked about this too, and I'm going to kick myself for getting this term, but the idea that your cells start to break down from being…. crush syndrome. Gosh, thank you. Thank goodness. I didn't forget something, I had no idea about crush syndrome, you see these images of what happens in Syria, right? The building comes down, six hours later, people were just throwing the rebel out and they get this kid out and you see the image of getting the kid out and it's like, oh good they got the kid out. But now after I've learned about crushed syndrome and I'm like how?
When they remove the debris and the medical staff that have to go in there to make sure crush syndrome doesn't cause a life-threatening issue. For our listeners, there's going to be a lot of the listeners on here who have no idea what crushing syndrome is, can you explain? So, we talked about Widowmaker again for Widowmaker, for the people it's basically the concrete hanging off the rebar that they're just waiting for it to fall onto the rebel pile. But then there's the other component of, you have to be meticulous. It takes a lot of time to actually remove the rubble. What is crushed syndrome?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (19m 57s):
So mechanical manifestation, not so known as Rhabdomyolysis basically a cell being crushed potassium and calcium switching sides, the needs to try and get those two chemicals alone, replaced back to where they originally needed to be. Then what we know as the muscle hemoglobin known as myoglobin, a very large cell within our body need to be treated. Because of the amount of length of time that you're without hydration within that rebel pile, if it happened at 01:30 in the morning, crushed manifestations can happen as short as three to four hours. So, they had rhabdomyolysis settings of just on time. Manifestation, MP was unable to move weight on top of large muscle masses and that's where they look at that coming from. Those cells deteriorate, they immediately begin to, they're dead, they're dying off. There's a lot of ramifications from those what they call free radicals now floating in the system and causing other damages in depth in other tissues. But particularly with that muscle cell, that myoglobin and a change in pH levels because lack of hydration, lack of movement tends to plug our kidney system, our loop apparently.
So, we find ourselves being saved from the rubble and living for one or two days, however, dying within those periods of time at the hospital, it started the science came out of the UK during the London blitz screens during World War II. When the Germans were bombing the buildings in London, the victims were being brought out of the rubble, taken to local emergency rooms and a doctor by the name of Bywaters said, why do we have so many British citizens reaching the hospitals alive, but dying within two days of being there. So, began the study of Crush syndrome, brush actual what they call mechanical crush, crush syndrome and crush manifestations, depending on the type of wording you want to use.
So, brush mechanical would be at the actual weight of something being on that person and causing that and or the person themselves, if they're unable to move, they kneeling position, they've got heavy weight on top of their shoulders and they can't go anywhere from the floor. They're stuck there for several hours. The pressure that's on the back of their hamstrings, the back of their path of the back of their shoulders are large enough muscle mass create certain damages within the body itself, even death, if it's not treated aggressively. So, on the medical side, they try to do what's known as they try to return that patient to his or her free and trap status. So how were they before the initial disaster happened? We'd like to get them back to that state before it happens, and if we can reverse crush or anything like that, we'd probably going to save a lot.
Host: John Scardena (23m 10s):
Yeah so, the way I understand it, and please you're the expert here. Let's say something's on my leg, the idea is that if a little bit happens, it's not a big deal, but if you take the pressure off of that and all that blood rushes through your body, then it's all that toxin from the dead cells are going to go in the kidneys and that's what kills you. But the body actually does it a lot, right? Like if you sit in a chair for like an hour, you start feeling tingling, but your body's actually going through that process and it kind of signals your body of get up and move around. Right. But the problem is when. When you're at a conference, for example, now I'm like, but that's the idea, right? If you get up and you're fine, but it's when the pressure's released and that whole flow of blood goes in there and kills ya. It's like the worst to think about, you got somebody out of the rubble and then they're dead again. That's just awful to think about. So, it goes to show, well, thank goodness for the doctor in the UK, during World War II figuring that out, but even to use our teams, I was really impressed. Again, we're talking about the training more than the event, but I was impressed that they understood that and how that worked and that there was a lot of time and attention to making sure that you're pulling people out in the right way.
This incident is a little different though, because you and I have been listening to reports, I've been listening to a radio, a frequency app. You've been sending me dispatcher reports, and you've been providing Intel as well. From a person with your amount of experience and knowledge and hearing those reports, what do you think the reality of the situation is right now? What do you think the next operational period is going to look like? Or the next couple operational periods will look like?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (25m 6s):
Of course, the initial link on a search and rescue event is as quick as possible. Of course, the ability of the building, but entering canines as quick as possible into areas where humans can't go, IE the rubble that was sitting on the street, that everybody was focused on multilayers and multilayers of building floors. Really, they were all pancakes on top of each other, whether it appeared like humans, basically unable to get that weight. You don't want to send a whole bunch of people on top of the pile. There's a potential of people being under the pile because you're just going to create a smaller void space and that's not smart. So search canines are really important in being able to do an entire perimeter check through the pile, as deep as they can go, they are trained, but nominally they're certified in what they do. It is an incredible scene to watch them go to work and so with federal task forces in the area, task force one and task force two, they had an incredible resource to that canine component. That was one of the real good issues that they had. Unfortunately, they haven't had a lot of live buying back from those canines. Recently, a young boy was just removed from that rubble pile, not too long ago, which was a great save. He was more in an in tuned situation. So, he wasn't suffering from any crush injuries. He was basically in an area where he was able to get out and move around, but he was not able to out from that intonement.
Host: John Scardena (26m 48s):
It’s incredible to see that kind of fall and to see anybody being saved is just wild.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (26m 53s):
100% and so there, you don't just walk away. You stay in a rescue mode, as long as possible. Some recovery modes have to be introduced at a certain time. When you switch from rescue to recovery really goes by the time clock. You figured 24 hours, 48 hours, four days, how long can you go without food, water, clothing, and shelter. All of those factions fall in there, could there be the ability of fresh water from a broken pipe or a water bottle from a refrigerator that somebody happened to be getting a drink of water at 01:30 at night, with this pain down the steel refrigerator kept the concrete floor from smashing their heads.
But yet they're now about the size of the bottom of the freezer and kind of hanging out with whatever was filled out the he or she might have access to water. That would be incredible as those victims were in the Haiti when they were in the Caribbean market, having some access to something for those that don't, you know, you're looking at that time period again, without any water, they will bring in a force at the same time, cadaver dogs that aren't trained for lifeline just to be able to give an ID location and or even the amount of possible deceased victims that might be in that file again. But I'm hoping that they remain in a rescue mode at least for the next day as well until they do call that in and get more accountability for those that are still missing.
Host: John Scardena (28m 21s):
Yeah, absolutely. That missing persons things is always so hard for me because there could be a million different reasons that somebody doesn't even know that they are considered a missing person. I'm on vacation in Thailand, you know, three days later I hear about like, my building's been crushed, like what? You know? So, like there could be a hundred different reasons. I seriously hope that the reason why they're missing is because they were not there and it's amazing that they found the boy. I hope they find more people alive. The reality of situation is disasters are, I'll call it a disaster for a reason and we hope that not just the responders are safe and successful, but we hope that the people in that building of course are as well.
I want to switch topics a little bit because we talked about this last week. You and I have actually talked about this before. It's PTSD awareness month. As you brought up to me before we started recording, let's talk about what needs to happen. There you go. Supporting PTSD awareness, 2021. Joe is showing us that right now. In fact, huge fan of that. Let's talk about the incident is the response will end in 24, 40 hours, whatever, right? A couple of days get into recovery for those who have responded and their families, what do you think are logical next steps for them? What should they be doing?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (29m 55s):
Discussing it, definitely discussing it within themselves. I myself know that talking about incidents I just had, the brief texts with four friends of mine a couple of days ago over a complex PTSD issue that I deal with on a yearly basis as a gold star dad. So, you know, talking about it is the most important. Most people do have a significant other or some of them say, you know, I don't like speaking to them. I don't want to bring them into that world where you can share what you need to share, that they're able to the level that they're able to listen, but it is important for them to know how you're thinking so that they can understand the complexities that might come out of that and then continued ask questions and deal with that situation. Instead of just saying, why are you so angry? Like, why are you having such a problem sleeping right now? What's going on? And you just not even giving them a little bit of the piece of the puzzle, so start there. If you start with your colleagues, that's always available and don't ever think that you're weak, and just trying to find professional help. Sometimes it's just difficult trusting and or finding the correct professional help. Sometimes you feel that those that haven't gone through certain things can't, or don't have the ability to understand or listen to what you're going through and that isn't always necessarily true. There are some very well-educated people and you know, how they learn the most is by listening to the constant stories of what's going on by those that have had the trust in them. So even though they might not have personally been through that, just listening through the stages that they're good professionals that are out there.
Host: John Scardena (31m 44s):
I appreciate you saying that. I thought it was really brave and really cool that Chief Davis said he had received professional help. A friend came up to him two years after Pulse Nightclub and said, Hey, your turn. You always tell other people now it's your turn and the good thing about talking to people and keeping the dialogue open is they are able to see when you have behavioral changes. I married my best friend, and I'm very lucky to do that, to have done that. She remains to this day my best friend and she always will, but she is able to tell faster my behavioral changes than I'm able to recognize it.
There's all this different kind of stress and I was explaining this before, and I think even you and I talked about it, our first responders stress is unique in the fact that they're up there close and personal. It is also extremely stressful when you're thinking, when you're calling up for USAR and you have to determine which neighborhood do you saw. Our team is going to go to in a large-scale incident, knowing that everybody else in that other neighborhood is waiting for it to be rescued, and they're not going to be in, they're probably going to be hurt. I've had to deal with that decision-making process of we only have so many resources, which by the way, I found out that we actually have a lot more USAR resources than what get called out, which really pissed me off to be honest, but get a call for using state and local teams for sure.
But it is stressful, whether you're going 18 hours a day as an emergency manager and your job is literally how do I help people? How do I determine, you know, evacuations, or even if you're a logistics guy. I don't really consider logistics people, emergency managers, which is going to get a really a lot of pushback, but they're the guys setting up the shelter. They know people don't have a place to live unless they set it up. So there's a ton of stress for that, I guess they are emergency managers. I'll back that up really quick. But you know, any time you're dealing with a life-saving or life-sustaining operation, whatever your role is, it doesn't matter. You're not dealing with normal. I am actually in full disclosure, I am one of those guys that, it's really hard for me to talk to my wife about that because she didn't sign up for the really hard events, but it is very nice to be able to talk to a colleague where I don't have to explain what happened. They already know what happened. They were there and between my wife saying, Hey, there's a behavioral change here. What's going on? And colleagues that I talked to that's really helped me out a lot. I think you're saying the similar things, you know?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (34m 44s):
Yeah. I can think of one word that would be shared differently just as you said, I've been blessed to be married to my best friend, 42 years so it's awesome. The words you can share, the changes and the disruption of odors and smells during a disaster with your colleagues, but it sure as heck is something that would be extremely difficult to share with your significant other, just because they didn't sign up for that. They maybe can't handle that as they, you know, why didn't you let me know that particular little piece, that maybe could have been left off of that positive.
Host: John Scardena (35m 24s):
Sorry I cut you. I actually was agreeing with you, right when you said the word was the word.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (35m 28s):
Smell now, yes. Eviscerations, open refrigerator versus deceased body spoiled. We'd get the changes, a broken sewer pipes, a sludge, everything you can think of. Then the guy that has everything under his kitchen sink, mallet biopsy, the really bad bug killer’s outfitter that we're not allowed to use anymore. The mixture of everything you can think of, sometimes stays with you for a long time, even changes sometimes the way that you eat afterwards. You know, just really quick, why we're on this, the impact that they're seeing as they're going up those boards and bringing people down and for that period of time, listening to their cries, screams, moans of begs of please help my significant other, please help, you know, all of those things going through their heads. So. the responder is in only going through the person that they're dealing with, but all the emotions that person has, the person across the hall, who they've lived across the hall for 20 years now, it's suddenly all of a sudden gone because when they opened their front door, there was no across the street, across the hall neighbor anymore. A lot of significant impacts just in them dealing with emotional, even though there's not a physical injury sure, having to deal with emotional injuries.
Host: John Scardena (37m 0s):
This is kind of outside of, not related to our topic. So, I thought it was interesting after Kobe Bryant died in the helicopter crash, that Shack, there was an interview asking him how he was dealing with it. He said that he immediately went through this process of like, I wish, I had like regret. I wish I had talked to my sister more. I wish I'd done this, I wish I did that. I've actually seen responders do that quite a bit. Even though they weren't the ones impacted, they were close enough emotionally to the event. They're like, oh man, I wish I wish I wish. That's a really good cue that something's happening, you're going through that. It's like, Hey, somebody talked to their called a professional for a reason. If you're a professional, this is why I keep trying to change the topic of mental health. I like to call it mental first aid because we understand first aid fix, first aid is there to patch up something that was damaged that's normal that was damaged, you fix it, right. Your brain is normal, you went through something crazy. You got to put on, the first aid, which is talking to a professional sometimes and you're able to operate normally, you know? And I think that's a big call-out.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (38m 20s):
I agree. Strongly agree.
Host: John Scardena (38m 25s):
Cool Yeah. I’m glad I think like we talked about this quite a bit, right? Multiple shows, this idea of mental health, and I'm glad that we both keep calling it out because you're a legend in your field. I am trying to build my goat status right now, my greatest all-time status. But that's the reality, there's been some discussion about what disaster tough means lately and people keep telling me what they think it means. It’s fascinating for me to hear, but being tough for me is not like, oh, making tough luck. I'm thinking when I think of tough, I think of making the hard call, making the right call, being strong enough to make the right call and doing everything you can, whatever phase of a disaster you're in, that could mean for infrastructure and mitigation, or it can mean making the tough call to say, hey, I was just on a rubble pile doing amputations on people and we didn't have enough medicine for them to not feel it. You know, whatever it is, that's the tough call is talking about it anyways. We're going to beat this topic.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (39m 39s):
Absolutely not. As always, as you were talking about that acronym, that last phrase I was thinking about, the difference between people say PTSD and see PTSD or complex PTSD, which are well-known arenas as itself. Also adding to the arena. Where did that responder come from? Why did he pick this profession? Did he already have a bag and a closet full of skeletons that were in part of his life or her life growing up as a child and that's why they picked this particular being a hero, trying to continue to be a hero, as they say, and as you are doing it, dealing with emergency managers, did I make the right decisions last time? I don't know if I made the right decisions. So just adding to their PTSD constantly by not talking, by not seeking professional help.
Host: John Scardena (40m 39s):
Yeah one thing that's very hard for emergency manager because emergency managers especially in the future, the next 10 years, I really do feel like there'll become much more influential as social media compounds. The knowledge that disasters happen all the time. As we learn about the aftermath of the pandemic, that public health really was like the worst apparatus to use for response, it should have been emergency management because that's what they actually, you know, plan for and collaborate with multiple stakeholders as the public learns like what emergency management is. I do think though the risk, the authorities and responsibility are going to expand and will become more comprehensive.
It will eventually, I really do believe that the first responders, police, fire, EMS will operate truly under operations, planning will be something like more expanded. So just like the more you can collaborate between all the different groups that process will happen. The reason why I bring that up is because if that role is expanding and being more influential, then the topics that we're addressing right now, they will have to understand it more intimately. That includes search and rescue, man, I'm so grateful I went to that training because quite frankly, I always say this I'm a pretty arrogant guy.
I feel like I know my field really well and I don't like to be considered the guy that sits in an armchair and just like makes a decision while the people doing the work. I want to do the work too. But at the same time, like, man, talk about real heroes, search and rescue. I will say one hilarious and big problem between you, Walt, Brian Davis, who else? A couple other people, Cody, he was a student or a participant. All you guys are like trying to get me to become a volunteer firefighter or something. I don't know. Like I'm in like more and more ingrained the last six weeks. I'm like, oh I'm moving to St. Louis here soon. I already told my wife, I'm like, what do you think about me doing volunteer firefighting? She's like, you run a business, you have multiple podcasts. Yeah. You know, you have two little kids. I'm like, yeah, I know. So, I don't know. There's some mess of psychology there too. Okay. I think we address that topic really well. I think we addressed the topic of public health or of mental health.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (43m 14s):
One more. Last thing, if I can John, just on that simple shift change that's should have gone on this morning at 07:00 or 07:30, are you going to send these guys home? The new guys are buying that's a bit to get in there, but how do you tell somebody, Hey, you got to go home and that's a difficult pill to swallow as well. Inadequacy, the whole bit that goes on.
Host: John Scardena (43m 41s):
There was a responder or an instructor that talked about that. I can't remember which one it was, there was gray beard, which I called, I don’t know, it wasn't creepy thin dude, older dude glasses. There was him and then there was like Cuban or bald guy. Really thin bald guy. Oh my gosh. I feel so bad for not remembering any of their names, but there was, not Miguel. It might've been Miguel or it might've been the Mr. Gray beard himself. I don't know. Yeah. But one of the two shared a story about being on a rebel pile for eight hours and not finding anyone being forced out of there and 10 minutes later, they pulled somebody out and he did talk about that. I thought that was really good that he explained that to the participants. They're like, hey you have a job to fulfill on that eight hours of work determined that they could shift. Right, the more you clear, the more likely you can find somebody. So, it does matter. Yeah interesting thought. So, you know, what do you do? How do you get those people out there who are so invested, but also are exhausted, right? I mean, adrenaline can only last for so long.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (45m 5s):
Here comes adrenaline fatigue.
Host: John Scardena (45m 8s):
Yeah. Right. Like your, and your body will start craving it more, more, right. Here's a question I have for you. Do they really go in for 15-minute periods at a time? Or was that part of the training?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (45m 21s):
That's part of the training to understand that because you're trying to rotate them and all get part of that training. So, they're going to stay in there for that longer period. However, they're used to a timeframe of around that 30-minute mark, just because of being a firefighter and having CBA tank on them and being tagged out, knowing how long they could be on a single bottle before coming out for rehab got them. They're doing a realistic and interesting that you say that, that we did some training up in Wisconsin at the React Center and there was still ice frozen ground water on big ground. So, 15-minute rotations became a real incident because you needed insulation between you and the ground. Interesting. I know Miami beach definitely is in a Wisconsin in January. Could imagine the heat presently, you know, we were at 86-degree temperatures with about 70 to 80-degree humidity, soar temperatures in the morning. We're already feeling close to a hundred-degree mark.
Host: John Scardena (46m 29s):
Yeah when I was helping just for the listener sake, I was helping with some of the filming at the training because, Hey, I'm not a medical guy. Would participate somehow. I was in the rebel piles for four or five times longer than the crews work because they were learning and they were switching in and out. I get out of there after an hour and I'd be like, sweat, just pure sweat, it wasn't even that hot. I was like, this is a burden. I was surprised to learn the lack of gear that they have when they go in there. We're talking long shirts, I will say that 5.11 is one of the sponsors of one of our other podcasts. They're not a sponsor of this one, but they were making a killing at that conference. They had no idea. I look around, everyone's wearing 5.11 left and right. I was like, man, this is 5.11 wheelhouse right here. So good for them.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (47m 30s):
We tried to get them to come out and look at what all the responders are wearing and do some RNB in that level pile in rescue environment, open some of their eyes in that too as well. Yeah.
Host: John Scardena (47m 42s):
I started man, knee pads changed my whole life. I went out there, I was like, I'm not really going to be crawling around too much. I don't need the need pads. I got there, I was like, oh my gosh. I went to like Lowe's or home Depot that night got some $12 knee pads, life-changing. I'm like gardening in our backyard, I like bend down to the pool, now my wife's like really, you're putting the knee pads on to clear out the pool. I'm like, oh man, you have no idea. This has changed my whole life. Pretty soon I'm going to start wearing a tank on my back and try to find fires. I have to like pump the brakes there real fast, but Hey Joe, thanks again for coming on the show. We're talking about what's happening right now in Miami and walking through the next steps. These things really do apply all across the field and people need to hear about it. People need to learn from each other. I'm glad as an emergency manager, I get to learn from you or urban search and rescue. I really hope urban search and rescue starts learning from the emergency management side. We don't just deliver water, oh my gosh.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (48m 42s):
Everything that has to go on now with infrastructure, I mean, routes have to be changed, streets, sanitation, garbage lodging, for all those victims, everything needs to get reworked. Electrical infrastructure has to change. There's a lot of work for an emergency manager and staying busy with that event for days to come after the recovery mode is cleared up.
Host: John Scardena (49m 12s):
Absolutely days and several weeks. I mean the insurance claims the, just everything I would assume that right now, red cross has an MOU in place with a hotel chain that they're trying to put survivors in. The Salvation Army is probably providing some kind of food assistance and they're trying to get deities involved in clearing that those areas. Then they're going to have construction crews. Hey, here's a question for you that I have to deal with on the emergency management side is at what point can you trust a construction crew to go in there and not accidentally find a deceased person?
Guest: Joe Hernandez (49m 54s):
Yeah and that is really a touchy subject. They probably will keep someone there during the recovery process. They may bring in certain structural engineers because the USAR components, does have a heavy equipment operator in there. They may bring in their own equipment and do their own digging and do what we call the layering of that file until they do have an accountability just to keep those that might not be familiar with that type of work in that file.
Host: John Scardena (50m 27s):
An emergency manager and in terms of my side of the house, we would be the ones coordinating resources, being sure that the budget's there to be able to do that you know, those MOU’s that get them put in place. The debris trucks that get hauled out, all of that stuff starts.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (50m 42s):
And the need to go and ask for more money because it's just, they just didn't give you enough to operate it. So, you having to go back and fight with the city administrators, so that emergency management, I'm definitely not a podcaster, but back at you on the emergency management side, the difference of having to scramble and you yourself getting called at 01:30 in the morning, start planning, you better have what you're doing versus knowing that a hurricane is coming a week out right.
Host: John Scardena (51m 8s):
Now, there's a system out there. Right? Sure.
Guest: Joe Hernandez (51m 11s):
So as an emergency manager, you’ve dealt with the same slap in the face. Holy smokes. Wake up at 01:30, honey, I got to go, I got a lot of work. If you don't already know your business, you're going to hit a brick wall fast. Yeah. That's a whole heck of a different hat to wear as an emergency manager versus saying, all right, I got five days to figure this one out. I'm going to start moving my chess players into place. You've got some leverage there, but being woken up just like everyone else did at 01:30, you're asked to get put on and you probably better reach four, five different hats that, like those you're going to wear five different hats during that. So, it's a challenge again for you guys. Do I have some time to build this out or did I just get slammed in the face also? Yeah,
Host: John Scardena (51m 58s):
For sure. Like I said, there is a disturbance right now in the Atlantic. Something else pops up. If you know, that's a hard call. So, for an emergency manager, a lot of USAR guys don't know this, but like, if there's a hurricane coming barreling at an incident, we might not be able to, we might be saying to them, you are evacuating too, your mission is over. It's very hard for people to say, I'm right in the middle of response, I can hear people screaming. Nope. One of the best exercises about I keep going back to your training disaster medical solutions, obviously a big fan was we were in a pancakes garage and halfway through it, the inject came in of the building is another after shock happening in 10 minutes, you have 10 minutes and they were scrambling we're at nine minutes, nine minutes, 30 seconds. They were like, you have to get out. Now, there is no other option. There were participants who didn't want to do it, like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. They start giving excuses. No, get out, get out, get out. Those who didn't, I think they caught it said, well, you died? You know? There there's some of that too. So, the bullheadedness is a good thing. It also is not a good thing for our field. You know, always a catch 22, but it is always a good thing having you on the show.
Again, thanks for coming on Joe and talking to me, for talking about PTSD and see PTSD on those next steps. If you've been listening to the show, if this stuff has been resonating with you, you need to do a couple of different things. One, if it's starting to click that you need to get some help, get some help. If you don't know of an outlet for that you can reach us at info@dobermanemg.com, we'll point you to a right resource. Or you can reach out to Joe at info@disastermedicalsolutions.com, they can help you too. We'll actually put that in the show notes so you don't have to remember it. You can just click on it and it'll send you right there. Seriously. Like don't allow catastrophic events to be catastrophic in your life. If You're a responder, you're an emergency manager, humanitarian, like that's your job, right? Don't let your job affect your personal life. We're grateful you are in the field. If you're the praying type, be like Joe. I pray for the success of the responders, pray that the aftermath does not impact them or their families so that they can keep helping people and still stay safe. We'll see you next week.