patrick halloran: Welcome to the Rescue Lab podcast. This is the Field Notes edition. We got Hank from Hasty Fire Products here with us. Hank, super cool to meet up with you today. You know, we just I we just randomly connected on Instagram and I think we started chatting, started chatting all things firefighter businesses. ⁓ we're just doing some talking here about the ⁓ the hasty strap and some different some different uses, some different implications. But I appreciate you coming on today. ⁓ yeah, this section we love to to highlight firefighter made businesses and and you know, do we can to get those names out. But dude, Hasty Strap is everywhere. I you know, I don't think it takes me to tell people about it. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you though and how you got started in the fire service? Tell us about Hank. Sure. So I am 37 years old. So starting to starting to get up there and feel it too, man. I'll tell you. Dude, I'm forty two. I'll be forty two. So I started in the fire service about eighteen years ago. ⁓ it was a little bit right after high school, and I ended up kind of your typical like kind of lost after high school, not really sure what I'm getting into, knew college wasn't for me. Started working, you know, some blue collar jobs and stuff. And ⁓ I had some friends who were in the local volunteer fire department and they kinda convinced me to join. And it was one of those things where it was like after my first or second time of being in the building, I was just I was hooked, you know? Yep. And and it hasn't gone away since. Not at all, man. It's yeah. That's awesome. Still can't get enough. So yeah, that was about eighteen years ago and ⁓ ten years ago I got hired in Frederick County, Maryland. So got on the career job there. Nice. And ⁓ I'm currently a lieutenant, which is the the first level company officer. ⁓ and I float in our third battalion. ⁓ what what exposed you, you know, to firefighter rescue and and rate operations? So I'm actually I'm also a fire instructor. So I I teach at our academy. Okay. And our academy had a pretty, pretty intense safety and survival slash writ program when I went through recruit school. And then as I became an instructor, I I showed interest in in that program. I I just I really liked it. And then I kind of I took it over when I became an instructor. So I've been leading that. Yeah. ⁓ I've been leading that for the last I c I can't even remember. It's twelve or thirteen of our recruit classes. So yeah, we're about to start another one and I got the okay to lead that one too. Just just the safety and survival program. Yeah. But I mean that that positions you in a great spot to see You know, did you keep seeing recurring problems that you were kind of, you know, left scratching your head, like why why is this a thing? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. ⁓ now in in our recruit school, we teach like bare bones, as basic as we can get. Basically like you no tools, not no tools, but like nothing extra in your pockets, right? It's what you came in the building with. So you know, we teach the waistbelt conversion from the SCBA as like our our basic, you know, bare minimum type of packaging, if it's not just a quick grab and go, right? ⁓ but That's I mean, anybody who's who's done it and tried to do it under stress, it can it can definitely be difficult, especially on larger people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And was there was there a specific moment that you remember that sparked the idea for the hasty rescue strap? Or or what was it that that sort of bridged that gap? Yeah. ⁓ it was it's like two two kind of separate but related events, right? So yeah. The first one's a little more somber, I guess. We experienced a line of duty death in our department. Captain Josh Laird, he was killed in a basement fire. Fell through the floor, was stuck in the basement. It was a you know, long story short, we can get into this one for hours, but ⁓ it was a massive, massive house. ⁓ so anybody who's not familiar with it, ⁓ it's the ball road incident. Massive house, giant basement, and it it was a really hard time locating him, right? ⁓ by the time there was ⁓ there was multiple attempts. There was an attempt through the hole that wasn't working out because of the amount of fire. There was an attempt on the first floor to locate the stairs, which was proving to be very difficult. And then when they finally found a a basement access from the outside, which wasn't apparent when they arrived, they had to transverse the entire length of the house to get to him. ⁓ and then by the time they got to him, he was he was already unconscious. And his not sh not sure if he didn't wear his waistbelt or if it was already undone what the case was, but when they got to him, they couldn't find his waistbelt itself to make a conversion. And Josh was a was a bigger dude. So they definitely needed something, you know, sturdy to grab onto. So trying to take him the whole way across this house And then back upstairs proved to be very difficult and in like legitimately zero visibility and extremely stressful, high heat conditions, stuff like that. Like it just it was not working. They could not get the waistbelt completed and they couldn't get the DRD deployed. So they they attempted both. Just worst case scenario. Yeah. So you know, it it wasn't exactly developed, you know, for that, but it just got me thinking, you know, these these are my friends that that were hands on with Josh that made this rescue. ⁓ or removal, whatever, and just ⁓ it didn't sit right with me that that the th the basic the bare bones basic thing we trained on all the time wasn't working. Or didn't work in that scenario, right? Yeah. And how do you think, just to just to jump in there, I mean, you're teaching this stuff, you you're seeing this done on the at the you know, should the should be how it's done side at the academy, but then you're actually seeing it play out, you know, in real life. How did how did you feel going back to the academy and and having to teach that? You know, seeing that Hey guys, this is how it's done. And knowing that it didn't work out in that situation. Yeah. I I'll tell you, man, it was tough. It it was a hard one for me. It was a hard pill for me to swallow. You know, I I wasn't directly involved in the incident. I was off duty that day, but still that's life changing. It it is. And it's, you know, like I said, we're you know, we're a we're a fairly big department. I think at the time we were almost five hundred people, but I came in at a time when we were about two hundred. And then, you know, with me teaching at the academy all the time and I'm very involved. Like I know everybody, right? So like it's kind of a gut punch, you know, like, hey, these are some of the skills I teach. ⁓ I you know, I've even been involved in in some of our departmental in service trainings and stuff. And usually I mean, I I kind of cover everything or assist with everything, but the the writ stuff has always kind of been my niche. So it definitely did not sit well with me. So, you know, that gets the fireman's mind moving of, you know, what what can we do better? Yeah. So I I mean in a light in the mood, you know, you it I I love the part that it it started on a you know, ⁓ beer coaster. And I think all good things start on beer coaster. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure if we look back in history, you know, the Wright brothers, this flying machine started on a beer coaster in some tavern somewhere. Yeah. So what what was that story? How did that come together? So that's actually the second part. ⁓ Okay. That that was kinda in kinda out of nowhere, right? So ⁓ may give you a a little bit more of a background here. ⁓ Yeah. Not only do I teach for our academy, but I do teach with some training groups too. So I'm I'm an instructor with Capital Fire training and I also help about once a year with the Bears of the Oath ⁓ group down in Georgia. So traveling the country and being involved in different trainings, you w I see a lot of different techniques, right? And one of the the big ones, especially with the guys down south, is the the pickoff strap, right? So your your rope rescue pickoff strap, people are using in writ to make packaging easier. Yeah. The downside to that is most of the time, you know, they're pretty thick or they're not quite long enough. Like i it it's a great quick packaging tool, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. And so I was sitting at a brewery with two other guys that are on the job with me, two of my best friends. One of them's a a firefighter, another instructor with me, and then the other one's one of our battalion chiefs. And we were kind of just talking about it, like pick off straps and stuff like that. And then it the idea Of making it out of webbing so it's a smaller profile, making it longer so that it's easier to find attachment points and then putting handles on it. It's like I I don't think anybody's doing this. Yeah. So I mean w we were sitting there drinking for quite some time that day. Yeah. Yeah. So I I flipped it over, flipped the coaster over, and I started drawing it. And then like I said, I don't judge me. That's the first drawing watch, you can see it. Yeah, this is it. That's awesome. I definitely kept it. ⁓ yeah. Well because I had a few drinks. Yeah. So because I had a few drinks, I didn't like the first one, so I crossed it out and drew it again. No. And it ended up the same. So same exact drawing. But yeah. Was that was that at the same sitting that you just decided I'm gonna redo this and it's the same one? Yeah. Yep. That's perfect. That's even better. I mean that th that thing needs to be in a glass case. That's a national treasure. That's ⁓ I should frame it. It's I mean it's been sitting on my desk ever since, but ⁓ yeah, I should I should put it up on the wall. That's gonna be in the Smithsonian one day, so we gotta we gotta save that. ⁓ so when you when you actually took it from that. What did the what you know, there must have been iterations of what this thing looked like. What did that first strap look like? Yeah. The very first one I wish I had a picture of it. I I think I posted a picture of it on Instagram a couple months ago, but the very first one I put together with scotch tape. Like regular like w like gift wrap tape, you know what mean? Yeah, yeah. So I had to is that NFPA approved? Yeah, I don't think so. So I went and bought some webbing and tried out different lengths and stuff, and I was taping them together to kind of get the idea or the proof of concept, w you know, whatever you wanna call it and tried to use it and of course, you know, the tape doesn't hold up. But it worked well enough that like, okay, cool, I think this idea might work. Yeah. So from there I went and I borrowed a sewing machine from my grandmother. Nice. And didn't know how to use one. So I had to YouTube how to how to figure it out, right? And I made a couple different versions on my kitchen table. Yeah. Different lengths and, you know, things like that. So And how long did that process take you to actually get to the point where you're like, okay, I'm here. It really wasn't that long. Like from the drawing to that point was maybe a week or two. Like I mean I I had the idea and I was I was set, like I I wanna I wanna go do this, I wanna make it happen. So I was doing this stuff pretty quick. Now, for what it's worth, me sewing them together was it was junk, right? Like I yeah. It was just good enough. Not grandma approved. Yeah, it was just good enough to ⁓ take my idea to an actual industrial sewing company and you know, hey, can you make this but you know heavy duty stitching and and things like that. So And I mean, you know, that that the process just getting to that point Yeah, what what have you learned along on that route? You know, what were some of the failures that you almost set you back that you overcame and and continued on with? obviously besides the the stitching, you know, the mediocre stitching. Yeah. I I really lucked out finding a local manufacturer. So I think trying to get something that is legit that you can put out there for people, that that can probably be a pretty tough part. But the other one is if you have an idea of something that you want to make, don't how how do I wanna say it? Don't Be discouraged, I guess, when like your first iteration isn't quite it. Yeah. Just kind of keep thinking and and keep making changes until you find what's actually going to work. So I probably went through six, seven, maybe eight different versions of it before I I settled on the final one. And each time I thought it was the final version, right? And it it wasn't. So the other thing is ⁓ def you definitely want to do some testing, right? So and not just testing in your own firehouse. So make a few, send them to your buddies. Send them to people. Send send one to me. I don't care. Right? Like I you know, I'll whoever and take feedback and be able to take the criticism. Of course. You know, with with don't don't let it hurt your ego if people suggest changes. Right. Of course. Of course. A lot of a lot of what's actually on there wasn't even my idea from the start. And in addition to that, some of the techniques that we teach with it, I didn't even come up with, right? Other people did. Yeah. So I I think that's one of the coolest things that comes out of stuff like that though, is just seeing how other people sort of take your product and make it their own in a certain way. I d there must be s you know, when you see that, you must be like, wow, I didn't think about that. But that must bring some pride, you know, in what in what you're doing. At any point during the process, did you think it wasn't gonna work or did you just have that belief right on right up front, you were like, hey, we're ready, this thing's gonna I got this. Always thought it had a chance, right? I I was never down on on myself about it. Now, more recently, sometimes I think like, Man, I don't know. This is 'cause it's a lot of work to try to run a business and Keep up with everything, right? And like so right now I'm fighting supply chain issues, you know, I can't get carabiners for s six to eight months, at least the kinds that I want to use on the strap, you know. So it's there's always going to be a challenge and a struggle. But think if it, you know, if it's something that you believe in, you just just like anything else, just keep pushing, right? Yeah. Now obviously I can't quit my fire department job and and do this full time. Yeah. At least yet. I I don't ever really plan on doing that, but it's a nice thought. Yeah, sure. Yeah. No. I don't know. I I always want to be a fireman, so I don't think I could just not do that. But No, I I think that's that's just something that's ingrained in, you know, in all of us and in that but I think that also brings, you know, a realness to the product and that's you know, people see you behind it and that's what is a driving factor of that too. Yeah. Just let it be a slow drip, you know? Like don't don't try to force it and and make it happen right now. Just let it happen organically, naturally. You know, make your small changes as you go. Yeah. No, I think that's Those are valuable words to people, you know, because I obviously firefighters every day are sitting at the table. Someone's got some idea, some bus some business idea. 99% of them, you know, sort of fizzle up by dinner time, but that 1%, ⁓ that's, you know, stick with it and and grind it out. And that yeah, we talk about in training, we talk about that in all things, fire service. But let's go back to the fire rescue side. You know, some of the some of the bigger challenges that you saw when packaging a down firefighter. You know, what what was it again that that was behind the hasy strap? You know, you talked about the conversion of the the SCBA. I mean, this has been the standard for how long? Yeah, I mean it definitely since before I came came on the job. Yeah. I mean, do you think they were taking the harnesses of the horses and putting them between the legs and and dragging them out of you know off the streets and stuff? I mean, yeah, I have no idea. What but what what do you train or what do you see in the in the the training of of recruits or at the at the school or even in your other in your other jobs? What are the biggest problems that a firefighter down brings to a fire service on the fire scene. There is there's no easy way to go about it. Right. Like it th just like a a civilian victim, they are dead weight, but they usually weigh more, you know, with the gear or there's more friction on the floor. And then on top of it there's the added stress that it's, you know, a a a firefighter. It's just there's nothing about it that is clean, pretty, or easy, right? So it's it's gritty and dirty. And I I think that's You know, you talk about s if we talk about skills that we n we know, but they break down under stress. And I think, you know, knowing that person and when that made aid gets called over the radio, that level of stress just skyrockets and you know, people start to not lose their minds, but things sort of they get they get wiry. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ irrational decisions get get made. Exactly. I think that can be mitigated for the most part, but it takes a lot of training and a lot of stressful training. Yeah. Now it doesn't necessarily mean like super unrealistic or unobtainable skills, but just ⁓ I mean it's like anything else. You you have to train on it a lot to become proficient, including that the stress inoculation, right? So Yeah. And it's never going to be as realistic as the real thing, but there are things you can do to get yourself used to working under stress. And ⁓ And what are some of those that you suggest or that you guys do on the training side? Because we talk about it on the the tech rescue side, the USTR side. But anything, I mean, even in the business world, making decisions under stress, you know, companies spend billions of dollars trying to solve this problem. So what is it you guys or you recommend or your group teaches to say, hey, let's let's take a minute and and work through this problem? Yeah. I think first and foremost it's reps, right? It's you you have to practice doing things stressed out. So a couple of the things we do in in my class we we spend ⁓ a little bit of a portion talking about stress in the the physiological changes it does to your body and your brain and and how you react to stress and then how you can control it, which long story short, the the easiest way to control it is to control your breathing. Right. If you control your breathing, you can somewhat control your heart rate. And as long as you can keep your heart rate below a certain threshold and your breathing below a certain threshold, you kind of don't go, we call it over the curve, into the blackout zone where you start making those irrational decisions. So Yeah. That's the big one, right? Is is definitely breathing and heart rate. I think recognizing those those signs and symptoms too. I think that's something that if you can recognize like, hey, like I am I'm starting to climb that curve, like I I need to take that second and control my breathing. One hundred percent. And recognizing it in whoever you're working with as well. Like sometimes you have to grab somebody and tell them that they need to chill out. I hey man, like take a second, take a breath, chill out, because we you know, we have work to do and and you're not helping right now. Yeah, I I've actually had to do that. ⁓ we were mixing s we were mixing some dogrin at a fentanyl case and One of my guys love him to death, but he was just being out of his mind, crazy. And I looked up at him and ⁓ this is the second batch we were trying to make because he screwed up the first one. I said, dude, take a walk. Take a w you got you gotta leave us alone. Yeah. But no, it's that's knowing your people too, I think. That's for the commander side too. I mean, ⁓ you have to know who's on the fire ground and who you can turn to in that moment to to sort of regain control or or or take that. If you could fix, you know, one thing or one way the fire departments trained firefighter rescue. Besides putting a hazy strap in everyone's pocket, what would it be? That's a really good question. I'm known for ⁓ Yeah. I think I'm so I I was just talking about making things stressful, which I do think is super important. Yeah. But I think a lot of people when it comes to writ training, they try to overdo it. Right? It it's too hard, ⁓ there's too many variables, and it's with most things, if you master the basics, then you can start throwing little pieces of the the harder stuff at it. But I I think Too many times like you you try to build a writ drill, whether it's in the apparatus bay or in your training building, and you just throw everything at ⁓ all at once without building up to it. Yeah. And ⁓ they're unsuccessful. Not all the time, right? But most of the time they're unsuccessful. Yeah. You're inviting failure. You're inviting failure, but the other thing that that does is it kills somebody's confidence too, right? So if you are not confident that you can operate at this a similar type of incident or scenario, whatever, then you know, God forbid You ever have to do that actually, like that's the only thing you're gonna think about. Right. So whenever we're training anything, there needs to be a clear goal and it needs to be obtainable. And then once you you master the easier ways of doing it, then you start th throwing in extra challenges or whatever to make it a little bit harder. Hopefully that makes sense. No, I no, I I mean, it's the crawl, walk, run sort of mindset. And that's how you build that that's exact that's exactly how you build that strength and I guess capability to do to do that j under those conditions. I I just wanted to touch on writ operations on the fire ground. You know, how do you how does your fire department, even your region, you know, you show up at a structure fire, what does that writ scene look like? You know, what does that staging area look like? Cool. That's that's another good one. So my department is pretty pretty SOP driven and I'm a big fan of that. So we have a dedicated writ company at every structure fire from dispatch. So For us, it is the fifth due engine. So we you know, we added a fifth engine to every every structure fire response and that is going to be the initial writ company. ⁓ now you can put that anywhere you can argue, you know, w where in the response that company should be. We chose to make that our our last arriving engine is going to be our initial writ team and they are tasked with pretty much setting up the staging area, so grabbing any tool that they think may be necessary with a bare minimum of being a a writ pack. Yeah. Right. ⁓ Some hand tools, some saws, some ropes. And then from there, you know, we can we can build out some more. Now, once the first unit arrives and if they confirm that it is a a working incident, they're supposed to ask for the rapid intervention dispatch, which gets you another engine company and another special service, usually a rescue squad or a or a a ladder truck. And those two companies coming with on that ⁓ dispatch are to meet up with that fifth due engine and that builds out your full writ team. So that gives you your Minimum of twelve. Okay. Multiple thermal imagers, multiple rip packs, all the tools. Now at every at every fire is is this happening at your department? Do you see it? For the most part, yeah. It's like if if it's a working incident, you know, if we we show up and it is a a very nickel and dime fire, sometimes out of habit they just call for the rapid intervention dispatch, but sometimes they say, Hey, hey, it's not really needed. Like this fire's gonna be on thirty seconds, you know. So I I get you. I only ask that because you know I know there's people out there at departments that you know, departments say they do writ and they bring the writ pack to the front of the building, but then, you know, the team gets kind of antsy and they sort of end up inside and they're helping operations. You know, coming from the the you know, your background, your department, experiencing the loss that you guys did, what do you say to those departments that have writ in place but really don't have that sort of backing? Yeah. Well, th the fire service is very reactive, right? So we we were not the best at it before the incident. And it definitely changed a lot of how we do business as far as structured fires and writ. Now we're still a a very aggressive department. We're still expected to go inside and put the fire out, but we are we are more diligent with with writ, you know. ⁓ and and I mean a whole policy on it now. So Yeah. And I only asked that too because, you know, as a young officer, I remember being on one of the ladder trucks that was assigned writ and I'm out I'm outside the building. It wasn't anything big and I yeah, I had a couple older, more senior guys that were like, I'm not standing around doing writ. I'm like trying I'm not gonna fight with you in the fire ground right here and we're we're trying to do written like they end up going inside. I'm like, you what am I doing supposed to do? And I know I know that there's other people that are put in those situations on a daily basis probably around the country. I mean There are for sure. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, man. Like i I love the skills and I love teaching it and, you know, practic it practicing it, training with it, everything. But at the fire ground, that is pretty much the last thing that I want to do, you know. It's the last thing everyone wants to do. But, you know, at the same time, if there is I I hope there never is again, but if there is another incident, like I hope I am on the writ team, you know, because I I do feel like I've prepared for it and and I try to prepare my people for it. So but don't part so part of our program we we teach like don't don't get in that mindset of writ sucking. Like it doesn't have to suck. There's a lot of things we can do. So our department has been pretty good at pr being proactive, proactive writ, right? So as long basically If it doesn't exhaust you or doesn't require you to put on your mask and enter the ideal H, we're allowed to do it. So that can be And how how have you found that rolled out? Is there a lot of acceptance to that and people generally respond bet better to that? Sometimes it's begrudgingly, you know. No nobody really wants the assignment, but ⁓ there's definitely very little to no freelancing in our department. Like we are pretty disciplined and that's something I can be pretty proud to say. But there you there's all things kinds of things we can do. So we help the ladder companies put the rest of the ladders up. It's small things, but our tremendous help is like chasing kinks. You know, everybody gets focused on what they're doing and you see these hose lines that are kinked up, like go fix that before it becomes a problem. We're constantly every couple of minutes we're sending a separate member of the crew around doing, you know, a three sixty checking on conditions and things like that, right? Yeah. Just getting different eyes on on things to figure out if there's any hazards and stuff like that. So and then usually once once the fire's either out or, you know, towards towards the end stages, they'll start to rotate. So You'll get some work. It's not always the best work, but you're not going to stand there and do nothing the entire time. So a lot of times they'll get rotated in and then new crews will will come in to to fill the writ. Yeah. And I always found, you know, there's I think there is a crossover. You know, obviously I'm a big tech rescue nerd, whatever, but I believe there is a crossover between writ and tech rescue in the in sort of the training and mindset thing that it doesn't happen very often, but when it does happen, you know, things can go bad very sure, very fast. And you become that specialized team, whether you're ready or not. you know, and it the outcome of what what comes next is based off your training and what you put into that. And and I like that nexus. Let let's go back to the Hasty Strap though. You talked about some of the the the earlier ⁓ you know, testing of it. How did you test it before you brought it to the market? What was what were some of the things that you guys did in ho I assume in-house or how did it roll out? Yeah, pretty much everything was in-house or, you know, with w traveling with capital, basically. So my main focus in the beginning was making sure that the design was the way I wanted it, that it was gonna work out the way I wanted it to work out, right? So the overall intention has been for it to be carried in your pocket. So a lot of people don't, they put ⁓ in the writ packs or with their writ tools, whatever, which is fine. But the overall intent was ⁓ something that can be in your pocket so that when your your bare bones basic isn't working, you can pull it out and make it happen, right? So I wanted to make sure that it could fit in the pocket, but also fit on any fireman w that we need to put it on. I haven't found one yet that it doesn't fit on. So we we've messed with some large dudes. Is that a is that the the hasty strap challenge you had looking for the Yeah, yeah, sure. The unstrappable? Yep. Perfect. Okay, I like that. What what was ⁓ what was some of the early feedback you got in and and what of that had the biggest impact on, you know, your final design? A lot of it was figuring out how to keep it in your pockets, right? So we've come up with some other things, other products that could go with it. ⁓ But that was probably the biggest challenge in the start was storing it so that it'll deploy without coming out tangled up or whatever. Or being able to find the right components. And then kind of part of that being able to find the right components, like the first I have one here somewhere. One of my first prototypes didn't have the reflective striping on it, right? It was it was still, you know, it's most of them are an orange strap. ⁓ there are some color variations for special occasions, but I think I got I got it here on the camera, on the other camera. So you could I mean this is definitely high viz on the hand strap side. Yep. So initially it didn't have the silver reflective striping. It was just the orange strap and the yellow handle. And that was one of the feedbacks we got was you know, if we could find a a way to really differentiate the handles. So that's when we added the reflective striping, and then that seemed to to be very well received. ⁓ So yeah. Were were there any assumptions that you had about the strap early on that proved different on upon training? Yes. So when when you use this strap, you can go to any attachment point that you you can find, right? And with with the pick off straps, usually we're going to the ⁓ parachute buckle or adjustment buckle, right? The buckle itself on your shoulder strap. But one of the the things that I found with messing with those or when the sh strap was shorter was that can be really hard to find, especially if that fireman's laying like if he's laying on this side, he's kind of tucked up under the buckle. It's it's a specific spot to find, right? So you can absolutely go to it, but I want it to be able to come up. You feel the head, shoulders, grab the strap and attach it up high. Yeah. So I got used to the packs that we were wearing, which were the the Scots with the ⁓ regulator disconnect, right? Yep. So it's no problem to connect it up high. When you cinch it down, it it falls to that disconnect and doesn't pass it and it sits right there. It's perfect, it's good to go. Yeah. But going around in training like MSAs don't have those disconnects. Yep. And then some of some of these departments we would go to that have older air packs, like they they don't have ⁓ So it's like can't really do that because you can't capture that air hose. 'Cause if you do, when you cinch it, you're pulling the face piece off. If you go around the strap and not the air hose, then it falls way down under the armpit. So, you know, in those cases you may have to go to the buckle. But that was something that like I thought was dialed in and then like not everybody uses the same equipment as us. So yeah, you know. Trying to figure out different techniques for that was was a an unforeseen challenge. And how did you how did you how have you overcome that? It's basically that. Like you can go to any attachment point that that you need to. The biggest thing is don't capture the air hose unless there's a disconnect and you go above it. Cause we you know, if you rip their face piece off during the drag or during the hoist, then you kind of defeat the whole purpose of what we're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah, so you talked about being a firefighter and obviously we lead busy lives and we're trying you're trying to run this business outside of there. What was one of the biggest challenges during the time you're building this out from the idea to actually turning it into a product? So for me it was money. I I didn't have a bunch of money that I could dedicate to starting up. ⁓ so I mean I did, you know, use some some personal money to get everything started. That was my biggest challenge was so e even still to this day, like when I go and have a batch of straps made, I have to buy all the material and pay all the labor up front. Right. Now, you know, of course I make it back and then make enough money to keep making another batch. But I have you know, at the be at the very beginning before I built up any money in the business account, like that was a very hard thing to do was figuring out what to buy and when, you know, 'cause 'cause that was that was a lot that I just didn't have I I didn't have it in my personal accounts available to use for the business. I'll put it that way. Now, did you did you have any other firefighters that you could reach out to and and talk to about building businesses during that time? Yeah, a little bit. So like capital fire training, the guy who owns that at RJ, I'm not sure if you know him yet. He's on a job with me in in Frederick. ⁓ and he's one of my best friends. So he's he gave me a lot of advice as far as kind of the business side of it and then also working on the the patent. So he's got ⁓ a forcible entry. kit, I guess you'd call it, that he's got patented. So he kind of was able to help me with that process. And then some of the business stuff, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean, I wouldn't be anywhere without him, man. He he's he's done a lot for me and he's definitely helped me help achieve it a lot of this. So I think that's a super important. Like anything, having that sort of mentor or someone that can help, you know, walk you through, especially on the firefighter side, ⁓ because like I said, no I I know a lot of firefighters and myself included who just step out and try and do something different. But if you had to give a piece of advice to a firefighter listening today that wanted to start their own business, you know, and doesn't know where to start, what would you tell them? You you just have to start. You know, I think we kind of touched on it a little bit earlier. Like you you gotta believe in it and you gotta start. So don't expect it to be completely successful right away. Be okay with it taking a while to build or having some failures along the way. Like it's going to happen. It it's not gonna be super easy and super profitable right off the start. So you know, I I think what what kind of interests me is you know, the fire surface has been around forever, right? And all these new and varied products still continue to come out and a lot of them are firefighter driven. What do you think is behind that? I we're problem solvers, you know. That's pretty much what we do on a daily basis is is go to go to problems and f try to figure out a way to solve them. So yeah, I I think that's what it is. It's w we're naturally inclined to try to fix things and when you see something that isn't quite working the way that you want it to. You make your little improvement and that's innovation and I think it's beautiful. We might have gotten ourselves in that trouble spot in the first place. Yeah. But we're we're good at getting out of it. ⁓ do you I mean do you think the fire service in general does or di encourages innovation? Yes. The fire service in general does. Sounds like a trick question tonight, I think, but I wanted to I wanted to think about how I wanted to say it 'cause I think the fire surface in general encourages it because everybody loves something new, especially when it works well or solves yeah, you know, a problem that you're having. I think the downside is people are very sandboxy, right? Like I've never been that way. I I never will be. I I don't get competitive with other companies, but like if you start something and it starts taking off, you are going to get some hate, some feedback from from other companies who think that you might be stealing their thunder or whatever. That's or you know that's the nature of business. It It is. It's and like I said, it it's it's innovation, right? That that's how innovation works is you got something that's not quite working and you improve upon it. So Yeah. You know. No, and I and I think that's in that same sense, you know, with with the fire service and and tradition, how do you balance tradition with finding better ways to do stuff? You know, how do we how do we as firefighters balance that tradition yet continue to innovate? Yeah. ⁓ I mean, j you just gotta you just gotta do it, you know? Like you trad tradition's important. And you gotta always remember where you come from. But if tradition was the only thing, we'd still have horses, you know what I mean? Like so if it makes it better, you gotta you gotta be willing to accept it if it makes it better. Yeah. And if I think that's a higher result, it's not cup of tea. So yeah. Yeah. No, I think ⁓ well what's next for ⁓ hasty products. I have something really cool coming. I can't exactly say what it is right now. I'll tell you when we stop recording. Okay, that's that's fair. But I just wanna be like when it's time I just want to be Dave Portnoy with Trump when he's like, Hey, I got it that the red card's being overturned for USA and just put it out just beforehand. But that's cool. It's something I'm running through Hasty Fire products, the company. It's maybe somewhat slightly related to the rescue strap, but it's it's completely different. It's more along ⁓ it's, you know, in the training realm more than anything. But ⁓ it's pretty cool. I I think it's gonna be a lot of fun and I've got some prototypes right here. Like I said, as soon as as soon as we're done, I'll show it to you. In fact, I'll send you one. You can let me know what you think of it. So that that's part of the testing. That's that's that's so and I think that's cool though. You know, you you came up with a strap, but now you have you know what what has led you to this this whole new thing that we're gonna talk about after? ⁓ th so this new thing just it just kinda came to me. And I don't want to say too much without giving it away, but ⁓ it it was again, it was another it was another problem, right? So we were sitting around around the firehouse. Actually we were we were out of training and and Yeah, we were talking about this this one issue that almost every firehouse seems to have from time to time. And it's like it, you know, just a light bulb. So wait, are we talking about a better legitimate mouse trap? Because every fire station has ⁓ has mice. And I th if you I think if you could crack that nut, you'd be a billionaire. Yeah, it might be along those lines. Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, look, I I desperately want to hear about this. I want to thank you for for talking to us here at the Rescue Lab. Thank you for sending a strap. I do have it here. So we just talked about before, you know, we're talking about the different uses. And I'm gonna try to play around with it on the tech rescue side, but I just wanted to touch on, you know, the story you told me about one of the firefighters who used it in a in a grain silo. I thought that was that was pretty unique. Yeah. That was the first you had heard of it. Yeah. So ⁓ I haven't put the full story out there yet because I I I talked to the guy and he told me what happened and he showed me a little clip, but he's supposed to give me some better footage and then I'll analyze it, you know, and and then I'll put it out there for the masses. But ⁓ yeah, long story short, it was used in a grain bin rescue, so A farmer was stuck in a a silo full of corn. He was there for quite a few hours and this rescue team was actually called in as a mutual aid team, you know, kind of hours into the incident when it wasn't working out for the initial crews. So y you know, they call the the the specialized team in and ⁓ this guy's been a big supporter and he carries a a hasty strap in his fire gear and carries a hasty strap in his little go bag. And when they realize that, like I said, I I don't know the exact specifics, but I think the way that the patient or the victim was sitting they couldn't get the L S P around him. So he said, Hold up, I think I have something that might work. He pulled his Hasty strap out and kind of fished it around, got it around the ⁓ the victim and was able to attach it to the hoisting system with that and ⁓ was able to get him out pretty quick. So that was that was really cool. And then a couple months ago I did get a confirmed civilian rescue with it too in a fire. That's awesome. That was that made Just that one right there, like cool. They actually made a save on a civilian. ⁓ even though, you know, the whole intention was writ, it's been able to be adapted to civilians. It saved one person and that makes all of the stress I've ever gone through worth it. So no, absolutely. I mean, that's just it's cool to see the the innovation from the coaster to, you know, tech rescue and civilian side. I mean, that that's awesome. What a cool product. And Hag, hey, we we thank you for having on the Rescue Lab Field Notes. And I'm gonna stay tuned after this. Everyone else, ⁓ go check out Hank and the Hasty Strap ⁓ his website, and we'll be back. We'll be back with more info once the ⁓ the new the new product comes out. Hank, thank you very much. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Rescue Lab. If you found value in today's conversation and want to help strengthen the rescue community, consider supporting the New England Rescue Collaborative Foundation. Every donation helps fund technical rescue scholarships, training opportunities, and educational incentives that prepare rescuers before the next call comes in. You can learn more or make a tax-deductible donation at NE Rescue Collaborative. And one last favor, if you enjoy the Rescue Lab, the best way to help us grow is by leaving a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. It helps more rescuers discover these conversations and keeps us bringing you stories and lessons from some of the world's best rescue professionals. Until next time, keep learning, keep training, and remember, no one else is coming, it's up to us. I'm PJ Halloran and this is the Rescue Lab.