patrick halloran: All right, hey. Welcome back to the Rescue Lab. I'm PJ Halloran. I'm here with Logan Ledkins. He's a special ops lieutenant with Longview, Texas, and we are talking about the infamous balloon rescue that happened at 900 feet. Logan, we're gonna jump right into it. Take me to that morning and and how that incident played out. Let's discuss that. Yeah, man. Jumping right into it. So we work ⁓ forty-eight ninety-six now, so we were on the back half or coming into our second day of that. So we'd already been on for twenty-four coming in. So we were waking up. I let the guy sleep in a little bit on that second day and ⁓ so it's about eight AM guys are kinda stirring, got pancakes on the griddle, I'm taking my first sips of coffee for the morning, and ⁓ I've got a guy that works for the little combination department to our north, and he said, Hey, we just got a call at Judson for a balloon rescue. A balloon hit a tower. And I was like, ⁓ that's interesting. So I got up and kind of wiping the sleep out of my eyes and walked towards the office and about that time the ring down or the call came. And we got dispatched to that call basically came in as a balloon had hit a cell tower, I believe is what they were saying. And so I immediately dropped the house. So I knew that we were gonna need everybody that I had at the station that day, and it had only put the ladder truck on the call, so we were gonna need a few more hands than that. But to be quite honest, like I was seeing reports early on of being in the a hundred to two hundred foot range. So, you know, that that's kinda in our wheelhouse. We do training at that level pretty regularly. So I honestly thought if that's what it was, that we could probably manage that situation with what I had at the house between the eight guys that I was going to be bringing with me, plus any other, you know, ground people and that kind of thing. So I wasn't too concerned about it at that point. As we started to get en route to the call, I ⁓ we got in the area where I could see the tower that was in question. And unfortunately it was a tower that we were aware of in the area, but I didn't know that was the one that we were going to head to that morning. ⁓ so we were aware of a tower in our area. Most everything is a two hundred ish foot cell tower. ⁓ this particular one we were we knew was quite a bit taller. I couldn't remember right at the right off my head that morning how tall it was, but I knew it was significantly taller. And we had kind of talked about it for years about Hey, if we get something that same tower? Yeah, yeah. Because it's the only one that's significantly taller than everything else in the area. So everybody was kind of aware of it. But so yeah, we turned on to a a local street there and I could get a clear view of it and I could see something hanging from the top. At that point I didn't, you know, I assumed it was a balloon, but I was just is that an antenna or is that something odd? Like ⁓ we were still far enough, but I could definitely see it at that point. Did you did you know at that at the dispatch moment that there were people in it where like, hey, this is a weather balloon, something trapped up here, you know? No, so ⁓ Longview has a ⁓ a a ballooning community. So we actually in the summertime they host a hot air balloon race that goes on for about a week. So hot air balloons in our area isn't uncommon. Matter of fact, ⁓ for years and years part of the Longview, the City of Longview logo had a balloon in it. So like Bal balloons aren't uncommon in our area, so I knew exact it wasn't gonna be a weather balloon. I knew it was gonna be an occupied an occupied balloon. Now I was you know, I didn't know if it was gonna be multiple people, but I I knew it would be occupied. So And so you you finally get on scene and and ⁓ you mentioned this tower isn't alongside the road. I mean you have a ways to get in to get to this tower. Yeah, so the the the combination department to our north and a battalion chief and a couple of other units that were originally dispatched to what finally kind of shook out as a above great rescue had made it on scene before us. We had about we were probably ten to fifteen minutes out ⁓ from the call. So they beat us there and they were kinda telling us as we were coming in, like, hey, the ladder truck isn't gonna make it here. So we kinda knew we were gonna have to hump some gear. They were trying to get some some trucks and stuff squared away to maybe haul some of our gear, but by the time we got our foot on the ground it was just easier to throw our bags on our back and and hump it. So we had I don't know, quarter mile, half mile, something like that. I wasn't too concerned with the the trip at the moment. I was looking up the whole way and yeah and thinking fast. So but yeah. And go ahead. No, I was gonna say, so you you grab your initial your initial gear and what do you go to first for that? What do you what do you grab and you're telling your guys to grab for equipment right off the bat? Yeah, so we carry all of our ropes gear on the ladder truck that I was on. ⁓ in the very near future, the our our engine that sits at the house will have a complimentary set of gear, but it doesn't at the moment. So I told him I need every piece of rope gear off of this truck to the base of that tower. That was my exact words. And I grabbed a bag, one of the rope bags and started walking that way. And you know, I had a bunch of guys now that were on scene. Several of the volunteer departments from around were kind of close. So we had a lot of hands. But yeah, I need every single thing that's on this truck that looks like a rope or sounds like a rope to be at the base of that tower. And so you you ended up being the operations running the operations for this. Did you have a plan early on or is I mean, obviously did you show up and you see the complexity and the scale go up, what's going through your mind and and how are you gonna solve this problem? Yeah, so obviously the the the scale changes things a little bit, but honestly ⁓ we for probably more than a decade, we've implemented a tower rescue day in our rook technician class. So every guy that's gone through over the last at least ten years, myself included, and that was in twenty thirteen. So you do the math. And ⁓ so we we do it we do a tower rescue day, right? So I kinda knew what we were I I mean I we have a game plan for that, right? We're gonna do a a multi pitch lower. That that's kind of our plan. It's it's the easiest, most efficient way to go about it. You it's the cleanest way. We don't I don't have a six hundred foot rope in the bag, which at the time was kinda what I was thinking it might be, but I I I don't have that in my bag. You know, I I'm we're not tower climbers on a daily basis, so we're we're looking at probably getting a a little trailing line of like twelve hundred foot now after this happened, but you know, I don't have any I don't I don't have those tools in my in my kit right now. So the longer You will. You definitely will. Yeah. I mean at the time the longest rope I had was three hundred foot, you know. So I I knew they weren't coming to the ground on a single rope, so I kind of knew we were gonna do a multi pitch lower. I just didn't know how many pitches it was gonna take when it was all set and done. But honestly, as we were getting to the base of the tower, my my biggest worry was that balloon was very, very precariously hung. I mean it contacted the tower and somehow hung up there. Like that still doesn't after seeing tons of pictures, that still doesn't compute with me how it stayed, even when it just first hit it, 'cause it's It hit it and stayed right where it went. It got enough wraps from that balloon fabric that it just stayed right there, which still just by the grace of God, right? And so then I was really concerned with the footprint on the ground, what where guys were gonna be, because I was very much thinking that that thing was gonna come down while we were gonna be on our way up. The tower was about five by five by five a triangle. So once they were inside the footprint, I wasn't too concerned about ⁓ because I knew you know, they might get hit with some falling debris, but they were gonna be protected by the tower at that point. But while we were all out on the ground, so yeah, locking out, tagging out the the power, that ended up being a really, really high wattage, what I'm told to be the highest allowable wattage tower in the country. ⁓ it was a r it was ended up being a radio station tower is what was at the top and it's transmitting FEM at a really high. We as as I'm learning things, that was one of the things that became a concern. But We got that locked out and tagged out. Automatically a generator pops on. We had to go kill the generator as well. So a lot of things happening on and I had luckily the IC, the battalion chief that was on C was kind of taking care of that piece for me. They had to force entry on all that, get all that taken care of. I was working on the rope plan. And basically my rope plan was I needed a guy. I needed guys up there right now. Like I need ⁓ right now. And I knew that that wasn't gonna happen. I knew it was gonna be a long climb. But once again, I was getting intel in my ear that was like six to seven hundred foot is what I was thinking. So I had three hundred foot ropes in my hand. So I was kinda thinking maybe two to three pitches is what I was originally thinking. So I kinda I picked my best rope guy and ⁓ my most athletic guy and I was like, Hey y'all get to climbing. We'll get the rest of the gear that you need to you but take a rope, something to secure it, probably a clutch and a anything else that you think you need, but don't take more than you need because you're gonna be smoked. So Yeah. Those are the kind of things. And how was yes, and you a briefly we just we had discussed fitness and at this level, you know, you're sending guys up what we find out to be his nine hundred feet. Were you worried about that level of fitness and what it would take to get up there? Or you guys train for this all the time and you're, you know, you're ready to go. You know, obviously I I've got really fit guys. I I'll kind of brag on my guys. We do a workout of the month ⁓ kind of competition and we my house has won that competition a year for two years straight. We've got a couple of golden ⁓ kettlebells and that kind of thing in our gym. I mean, we we work out every single day and so I I wasn't too concerned. I knew I was gonna be able to push the guys hard. I knew that they were gonna be able to do what they needed to do. I was concerned with the the length because I knew my lead climber, he's a big beefy boy, he's very strong. But he's gotta eat. You gotta feed those guys, right? Like so you do. And I knew he hadn't eaten. Like we woke up, you know, like we shook him out of bed and so I knew he hadn't eaten and I knew he wasn't gonna get to eat for quite some time. It was just part of it, you know. We kinda gotta push through and make some things happen when we get called into action like this. And so I was worried about him and w you know, as time went on through the rescue, we started getting things on scene for them to eat when they got down. But like it that was just, you know, not part of the thing. Yeah, no, but that was that's it's ⁓ it's super important and I and I mentioned that when I first saw this on T V, one of the first thoughts that came in my head was I don't know how many departments across America could even make that climb. Just Just on the fitness level alone, not even the technical side, just having that level of fitness adds to your ability to get the job done. That's incredibly important. And if if if you're not working on your fitness every single day, like you you gotta be doing something, right? And you can't cop out like, Well, I'm on duty. Yeah, like maybe not, you know, do the Murph every single tour or something like that. Right. Like, you know, if if you're not in there making things happen, you know, I I'm a forty one year old cat that's the lieutenant at this house. Most of my guys are younger than me. I got a few older guys there and like I I'm in a lot better shape because of them, you know. Like I just want to keep up at this point, you know. And and so you know, having having those kind of dynamics in a house makes it easy, you know, and you know, sending ⁓ pictures on my days off where I'm I'm trying to stay in it and that kind of thing. Like, I mean that that's the fun stuff, right? But yeah. Yeah, like I watched I watched my lead climber the day before go six for six at three fifteen on squats, you know. So I knew all that. That was in the back of my head, but at the time, like I literally was able to hand them a bottle of water and tell them to hit the bricks, you know? Like I it's it's it's it's the best case. That's super that's super important. I and the and the fact that you have the confidence in them to get that done, you know, adds I think maybe takes a little bit of stress off st off of you. But you know, you now you got guys climbing the tower. How was your plan as operations evolving as as they make their way up and start to report back? Yeah. So really cool thing, we had a battalion chief that made a really cool call, literally right off the bat. And he got dispatched to get him the phone number to one of the victims who had made a phone call. So he handed that phone off to our on duty safety officer and the safety officer literally talked to her the entire time while we were making the ascent. So what ended up being seventy minutes of climb time, he was able to talk to her and kinda keep her on the phone, which was a blessing and a curse all at the same time because y you know, he had to be real with her and when When he made first contact with her, he's like, Hey, we're here, we're coming for you, but it's gonna take us a minute. Like we're we're not we're not coming in a helicopter, we're not we're climbing this thing and this is how we're coming. And it's gonna take at least an hour. And you know, the the the victim famously kinda said, Well, we're not gonna make it then, you know, 'cause she was in that kind of state of mind. They were moving ten foot to each side. They knew that they were in a really precarious situation. So yeah, like but stayed on the phone with her, talked her through it, said The the guy that told me he's like, Man, I d I don't talk to my wife that long, you know, and had a conversation where they covered everything from A to Z, you know. And so Yeah, no, it's important. It's very important. But kinda kept her calm and w we were able to do that. So as the plan was going on, again, my main thing was to get a couple of guys up the tower and and try to get up there and make contact with them and get them clipped in some way somehow. As that was going on, I also started stacking guys on the tower. We we have a another special operations house on the other side of town. Right as I was kinda getting on my feet on the ground and figured out that this was not a one hundred foot tall cell phone tower. I've I I had them get ringed out and headed in our direction. We were gonna need their their their gear and their people. These kind of calls, I I say this all the time to my guys, is like what we run out of is skilled players and I don't mean that in a negative way in any kind of form or fashion. We had some quote unquote ordinary ops guys on the ground that did fin fantastic things for us that day. But I need those skilled players to to to be on the tower and do the things, you know. So No, absolutely. Also we have a ⁓ we have a competition ropes team that travels around and does cool things in a really meticulous way, you know, those those really ultra rope guys. I'm I'm a rope guy, but I'm not that. And so like they go out. It's a different level. A hundred percent. ⁓ so our special operations chief was out of town. He got the phone call that this was going down and he just put the all call on a group me that they have and so Most of those guys ended up filtering in and making the scene, which was a huge blessing because, you know, they're the guys, right? ⁓ we were all rope guys and I had total confidence in my guys. It would've probably just taken a whole lot longer. We would have ended up having to down climb and and change some things and it would have just taken longer. But having those guys at my disposal really, really sped things up. That's important. And so You're now you're you're lead climber, you get up there, he makes he makes contact and he started to assess the situation. What's the what's the mind frame of the victim at that point when they're when they first connect? Yeah. Now that I know they've been on the phone and they've been talking, but now she sees, you know, him here. Yeah, matter of fact, the my driver, he'll never do an interview. That's just not his thing. But he's like he sees a man standing there and he's holding a strap that he had managed to flip over the edge of the tower and it was kind of stabilizing the balloon, which was probably helping quite a bit. But he goes He asked if he's okay and he's like, Yeah, we're okay. And he's like, We're and and at about that time the lady raised her hand up over the edge of the basket. She's in the fetal position in the bottom of the basket. So I'm sure the radio traffic got sent over that there was two victims because that we knew that from the ground at that point, but somehow that hadn't competed with him. So he was like, Well, you got two victims. Awesome. And so he was able to flip the the pilot a a ⁓ a carabiner on a rope. And they kind of just quickly did a triple wrap around and clipped it back into itself. I'll be honest, like had that ended up having to come into play, I really think it probably would have dumped them out of the basket because it was just on one side. If they took a a fall, like it probably wouldn't have been good, right? They weren't tethered in at all. But luckily that didn't go that way. And so yeah, they got there. Two of those rope comp guys were the first two that were on scene were the guys that have kind of led our program and They kind of came from a climbing community before they were in the fire service. They've been teaching this class since before I was in the fire service. They taught every dude that was on the tower and those cats come walking up. It was a good feeling to see those guys come walking up. Yeah. And they hit the tower. I got a knife hand from one of the guys. Hey, do those guys got water? And and I'm ⁓ I handed them a bottle of water. That's what I had. You know, he walked up knife hand, I love it. Yeah, he he walked up with all his rope gear on, basically with a camel pack and I'm ⁓ I didn't have a camel pack to handle, you know. I'm glad you brought one, but you know, I handed him a bottle of water, you know. So anyways. Yeah. So those guys made the climb. My guy took about seventy minutes to make the climb. Now, mind you, he took more gear than they did. They were really, really light. One of those guys made the climb at about forty five minutes. So ⁓ kudos to a guy, Cliff Patrick, who leads our program. He he turned and burned and made it up there. So after ⁓ you know, you do the math there. He got there about five minutes after my lead climber did. They started really assessing what they were gonna be able to do. My lead climber had taken a single victim harness, which is all we had on the truck. I had known there was a second victim in the basket. So that ⁓ cliff I sent him up with ⁓ one of our normal harnesses, which wasn't ideal, but it was what it was. And so he had that. We were able to slide those harnesses over to the victims. and get them in. It took a while to talk the pilot into a full blown class three harness, but we ended up doing it and getting it handled. And then he up climbed, man, just rope tech's doing rope tech stuff, right? They they ended up using they had a single three hundred foot rope and a clutch and an anchor strap and a couple of prussics, right? Like, there you go, there's your gear, right? Yeah. So they ended up using the tail of the rope out of the backside of the bag and came up and over, climbed up about twenty foot, tied in a clutch and vectored it down to them. ⁓ and they were able to, you know, once again talk ⁓ into a harness, clipped them in s one at a time and ⁓ they were able to pull some down pressure on, which kinda encouraged them and made ⁓ I mean, I'm sure it wasn't a warm and fuzzy feeling 'cause they ha they had a basket underneath them, but now they're having to step out in faith and get out there outside the basket. But luckily they had one of those straps and man it was it was smooth as silk. you know, they they got up tall enough that the vector angle was not gonna be bad. ⁓ the guy up top had his foot on the rope pushing out, kind of vectoring off the tower. We had a guy famously Lieutenant Stephen Winchell is outside the tower now, hanging off, you know, with one hand out. And so we had a lot of things in play to try to you know s they took their helmets off and had taken given ⁓ their helmets. So like a lot of things in play to to try to get those people to the tower safely. And honestly it went smooth as silk. No interrupt you, I I remember seeing the video footage of the drone. D did the drone help you? Did it hinder you? We were able to see what the drone was seeing. Wha how did that play into it? I don't we would have got it done. I sh I shouldn't say we wouldn't have got it done. The drone was so much more helpful than I'm not a huge tech guy as we can figure out after all the stuff going on this morning. But the drone was so helpful, man. I've I've had a couple I'm a water rescue guy on the other side of the world and we've had opportunity to use some drones in that side of the world, man that If you don't have a drone in your department, ⁓ you need to be talking to somebody about getting through part one ⁓ seven and then and getting a drone in your in your world because they're just so helpful. When that thing got on scene, first of all, it it kind of wrecked my world because he he's flying his drone. He gets that thing up to balloon level. My guy ain't there yet. He's passing all my people and he gets and ⁓ I know a little bit about that world. And he goes, Hey, I'm like, where is it at? What's the level? Can you tell me the altitude? He's Yeah, I'm at nine hundred and twenty foot. I'm like, is that Above sea level or above the ground. He's like, That's above the ground. I'm like, ⁓ no. Like I was expecting them to be in the six to seven hundred foot range. So quite a bit taller, you know. And so I I just knew that that was gonna change some stuff for me. But yeah, it was really cool being able to use those drones because you know, me and the IC were in the back of a or they had a a full size T V hooked up in the back of one of the Tahoes that showed up the police drones were who our fire department has a drone, but it's a little drone. The both of couple of sheriff's departments from local municipalities ⁓ had full big, big, big drones that were flying. And so yeah, they were able to we were watching it on a T V screen, which was awesome and terrible at the same time because when you're sure when you're in our world, like I want to be the guy cli clipping the carabiner, you know, I don't want to be the dude holding the radio. It just worked out that day that I was the guy holding the radio. And ⁓ so like I fingered you were sub you were where you were supposed to be. I think that's Yeah, it it worked out. But You know, I'm just watching ⁓ like everything and I'm I'm just like, ⁓ if you'll just do this, it'll happen. Like they were sliding those helmets over and the wind was against those helmets. So like they were having to shake the rope. And I'm like, heck with those helmets, let's get let's get these people on the tower, you know. And so like there was some moments like that, but in when it was all sh shook out, like the drones were so helpful. The drones really, really, really helped us set our pitches because they could tell us almost exact altitude. about how far, you know, I know my rope links. I know what the guys have in their hands. So I was able to, you know, have a fifty foot safety factor. And so like the first pitch underneath my top was at, you know, about seven fifty, right? Because I was able to set that about fifty foot short of three hundred. I knew where I needed to be. So huge, huge shout out to the to the drone op operators and and their ability. Yeah. Because again we kinda talked about it offline, but we had fifteen to twenty mile an hour sustained winds with gust up to about twenty five. So those drones were having to hold their hover up there and and do all the things in that kind of weather. So yeah. Yeah, and that's I mean that's I think the weather obviously is important. And that wind, I I can only imagine what that felt like, you know, nine hundred feet up, especially for the victims themselves. Let me ask you, what was the you know, you were in operations, what was the hardest call that you had to make during this operation? Oof, that's a good question that I have not been asking all these things, man. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Come on. Yep. Now we got on the hook. I'll I'm gonna kind of deviate from that just a a little bit. The hardest the hardest piece of this for me went and and this is gonna sound crazy. When the second victim hit the ground, you would have thought we would have had humongous relief. And me and the IC have both talked about this. Both of our stress levels went through the roof at that moment because I knew I had tired guys that the mission had quote unquote been completed, but they're a thousand foot off the deck. And now they've got a down climb. There's smoke. Yep. Mentally, physically, all the things, right? And I don't want something bad to happen to my guy. Yeah. No, that's absolutely. I mean, you think it's over and it's not. And that that's how was the down climb for them? Long. Right. Like long. And it was it was long for us. It was long for me. They're they're hungry. They're tired. But you know, they've also they're still running off of adrenaline. So had a couple of guys end up doing some cool stuff and just rappelling down on the systems that we had built. Had a I had a one in that all call group, one of the guys is a 280 pound truck captain that ended up ⁓ making it to about 600 foot. So he ended up riding a rope down. It was the best call, right? Like, let's get these guys down. Some of them started cramping. They taught every single one of them talked about their forearms. Like that's what smoked. Yeah. That's what gets smoked. Cause also we hadn't talked about it, but this tower did not have a a wired So we weren't able to run wire chasers. So they had to clip climb the whole thing top to bottom. Yeah. So just to Yeah, and that's that's yeah, that's hard enough as it is. I mean, the wire would have been great. How do you lead how do you lead a team in an environment like this where, you know, one mistake is catastrophic? Yeah, so it's my job to have a good plan, right? Like and to pick the right people to go into that plan. And we kind of talked about that right off the jump. Started backfilling. I took pick my first two guys and then started backfilling with You know, putting a r ⁓ in my mind, you you know in your crew or you better know, like who's your rope who's your guys that are better at ropes, who's your guys that are physically fit, who's the one that's questionable? I I'll be honest, like we had a guy that ended up balking on me on this call. Like he's he's a new rope tech, he's only been with us for a couple of months. He got the Super Bowl on the first call after his rope tech class, right? The dude went through rope class in like August and then this is his first call, right? And he ended up balking he made a good call. He didn't become An incident within an incident. So super proud of the guy. We'll work through those issues on the backside. But you know, so had some of those things happen. ⁓ so getting those guys in the right places, having a good plan, understanding the plan. One thing that we got kudos on, it's hard to say some of these things, man, but like communication was awesome. Like which is rare. Yeah. Yeah. So it even dudes, we got back to the house and they had sent a company to cover our house and the guy he He's like, hey man, one thing I could tell was like y'all sounded awesome on the radio. And I'm like, Well, I'll take that as a huge kudos because Absolutely. It it went well. And we even had a moment where we had kept some of those guys had kind of couple of them had when it all shook off, like they didn't go in the order I thought they went in. So like I'm asking for a dude that's ended up being above another guy. We're calling them the wrong things. And we were we were able to reset that, right? Like one of the lieutenants that ended up being in that group that I was talking about, he was like, Hey, something Nobody knows what's going on. Like, cool, timeout. All right. Let's relabel this. Hey, and and we know each other by name, right? Like so pointer, you're at the top, you're group one. The next guy below you is one of my other drivers, Woody. You're group two. And all the way down to what ended up being six pitches, like group one, group two. Clean that up. After that, we really didn't have an issue. ⁓ so communication went really well. If you don't have good comps and then like Logistics behind the scene. I like I told you I had a ordinary ops captain and I I say that parentheses, like I love my my guys that wanna go out and do those kinds of things, right? Like they support us and a lot of days when I go and say, Hey, we're gonna go to the lake and run boats, you know, like they're gonna come backfill me. Like so I have a huge appreciation for those guys. We you know, in banter we're gonna call ⁓ ordinary ops, but like, you know, I I really do. And I had one of those guys on the ground that nailed logistics. He was con constantly in my ear. Like, hey, Lou, I got this, I got this, I got this. I'm like, great. Hadn't even thought about that. That's awesome. Let's move on, right? That is that is awesome. So having those pieces on the ground, you gotta have all those things. So getting those things lined up. Again, like I wasn't the overall ICL ops command, but you know, from a special operations side, like this is our call. Like I got an IC, but like this he he's over there to talk to the media, talk to the other chiefs, do all the things. Like this is my call today. And that's how it should be run, in my opinion. Absolutely. And that's and you guys had the and that's exactly what I was going to get into is the importance of you know your team. How important is it to trust your team in this situation when you're sending them up and you can't be right there with them? Totally agree, man. Like like I said, rope text being rope text, like in training, I've I've kind of barked at some guys that are new. Like I know. For instance, we had a confined space class. Well, they had just had rope tech class, and one of the guys asked the mock IC, like, how do you want me to do this? No, you're a rope tech dude. Go do your your he he gave me an assignment. He said, Go rig for a lift. Like, go rig for a lift. Don't ask him what you need. Like, and that's how you gotta be, right? Like, I'm not fixing to micromanage my guy at nine hundred foot. In the beauty, I didn't know this was gonna play out, but I actually got to watch him, you know. But Normally like I no different than I see outside of fire. Like he doesn't get to see me open up a nozzle, you know? Like he right. I gotta trust those guys to do their job. All of this and we'll we'll get into this, but like these rescues happen on the drill field, not not right there. You gotta you gotta have a trust in ⁓ that they're gonna go do special ops things, right? They're gonna go do road tech tech things and you gotta just be down there and be like, Hey man, you you're you're the Rapid Ascent guy today, take what you think you need. Like I'm not gonna I I have an idea of what you need up than that guy before, but I'm not that guy today. Like you may want a little bit different package than me. Yeah, and I I think that is, and we did briefly discuss it before about building out a team, a special arms team, where you don't have to be the guy that micromanages because everyone knows their place and knows what they're gonna do on that call. And that when that when that scene ended, and I I specifically remember And this is what made me contact you guys is I remember, and maybe it was one of the drivers, whatnot, but they were interviewing him and he said, you know, this was obviously a great operation. He's like, but I really wanted to thank our training chief for backing our special ops program and you know, seeing it through and helping and I like that caught me off guard. And I remember like stopping and doing a double look and being like, Wow, what a what a culture that that must be that trains special ops, builds that special ops culture to where you can go attack something like this and obviously Yeah, I've I've heard the term Super Bowl of of tech rescues and it absolutely is. But like that doesn't just happen. So like this is where this is where I wanted to get to with with you guys is what about Longview built that culture? And and now that you know we got all the other stuff out of the way, tell me a little bit about yourself, how you ended up here. Yeah, man. So I'm ⁓ a legacy firefighter, if you will. My dad did thirty four years, ended up a ladder captain in a town just to our our the other major town close to us, about forty five minutes from Longview. Me and my brother got hired on the same day. We both did the college thing, thought we were gonna go do different things. And man just I got slapped in the face, just called by God to come through this thing, man. And kept trying and kept trying and and it just wasn't working out. Finally it worked out one day where my little brother gets hired on the same day. So it all can't I finally figured out why I had been struggling for so long. Right. And so got got hired with Longview Fire Department. would have told you the day I got hired that I'll do I'll take the first test I can to get to the place where my dad worked. But while I was there, I had the opportunity to be an apprentice, our brand new g new guys that aren't quite paramedics yet. That's so I was in paramedic school and I rode at station two, which was our special operations house at the time, and just got to be engulfed in that culture, right? And like the dunes, even it it bled over to just a ride in an ambulance call or going to a a lift assist for the third time at one of the, you know, independent living facilities, independent living facilities that are in our district, right? Like it bled over. And you saw that from those guys and I was like, that's that's what I want to be like. And also the other department that I'm talking about, they didn't do any special operations. That wasn't their wheelhouse. They did traditional firefighting, didn't do EMS hardly at all, other than a little bit here and there. And so I was like, hey, like, I want it That's what I want to hang my career on. Like I want to be a special operations cat. So like I said, had the opportunity to ride out of that house most of my ⁓ apprentice career, ⁓ was able to slide right into there to a spot and be, you know, the the tailboard ambulance firefighter at the time and just kind of came up in that culture. Did about ten years at that station, made driver while I was there, had the opportunity to slide to our south and drive a ladder truck for a couple of years that kind of had the special operations tab on it. And then I made lieutenant and I was really happy where I was because I was on the south side fighting fire. I was gonna ride an engine first due on a lot of stuff and they picked me up and they had just opened the house that I'm at now as a new special operations house. So we kinda do ropes and boats on one side of town and then like the other technical rescue, hazmat, ⁓ structural collapse on the other side of town. And I'd come up under all that. So I I have up I kind of keep both put keep feet in both worlds. ⁓ but ⁓ the opening was on the other side of town and ⁓ they at the time the the chief decided that that's where I needed to be. And I didn't have a whole lot of option in that and I wasn't really happy about it at the moment. But man, I was I mean the bless it paid off. Yeah, the blessing that it turned out to be. I I I a crew that you we always kind of referred to ⁓ I I don't know if it we called them the West Side Retards over there 'cause we were on the east side. So like I was getting put to Yeah, I was getting put to that house where, you know, we were always kinda in competition with a little bit. And so I I wasn't really excited about it. But here There we were. I got put there and man, I I couldn't I couldn't be more happy, but just because I mean divinely inspired, like what has transpired since and and this rescue obviously highlights that, but just a thousand other things that have gone right while I'm there, you know, just just good stuff. Being able to train. Yeah. So No, and that sorry. ⁓ so I was gonna say, just going back to that, you guys have obviously built a special ops culture. What does the the training look like day to day that lets you build on that? Yeah, so I was asked while I was ⁓ kind of contemplating becoming a putting in for taking the test for a lieutenant, one up bat in fact the guy that ended up being the IC on this call, he was my battalion at the time and he's like, Why do you want to be a lieutenant? And if you become a lieutenant, like, what's your day look like? And he's like, What's your non negotiables? I had to think on that for a little while and this is what I came up with and I'll I'll live on this I guess until I retire, but We're gonna train, we're gonna be we're gonna do PT and we're gonna have some family time. And whatever that looks like, right? Like we're gonna watch a movie together, we're gonna sit out in the bay and smoke a cigar, we're gonna play some pool, we gotta pull table towels, whatever that looked like, right? But those three things are pretty non-negotiable for me in a in a day. We we went to the 4896 model, so it changes it just a little bit. Those things at least happen inside of the tour now, but like most days we're gonna drill on something, right? Like we're gonna either and and for me, there's a difference between training and drilling. So we're we're gonna What do you mean what do you mean by that? What do you mean by training the different? I mean training is slow, right? Like we it it can be a a crawl or a walk. So we can be showing a new guy, a new guy to the house, or even just an apprentice, like, hey, this is how we do X, Y, and Z, slow it down, really break through it. And then occasionally I go out there and I tell them, Hey, I'm the dumb new guy apprentice. I'm a rope tech, but kind of barely. And I'll pick one of my drivers or maybe even my firefighter, like, you're running it, and here we go. It's a drill. And it's for time, you know? Like so we we y you gotta have some realness to that too. Like and it'll be something that I picked out and you know, maybe I go put a victim somewhere in a hole somewhere and we go do a confined space drill that they don't know about and we just I I walk out there at eight AM and like, Hey, this is what we got. Here we go. Y'all y'all are running it. I'm the dumb guy on the on the tellboard and I I there's a lot of smart dudes on the tellboard ⁓ but today I'm the dumb guy on the tellboard, right? So like you tell me what to do and I'll do it. But ⁓ pretty much I'm out of play. And so you're running it. Because there's a lot of days where we're not there, man. It's like I I gotta have vacation days too. So if this call happened when I wasn't there, you know, it it it's gotta continue to happen. So And that's I think that's probably one of the the most important parts of building a special ops team is just because someone goes on vacation, that program cannot collapse. You know, the team can't not function and that's and you obviously you'd hate to have missed that. But I think knowing that your your crew was up to the task of handling it is just as important and makes you just as proud. Yeah. I mean it it gives you the warm and fuzzy and and you got like I said, y y we're entitled to vacation days too. Like I take the whole month of July off. My wife's a school teacher. We're usually gone in Colorado. Like there there's a big time where I'm gone. Like I've y you know, Kerrville is a huge thing in Texas. I don't know if it made it all the way up to y'all, but it's big massive floods, you know. This last summer, like I turned that deployment down, I'm a I'm a swift water guy. But I had an effect on those guys because I trained several of the guys that were in those boats that made those rescues down there, you know. So that's my little piece, you know. Like I missed that call. I hated to miss that call, but I didn't really expect a flood in Texas in July, but that happened. So No, I mean that's ⁓ obviously that's a whole other a whole other podcast. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, no, and that's exactly. But I I think that's important that you say that you're you know, you helped train these guys. You were there. I mean, your skill sets were passed on to them and that's That's something to be proud of. And that's that's a huge part of training, mentorship in special ops, which is really important because that's how you get younger people into it and and newer people into it, showing them showing them the ropes quite literally. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great segue to kind of talk about that chief that you're talking about. So yeah. I'm gonna call him by name, Chief Dankers. Chief Steve Dankers. He's kind of a a hero to all of us locally. He kinda started our ropes program in the early two thousands. He had kinda come from a climate background, came in ⁓ and kind of really brought our rope program to a whole nother level and has slowly progressed through the ranks, you know, back then he was a firefighter and has coup ⁓ well, last year he's been our spec ops chief for about a year, but he it's cool, man, because he he promoted out of the house that we're all that most of this came from right. It ended up being station two and five for the most part, but he he was the ladder captain at station five for about five or six years there and then promoted to our special operations chief slash training chief. And so yeah, like the That that culture has just been built over honestly, you know, twenty years now. And so like these like you you know, we've kinda talked offline like these calls don't happen. Like the success of a call like that doesn't happen on the day. You know, like we we had the opportunity to get highlighted because of the drone footage and you know, it was at such a hype and it got picked up by so many news outlets. But like we just got to show off, right? Like and but we just showed off the training that happens on a normal day. We have a four story tower at our station, you know, or we're constantly hanging off a rope or we have rope. And there's no there's no cameras there watching that, but that's an everyday thing. Absolutely not. Yeah. Or, you know, we're we're doing a you know, you know, hanging on a rope just in the bay 'cause it happens to be cold or hot in Texas, right? Well we got ropes hanging in the bay or we'll just do an ascent and a r you know a rappel or, you know, convert, whatever we're gonna do and just right there in the bay, you know. And yeah, there's no cameras for that. And there honestly, you know Those days are hard because, you know, we've got so many things going on, like, well, you know, are we really gonna go spend a an hour of our time to go do that? Like, yeah, we are. We're gonna go do that, you know? And like I know y'all all know how to do that. Or it's really nice when you got a new guy and we have a a reason to go show him, but like one of the other ships, like their guys are all squared away, been rope takes for a long time, didn't have a lot of new guys on the crew, like they gotta go get a rep, you know, like you You can easily remember some things. Yeah. ⁓ it's so it's so perishable and that's why you have to continually train and that's that's why it showed up the way it did, obviously in your incident. But in building out any special ops program, we I think we you I th I like the term you said the dark times. Yeah. What were the what were the biggest challenges into getting your program to where it is now? Yeah. So I mean, obviously money and buy in are the two big things, right to me, from above you. Like you gotta have buy in from above you and buy in from the guys. And when when the when it's not bought in by above you, it gets tough, right? Like I'll I'll say for a long time early on, our program, best of my understanding, started in about ninety eight and then it's kind of progressed. We had several guys get on our Texas Task Force One, really built the program. Unfortunately nine eleven happened and there ended up being a lot of money flying around, right? ⁓ Hazmat was kind of the lead all that, but it kind of came into all the rescue disciplines. And so our program really came into its its in into its probably the most highlighted spot in those early two mid to two thousands, right? There was a lot of money. Those guys were able to just randomly go out of service to train and do all kinds of things, come off duty and train, get overtime, all the things, right? And then, you know, two thousand and eight happens, the money starts drying up. I came on in about eleven and yeah, we it it was the guys that had come through those really nice times were still there, but they were starting to see the decline and They were trying to hang on. Some of us new guys, like we saw what that was. We're like, ⁓ this isn't gonna be that hard. We can build this, but because we didn't have the funding and we didn't have the as good a support from the top, it it got difficult, right? And yeah, I called it the dark times, right? Like we we had a decade there that I mean, you know, we had begged borrowing still to go out of service for a couple of hours, you know, to to make them training happen while we were on duty. Can I can I just stop you right there and and ask about your thoughts on the importance of going out of service for training on the rescue side? Yeah. So Because I I I I people some people balk at it and I I'm a firm believer you have to do it. I hate to do it. You have to do it. You have to do it. Especially in our culture, I'll speak specifically to it. Like we have an ambulance that sits beside all of our rigs, basically, right? I need those those guys ride over on my other rigs. We rotate through, right? They're not just the paramedics, they're firefighter paramedics slash rescue men, right? I've got my young guys typically be over there are are over there. I need them in training, right? Not only do I have to take the co I gotta take the whole company out of service, which is really, ⁓ really hard to sell. And I get that. ⁓ because now I got an ambulance out of service, I need backfield. I mean, best case scenario is to hire some overtime and come ride my rigs for a few hours, right? Like that's best case scenario, but that's a big ask, right? So it's a big ask. If we don't go out of service and train, we don't make it happen. You cannot be suspended from a rope doing or on a dive op, let's say for us, or you know, underground somewhere on a confined space op or got a trench dug and say, ⁓ well, Granny needs to be picked up down the road. Granny does need to be picked up down the road, a hundred percent, right? But for two hours or four hours or whatever you can buy, somebody else is gonna have to run that call for a little while. And I I'll stand by that until I die because on the day where you got a balloon that's hanging nine hundred foot off the ground, you want some cats that can handle that too, right? So And all that all that overtime that overtime money is gonna go away real quick or that worry about that when that goes off so well. Yeah. And so like and I get it. It's hard and I I'm I don't ever have the inclination to to wear a a white helmet. Honestly, like I I I think I'll top out as a truck captain and be done. I wanna stay in ops, but who knows? But I don't have to make those decisions, but I need to to be able to communicate. And luckily, like my captain who was at that original station that I was way back years ago. is now our assistant chief of operations. ⁓ we have we hired a new chief this last year who came from the rescue world. He was outside the department, but he's been a spec ops guy his whole life. We got a great special operations she man, we we're we're living in some good days right now. We're past the dark days. And like I heard the other day like they were talking about doing some training. Like, how do you want us to do that? And like hire overtime, send the guys to training like, dude, okay. That I mean that's better case scenario, right? We support the city. We don't affect it and we got guys trained. But if we're not getting training in these disciplines, you you will not I mean, we can do some little stuff at the station, right? Like where we don't go full on out of service, you know. But there's some times where we gotta, you know, put harnesses on, we gotta put dive gear on, we gotta go get in a boat and get, you know, down the river where we can't go make our med calls or our or even, you know, whatever, gas odor in the area, you know, like we can't make those calls at the moment. ⁓ so yeah, you you gotta To me it has to be a priority to to get training to those guys. And I get it for the once again, the ordinary ops guys, it becomes a frustration. We try to be reciprocal, like, hey man, we'll we'll come cover you whenever you want to go out of service, man. 'Cause I do Yeah, do they do they ever go out of service? They do from time to time, but not nearly as much as they probably should, right? And I'm and I mean that wholeheartedly, like I will come cover you so you can go drag some hosts. Because there's a day in time the way ours works right now that I'm likely to get shipped out to To an engine company for a short time. Like, guess what? My my company is gonna go out of service to drag some hose and climb some stairs, right? That's gonna happen. Because you know, an engine company needs to be good at three things. We need to be good at searching, we need to be good at dragging hose, and we need to be good at forcing doors. We're gonna go out of service to do those things, right? Yeah. Amen. No, absolutely. Amen. At at the you know, the the balloon incident itself, but any other special tech rescue stuff you've been involved in, what should departments take away from seeing your story play out that day? Yeah, I mean, we've ha you know, we kinda go back, we've had two ginormous events for us in the last little less than a year. You know, Kerrville was huge, obviously. The spalloon rescue was huge. And we've had several other little smaller incidents throughout the year, you know, that that truly highlight the need for spe special operations. If I hope and pray that the story is that like we have to support special operations. Obviously, you know, this is a rescue podcast. We're talking about all things special operations. We know we have a a commitment to the rest of the city for all the other things, right? But if if you don't support the things that are low frequency, high, high, high danger, like we we won't get it done. And we've seen that on the other side years ago. Like we had a tower rescue that came in as a guy on a tower with a medical emergency that we ended up bringing down a D B, right? That took way too long. That's where our tower class came from, right? Like that's And that's not a good day, right? That one didn't make podcasts. Podcasts weren't a thing yet. But it is Yeah. Yeah. No, exact but that's but I think it it you're good. Yeah. I think it's it's important though that you bring that up because that's what happens when you don't train. You know what I mean? That's that's the outcome. It's unfortunate. Yeah, a hundred percent, man. No, and so at the end of the day, if you had to sum if you had to sum this lesson up for the fire service, you know, for me or rescue, what is it? Even if it's on the rescue, just just yep. Yeah, man. I mean it's it's easy. I mean, it's easy and hard all at the same time, right? Like we all know we have those days. Like I said, we worked forty eight ninety six, right? The company officer has to come in with some kind of plan for training, right? That it has to be on your mind. I get paid extra money for my days off to think about something. It ain't gotta be huge, right? I think you know, I years ago while I was a driver, I'd kind of worked up a little program like You know, making the grab Mondays, you know, tactical Tuesdays, wet Wednesdays, forcible Fridays, right? Like throwing Thursdays, right? And then special operations has always kind of been a weekend thing for us, right? If you don't have something that you're coming to work with as the company officer, you're doing it wrong. And I'll caveat with that. I take a lot of pride in my my senior driver, right? My senior man, if you will. I can put that on him some days. And I can put it on anybody else on the crew, right? They all need to know grow. I'm at a point in in my house right now, we just did two hard years of training when I got there, right? Like we've I put a lot into those guys, mainly because I didn't know where they were. So I'm gonna make sure I know where they are ⁓ and get them trained up to what I I know. I'm gonna give them everything I got. And I'm pretty well there. Where there's always something new to learn. I'm not saying that, but most of my guys have at least been through my my little reps on a force forcing a door or throwing a ladder, whatever it is, special operations, all the things. So now they're Their thing is like what I'm pushing, especially on one of my senior drivers who doesn't love it, right? Like you gotta teach. You gotta teach. Because it makes you dig in so much deeper. And I was the same guy, right? Like I've been the the not the terrible attitude medic driver who, like, yeah, dude, yeah, yeah, I know how to throw a ladder. Like, well yeah, I could get it on a building, but I didn't do it professionally, right? Like I didn't I didn't know what I didn't know. Like all I knew is like, Yeah, man, I can do that, I can do that. Like, no. Like you need to go catch a rep. Right. So from time to time, I mean we're a ladder company as well at my house. Like we go throw a ladder from time to time, you know? God forbid. God forbid, right? On a pretty regular basis. We pull and throw a thirty-five, you know? Like we're we're gonna throw a ladder. Yeah. You know, we drag hose. But then again at my house we we've got cool things to also take care of, which becomes You know, like where I'm in chat GBT trying to plan out a freaking year's worth of training, you know, like we gotta hit all these disciplines and be good at ⁓ And like I only have so much time in the day. And, you know, there's you know, there's things too. Like on Sundays, my guys have the day off, no questions asked. Like outside of anything that the Chiefs got planned, like we don't do anything. We don't drill on Sundays, period. It's the all day we we drill out, right? I agree. I think that's that maybe that's just a cultural thing for us and I I agree with it 'cause the guys do deserve a break, but I tell ⁓ on a Saturday. We're going out. Thousand percent. Yeah, we're going out. Thousand percent. So yeah, I mean, I coming full circle, ⁓ you gotta train. You gotta have guys that are into it. If you don't have those guys, you need to get rid of those guys that aren't those guys. You know what I mean? And and that could be tough because sometimes we love those guys. I'll be real honest. My little brother works at my house on a different shift. He's not the guy. And he'll tell you he's not the guy. And he's actively looking for a different place to go. He kind of came up in this house and They morphed it into a special operations house. That's not his world, right? Like he's an ordinary. Yeah, and it it it's not for everybody. And I mean, special operations guys, like I mean, in the last week I've I've done a couple of dives outside of work, you know. Like I've got a guy that dives all the time. Like you have to I spent a week in Tennessee teaching guys how to drive a swift water boat, you know? Like if you're not willing to go do those things off duty, like you're probably not the guy for that house, right? So you gotta really be You we talk about culture. I had the opportunity to step into this house right as it was becoming a special operations place. It's been so cool because we got to build a special operations culture at this particular house from the ground up. And it's it's been so, so cool. A lot of that, a lot of it was there, right? It was just ready to be be harnessed. And ⁓ just to be a part of it has been really, really cool. And to there again, yeah, you gotta have I mean, what what's the three legs, right? We gotta have special people, special equipment, special training. The first one of that is special people, right? I gotta have the guys that wanna get out there. Twenty third of December, we're cooking. It's a day, it's our only day on where we're not working Christmas this year. And so like the guys had the day off. Like I looked up, three or four of them are hanging from a rope in the bay, you know? That's what you want. That's the guys you need. No, that's that's exactly it. And that's I mean, it's it's cool to see that actually play out, especially on the leadership side too. It's hard. I I'm the captain on the on our rescue here and it's been a long road, but it's it's great to see other groups start to take the training seriously and do the stuff that we're doing. And there's there's a value in that from a leadership side that makes you feel good and actually like, hey, we're actually gaining ground here. And that's important. That's very important. Absolutely. Yeah, from from our side of it, right? Like there's there's a piece to it we all know that leadership can be lonely, right? ⁓ sometimes probably should be. But at the same time, we could take those wins, right? Like The dudes dangling from the rope without or they come to me like, Hey, hey, L T I I got this plan, like can we do this or hey, can we do that? Like, man, that that that's the juice, right? Like that's what gets you fired up. I'll never say you can't say no to that. No, like you could be exhausted, right? Like there's days where I come in like I I'm not ready to do I got a plan or whatever and they they got a better plan, right? Like the stuff that we talked about all those days that I kinda got that's my fallback. Somebody comes in with something cool we wanna go do, heck yeah, man, let's go knock that out, you know? Sometimes you gotta drag the the old cat out, you know, but that's all right. Yeah, no, that's fair. ⁓ all right, so as we as we wrap up, I just have a couple of quick questions to throw at you. Back to the balloon call. What was the biggest shit moment during that call? For me, it was putting my feet on the ground and realizing the gravity of it, like the the height, the the insecurity of the balloon, like just the whole thing of like, you know, we had a a guy that taught most of my classed ended up being our assistant chief and he used to say you got five seconds to go oof you know on a med call or whatever it is, right? Like you got five seconds and then you gotta re engage, right? And so I had my that time as I was walking up there, you know, I had a little extra time, but ⁓ you know, I'm spinning things. But yeah, man, just the the height of it, ⁓ we had never been nobody, nobody nobody on the call had any a couple of those guys that I talked about had probably been to about six hundred on a tower, but that's as high as anybody had ever been, you know. So yeah, just the the the height of it, I had no idea, thankfully. Like there was people across the city that could see this thing. People are looking like there was a gas station apparently. Two of the dudes that were at the top, because they came from their house, their families were intimately aware of what they were going to do. They had their kids loaded up, their wives had their kids loaded up. They're sitting at a gas station a half mile watching it. No way. Yeah, they they ended up having one of the guys had Like a he ⁓ got on his phone and like had a little video chat with his wife while he they're waiting to do something else in transition. And he's like, Yeah, waving at y'all, you know. I mean, so I had no idea that all that was going on, thankfully from my position. Yeah, exactly. I mean it it got played out in a real visual way. But yeah, just just the the overall the the hugess of the whole thing, man. It was it was a big day. What ⁓ what decision kept you up that night after the call or what what part of the situation kept you up at night? Yeah, so I kind of slowly came down. Like I told you that that moment where we both got ⁓ on that we got both the victims on the ground. It I don't know why, but it disturbed me. We had a really cool moment. I got to be right at the base of the tower as those guys were coming off the tower individually. You know, slap ⁓ on the butt, give ⁓ a hug. Hey, go get you a Chick-fil-A sandwich, like get fed up, man. And that they they weren't there. And then once I got my last guy on the to on the ground, like I kinda I had my own little moment, right? Like it was finally the moment we probably all been there just like, okay, a little peace, but at the same time, like all those emotions start coming down on you and like the gravity of everything that just happened. And ⁓ as far as keeping me up, man, it went so well, but I just can't ever stop thinking about what we could have done better. Right. Like what would have made it a little faster and what could have made it a little safer and what equipment, you know, I you know, I got all the guys now, like equipment and all that. But for me it's like, hey, what could we have done better from my point to make y'all's lives better. Like could I have gotten the guys fed on a tower, you know, like and some of that's the logistics prior to the call that we have to be good officers and some of the things that we need to think about. You know, yeah, I need a box of Nalgene bottles that I can put three bottles of water and clip a carabiner to a guy, you know, like I need that, you know. So some of those things, but I mean, ultimately like those are the pieces. Obviously we this could have played out A whole lot different and I don't know that any of us could have been able to talk about it, but luckily it went the way it did. No, I it's understood. What part of this rescue do you think most departments are not ready for? Several things. I don't think most and I we've had some conversations with several departments that have called in asking questions. And some of the questions that they ask, like I'm kinda armchair quarterback in a little bit, but like Kind of starting off on the wrong foot, you know, like talking about is it a ground based operation or like if and so like you you have to get out there and play and train and all the things that we talked about. So like if you haven't been on a tower or done something similar, like I said, at two hundred foot is the highest any of us have ever trained. It's just replicated down at that point, right? So if you don't have a good plan and I don't know w we've where we completely got it, but where I'll steal it from is ⁓ My goodness, I'm I'm gonna miss his name right now. I'm looking at him, but ⁓ goodness. Anyways, you know, w one of the chiefs talks about having a game plan, right? And talking about the ⁓ the aircraft pilots, you know, they have a checklist, right? And like there's nothing wrong with having a plan A. And I tell my guys that all the time, right? Whether it's stretching a line, forcing a door, throwing a ladder, have a plan A, but also be very aware of plan B, C and D when plan A doesn't work, right? But I know what I'm gonna do if everything works out, right? This call was no different. Like we knew exactly what we were gonna do. So if you don't even have a plan A in your fire department, you need to go out there and figure it out. Cause these things are gonna happen. Like there's cell phone towers everywhere. There's high places everywhere. The other piece is like you said, I I don't, you know, seeing people around the fire service is getting fitter, but you see dudes that aren't fit, you know. So once again, if it if you don't have the fitness level, I mean knowledge and fitness, like those are the two big things that would probably keep They go a long they go a long way. What are most departments getting wrong about technical rescue right now? Man, I I feel like this is probably a broken record here, but like probably not training. You know, like they think they think they have the capability, right? Because they got the gear on the truck. But when's the last time they drug the gear off the truck? You know what I mean? When's the last time I mean, all right. Weird stuff, right? Trench rescued. When's the last time you went and dug a hole, right? Or put your put your panels up in between the rig and the wall and the station and play the best you could, right? Or when's the last time you've been on a rope? If you do water stuff, when's the last time you've been in the water? And once again, I get it. It's a frustrating thing in the world, the fire service is scrutinized every day for the way we spend money, and sometimes rightfully so. But if if you're not advocating for that training and and at least fighting for it and being creative, right? ⁓ as a lieutenant, a lot of times I'll I'll I'll be pretty pretty creative with the way I can get my guys some time off and and go, you know, like whether I got a roch or buy some ice cream or whatever it is, you know, like, hey, I need your amulet to come cover my ambulance for a little while, you know? Like that I that's that's part of the deal, you know. Yeah. And I think ⁓ and we talked about your team and and obviously what they pulled off and and how that culture sort of built to that that pivotal moment and they proved themselves, but what did you learn about yourself on that call? Yeah, for me, A that I don't get to I'm I'm getting really close to the end of being the guy that clips the carabiner and that's tough. That's tough, man. But that's you know, I I tell I say this all the time, like I took the test, right? Like I I I decided to go make the rank and do the thing. So it's my job to teach the guy to clip the carabiner now. Like ordinarily I got a captain at my station that he'd be the guy, but hopefully someday I'll get to be that captain and at that point it really gets limited, right? Like we We've been doing a lot of dive stuff because we're pretending it's a winter dive here, right? Like here in March in Texas, right? The water's still cool. And so like I'm I'm not the guy that's gonna do the dive very often, right? I'm gonna be topside and plan in the dive and do the things. ⁓ I'm getting really close. I love running a swift water boat. ⁓ I'm getting close to not being the dude in the swiftwater boat. I'm the dude on the shore holding the radio, you know, like that's tough, man. Yep. That's tough. I remember doing it to ⁓ the captain that I was talking about is now our assistant chief of operations. We had a little a dog in a hole one night, like in a manhole, and he starts stripping off his gear. I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm about to get in this hole. I'm like, No, you're not. But you go hold the radio over there. I'm a this is mine. And and I'm at that point in my career, you know. And so it's tough. I mean, can I still do it? Absolutely, right? Am I still gonna do it? Yeah, when anytime I get a chance, you know? Of course. I got a rookie that comes off the rig slow. I'm about to put that fire out, you know. You don't have your air pack on when we come off the rig, like you're about to sit in the front yard, dude. ⁓ but but at the same time like learning that I have to get better at the other piece of my job, you know, like ⁓ and and fully embracing it. The the guy that was my I C that day has kinda become a mentor of mine as ⁓ he's he's our we're the same age, but he's been a chief for quite some time now. And so like I don't ever understand like why he wants to stand out in the front yard and be the IC on a fiery but like we have to embrace that piece, right? Because it makes the things happen. Right. Not that not that me squaring away all the things on the ground is gonna let ⁓ clip a carabiner better. We gotta work on that in training. But being able to, you know, square up communications on the ground, being able to get ⁓ what they need, knowing how to get ⁓ what they need, all the things. That's my job now, making sure that it's as safe as it possibly can be, you know, making sure we talk just real briefly that hey, we had a lot of what they call RF like on that tower that apparently stays hot for thirty minutes after you turn the stuff off, right? So like I'm getting some of those reports and like learning some of this stuff on the fly, you know, and like, well, I kinda gotta gotta get t guys in the vicinity of that balloon. I really like I don't want to get ⁓ burned up, but at the same time, like, what's how how bad is bad, right? Like are they gonna, you know, are they gonna die? Are they gonna, you know, have some minor little things that may bother ⁓ for a couple of days? Like it's so learning some of those things right off the fly, you know. Yeah. No, I think that's that speaks to you can be prepared, but then there's things that are just gonna pop up that you're not ready for and you know, you try and cover your bases the best you can and and work with the information you have on the ground. Well, hey, I I greatly appreciate you coming on and talking to me twice. But no, I I mean, this is why I love doing this stuff because it's great to connect with other people that, you know, are in the same world and and you know, we're speaking the same language. And I I walk away from today richer in the fact that You know, you you motivate me to go back and and continue to do what I try and do at at the station and and whoever else is listening. So thank you for for coming on and thank you for those lessons and ⁓ the patches on the way. So same thing today. Yeah, I'll get you. Stay tuned for that. But thank you, Logan, thank you. Thank you guys for these kind of things. Like it's reciprocal, right? Like I gotta go be the guy that I said I was right here. Right. And so I if I'm not that guy, I'm just talking to a you know, trying to get my face out there and all that. Like, so I gotta go back to the station and Have a plan, be ready to go train to do the things, right? So it's reciprocal. Thank you. Absolutely. And we'll we'll be in touch. Sounds good, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.