I’ve gotten some really good feedback from several of the pieces on the Salty Jake Life Blog and I appreciate it. It’s difficult to write and do videos on topics as light as firehouse coffee makers and as serious, and tragic, as firefighter suicide but I’ve been trying to do it. That’s a balance that is, not hard, but impossible to walk. So….I’ve got it in the works to create two separate blogs and YouTube Channels. This will remain…with a name change…a blog focused on firefighter safety and health issues and I’ve got ideas for pieces on cancer prevention, more fitness, cardiac health, Testost ..read more

About three years ago I decided to start getting an annual EBCT Scan in order to know my cardiac calcium score be screen for around 40ndifferent cancers. In my opinion this is one of the best ways to catch the health threats early. This short video explains some of the specifics of the EBCT Scan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgy5IM5Kv-w The post Catch it Early! appeared first on Salty Jake Life ..read more

The Summer of 2016 was the hottest, driest I remember during my entire career and I spent some hot summers in Alabama and Georgia for sure. July 1st 2016 was my first shift at a new station following rotator cuff surgery and the weather was miserably hot and humid. I call them “two tee-shirt shifts” because you sweat through the first one. Many times they were three or four…or more…tee shirt shifts. If you’re familiar with the 24/48 work schedule of the fire service then you know my second shift back fell on the Fourth of July. I remember laying in my rack about 2100 hours listening to the bot ..read more

Writing is cathartic for me. It has been for a long time. However, up until I started blogging my writing was limited to posting to various Facebook groups to people who hardly knew me or didn’t know me at all. I wrote a couple of articles posted on the internet as well but, if anyone even looked to see who had authored them, I was just a name with a bio similar to any of a thousand other folks out there. But writing a blog is baring your soul. Most of your subscribers, at least at the beginning, know exactly who you are and you have a relationship with them. When you confess the kind of thing ..read more

2019 Metro Atlanta Firefighter’s Conference Firefighter Resilience Class “You may not hear the thunder….but you’re gonna feel the lightning” -Ric Jorge I was asked to help with the Tactical Resilience Class at MAFFC this year. Being affiliated with the likes of these guys is almost beyond description. Fire service icons and leaders through and through. This is not a long piece, I may write on the topic later as it is near and dear to my heart and, these skills, are invaluable to any firefighter. In reference to Ric’s quote at the beginning. You may not believe now that you need these skills bu ..read more

Thinking outside the box…is awesome! I helped out with some active shooter training at Sandy Springs Fire Department last week and I witnessed an approach to incident scene rehab that I’d never seen before. Incident scene rehab is one of the most important and, in my opinion, most frequently underemphasized functions in the fire scene. Firefighters have just undergone, arguably, the most physically, emotionally, and psychologically demanding job functions possible. And, while handing them a bottle of water and telling them to sit under a nearby shade tree for awhile is good, it is far from opt ..read more

Midfield Fire Department in the early 1980’s was my first affiliation with firefighters as “one of them”. I was a 15 year old kid whose mother dropped him off on Tuesday nights, “Drill Nights”. Midfield Fire Department, the first place where I was actually a firefighter The full time guys, I looked up to them. I’m sure they are all long retired firefighters now. Vietnam veterans and guys who had been around the block a bunch of times and stopped in places that I couldn’t even imagine existed as of yet. The dayroom filled with the smoke of Winstons and Marlboro Reds. That black cast iron pot ..read more

(Originally written for “Culture Changers” DT4EMS Website) My title may have made you mad. My intention was to get your attention with the hopes that you’ll hear me out with an open mind. I was both honored and flattered when Kip (Tietsort) asked me if I’d like to write some pieces on fitness for the Culture Changer’s website. As someone with an opinion on things I’m passionate about I’m also always ready to share thoughts which come to mind. I’ve been involved in EMS since the mid 1980’s. I started out as a volunteer firefighter/EMT. Then I became a Nationally Registered Paramedic in 1985 and ..read more

Its three O’clock in the afternoon, you still haven’t had lunch, and dispatch just hit you with another nursing home transfer. Your engine company has just returned from three hours of training at the tower, the tones just dropped for an EMS call. When you back the rig into the bay you can smell the pizza that was just delivered. I can remember my Styrofoam container full of lunch sitting in the floor of the ambulance for what seemed an eternity before I got a chance to open it when I was on the box. And I can certainly remember dishes full of spaghetti and pans of buttery garlic bread sitting ..read more

I’m not who I was in 1985 now. For that matter, I’m not who I was in 1991 either, or 1998, or 2001, or 2018. Why is that? Its because perspectives change through our experiences as we travel through our fire service careers. What’s funny is that I didn’t even have to ponder these years because I can look back and I just know instinctively when my point of view shifted. We’re all different so your experience may not mirror mine exactly. However, I remember reading an article a few years ago on this subject and being amazed at how closely I was paralleling the author of that piece. See if you do ..read more