Ep 55: Lost in Translation
Episode 55
Published Oct 16, 2023
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 39:07
Episode Summary
This week we talk about avoiding the temptation to over-complicate terminology and creating unnecessary confusion. Keep it simple!
Episode Notes
NEW! Watch this show on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaVr4fSJHLU
Bill Godfrey, Ron Otterbacher, and Jill McElwee discussed the challenges of terminology and the importance of simplifying it in a potentially chaotic active shooter incident. We must use straightforward terms that everyone understands and limit conversations between Command, Law Enforcement Branch, and Medical Branch to avoid confusion. Cultural differences between Law Enforcement and Fire and EMS are discussed, with an emphasis on simplifying terminology and having one Command for everyone involved.
- The group reflects on the experience of crafting a checklist, noting their inclusion of the fifth man concept to get resources organized into teams.
- Using the correct terminology is essential to ensure clear communication.
- Local jurisdictions should determine staffing for their Contact Teams and RTFs based on their resource levels in the first 10 minutes of response.
- How different jurisdictions may staff differently for urban, suburban and rural areas, noting that law enforcement officers may have medical training.
- Issues of span of control, radio traffic, and unity command, emphasizing that all responders should understand their role and report updates as needed.
- The importance of dispatchers was highlighted, which can help maintain span of control and mitigate blue-on-blue situations with clear communication. Dispatchers are a vital component for mitigating confusion by providing instructions in an informative, urgent, and professional tone.
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey. I'm your podcast host and I've got joining me back again today, Ron Otterbacher and Jill McElwee, two of our C3 Pathways instructors. Thank you guys for coming back in.
Jill McElwee:
Sure.
Ron Otterbacher:
Anytime.
Bill Godfrey:
Good to have you back here. It was funny, just before we went on air, Karla, our producer, was doing a soundcheck with the mics and Jill says, "Hey, does this mic make me sound like I have a southern accent?"
Jill McElwee:
It's most definitely the mic, I believe.
Bill Godfrey:
It's the mic.
Jill McElwee:
I'm from up north, North Georgia.
Bill Godfrey:
Is there a South Georgia?
Jill McElwee:
Well, Jacksonville where I'm actually from.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, so today's topic is Lost in Translation. One of the reasons I've asked the two of you back for this one, we left off the other one and we made the comment we could do a whole podcast series on terminology. And once we got off air, we started having a conversation. And that was no lie. We could make a whole podcast series on terminology. And so I love the name Lost in Translation. Where do we want to start on this one? You know what? I'm going to start us off with something that makes me laugh every time I hear it. We talked a little bit in the last podcast about over naming the teams and how we could just do building blocks with Contact Teams and Rescue Task Force, and you can create whatever you need to from there.
But the term that always makes me laugh a little bit is the idea of a Rescue Team separate from a Rescue Task Force. And I just chuckle, because I'm like, "Y'all really think people are going to get that and keep that straight?" Because I hear, with such frequency, RFT 3 to... I mean, they can't even necessarily get the acronym right when they're under stress, how in the world are they going to do it? So let's jump off and talk about some of the challenges with terminology and overcomplicating it. Jill, you want to lead us off today?
Jill McElwee:
Yeah, sure. I think that what we have to remember is the environment that we're operating in, where we train in a nice room such as our training facility here. And it's easy when that's stress level is at its low. What we've got to make sure that we're incorporating and which we have in our program is that the terminology is simplified. And we've made some changes along the way. We learned from doing this, from actually being in the street and hearing things back and forth from different, either if it's cross jurisdictional or if it's cross discipline from fire to police, we learned that the simpler we can keep this terminology, the more likely we are to remember that when we're at a heightened level of awareness. When we have all of the stressors, we've got to maintain our head on that swivel.
We are looking at knowing the area of responsibilities that each of these teams have and aligning those teams with a simplified, clear term is key. And when we start drilling down and having everyone have a name as opposed to just knowing that this is a part of the Rescue Task Force. A Rescue Task Force has a security component. It has a medical component. We don't need each of those components to then have their own names. So I think with terminology, keeping it clear. We've learned that. And then the National Incident Management System, one of the key components of that is a common terminology. It's like, "Hey, things do get lost in translation when you're working an event that's going to have multiple disciplines, multiple jurisdictions." So those are some of the things we've learned.
Bill Godfrey:
It's interesting because under ICS doctrine, within NIMS, there is really not a ton of limits on what kind of creative names or descriptive names you can come up with things. But there's a few places where there's some keywords that are reserved and things like that. And I want to make sure that we come back and talk to them about, but Ron, I got to ask, because you and I were together back in 2012 when we first started trying to craft what became the checklist. And we were doing some testing and some trial runs. Do you remember when we used to call, what is triage now for us, Rescue Group Supervisor? Do you remember that?
Ron Otterbacher:
For simplification. They all sound the same, especially when everything gets heated. And I equate it back to when I was still on the job, everyone in my agency knew what my call sign was. Everybody knew what my call sign was, but when we have a follow-on responder, they have no clue. So if we use the titles that simplifies it. And we've got to make sure like we did then is we remove the ones that sound similar, because it just adds confusion to everything that we do. And that's why we've changed a lot of the titles, but the functions have remained the same.
Bill Godfrey:
I got to ask you, I don't know if you'll remember this or not, but around the same timeframe when we were working with that, we were trying to figure out what to call Tactical, which at the time, there was a huge sensitivity because Tactical seemed to be reserved for the SWAT team, or the SWAT team leader, or the SWAT team commander. And so we were counseled, "Oh, you don't want to call it Tactical. That's reserved for the SWAT team." And if my memory serves me, we called it Contact Group Supervisors. So it was like Contact 2 to Contact Group.
Ron Otterbacher:
Right. Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
How'd that work out for us?
Ron Otterbacher:
Again, that's why we changed it. And the nice thing about it is when we've recognized that maybe we could do something better, we've always strived to improve what we do. And where we are now is nowhere near where we started from, because we learn so much from not only actual incidents, but the training that we do on a constant basis. And to this day, if we find something that we think we can improve on what we do, we're not afraid to do it. And that's a constant thing.
Bill Godfrey:
I mean, you talk about the constant improvement and changes. I mean, we spent a year working on that checklist, and trying things, and changing things, and trying before we ever published it the first time, because there was some things that just didn't quite work out. And in fact, one of the key elements that really helped us square this away was the suggestion we got from Lieutenant Colonel in Memphis PD about the idea of the fifth man. I don't know if you remember this. We were sitting at a conference having a meal with him. I think we were having lunch. And we were talking about some of the challenges with trying to get your management structure set up simultaneously with deploying your security forces.
I mean, you got to go deal with the threat. You got to address the threat. But if we focus entirely on just addressing the threat and we don't manage this thing, we lose control of our resources real fast. And we were having that conversation at lunch. You remember that with him?
Ron Otterbacher:
Yes, sir.
Bill Godfrey:
And he's like, "Well, it's funny." And I can't remember exactly how he phrased it, but he was a very colorful guy. He was funny, funny, funny. But he said he had a similar problem not related to active shooter events, but where in some places in his jurisdiction he could get 25 or 30 officers on scene before the first sergeant showed up. And every time that that happened, things just got a little bit messy. I'm paraphrasing what he said. You remember this conversation. And he said, "I finally just got fed up and said the fifth person that's there, whoever they are, is not going to go in. They're going to stand outside. And they're going to start organizing this thing and getting people organized into teams." And you and I looked at each other like, "That's so simple. Why didn't we think of that?" And I was excited to get back and try that and boy, did it make a huge difference.
Ron Otterbacher:
Sure it did. And if you remember, the reason we started the Active Shooter Incident Management is after '99, everyone was training on tactics. Across the country, every agency was focusing on tactics, but no one was focusing on the Command structure of those. You can have the best tactics in the world and if you get a messed up Command decision, then those tactics are out the window. So that's why we headed in this direction as a crew.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh, yeah. And then there were other things that became plainly apparent. There's obviously some cultural differences between Law Enforcement and Fire and EMS. They're not as big a gap, I think, as people sometimes assume they are, because when you get everybody into the room, once you get done with the recliner jokes and-
Jill McElwee:
Valid. Well, it is. I'm jealous.
Bill Godfrey:
They're just jealous. They are nice recliners. And the Xbox, once you get past all that, it's a lot of the very same humor and outlooks, which is, I think, fascinating. But the other thing that we were seeing is Fire Department, who is used to setting Command on everything would set their own Command post. And in many cases they just did it because it's habit and because they assumed Law Enforcement hadn't done it or wouldn't do it. And there were so many incidents where we ended up with a Law Enforcement Command post whether they actually, officially designated it as a Command post or that's just where they were running stuff from. And then you'd end up with a fire Command post someplace else and that's a prescription for disaster.
We saw a number of incidents where there was no staging for Law Enforcement at all. The resources just flooded in. And so when you needed to organize some teams or assign some people, whether it was the Contact Teams or RTFs, there were no resources. All the resources had already flooded in. So it was a number of interesting events, I think, that formulated this as we went through.
Ron Otterbacher:
Sure. And aside from flooding in, they also self-deploy. So you have no idea who's at different locations, what they're doing. They're trying to do the best they can. We understand that. But someone's got to get their arms around the situation, take control of it. And it comes back to number one, what's the most important terminology we use is Command. Command's the one that's responsible for everything. And everything flows from Command down and from down back up to Command. So we've got to know who we talk to at different times. The way the structure is set, Command may talk to Law Enforcement Branch and Medical Branch. And those are the only two people he or she should actually be, excuse me, talking to.
And then they're running everything down range in their different areas. Medical is talking to Triage Transport and Law Enforcement Branch talking to Tactical Perimeter or anything else they've got down range. But most of the stuff he's talking to is, or he or she, please excuse me, because I'm just slow. Most of that goes to that one person who's running everything down range. And if you limit the conversation between those, you also free up the most common problem we have in any major incident, is the communications issue.
And we see in these classes that we've been teaching for a long time, I can tell you the middle of the second day, it's like someone turns the light switch on and people say, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" We have, but it just took this long to get through that it simplifies the conversation. It lets you know who you're responsible for talking to and doesn't confuse things.
Jill McElwee:
And to your point, Ron, oftentimes we'll hear, well, Fire, they'll say, "Well, I'm talking to my Command." No, there's no my Command in this. It's our Command. And it's so important what you described is having those components together, because when the Contact Team's talking to Tactical, the Rescue Task Force talking to Triage and Transport ultimately. But those components have to be together. They have to be on that same page. And then Command of the incident is the overarching component in this entire structure that is running things. And we all were in the field for years, before we put the white shirt on in the Fire Service, before you became the big dog in the sheriff's office, we thought about even taking that promotional exam.
I know every one of us did, because we knew that's going to get us out being down at the ground level. So those positions aren't ones that people are flocking to. But the importance of it cannot be understated. You stole my line, Ron, that second day of class, it's like the light bulb clicks and everyone understands how important it is to take a chaortic scene and bring some form of order to it, where we are staging assets. There's a term I heard years ago called chaotic, taking chaos. I worked in the trauma center before and one of the trauma surgeons, he said, "Man, it's looking chaortic in here." And we weren't sure what he meant by that.
And so what he meant is that we got a lot of chaos. We had patients waiting, patients everywhere, but there was order to that. And so that's our ultimate goal is to bring that order. But someone has got to take charge of that.
Bill Godfrey:
And-
Ron Otterbacher:
To simplify it, this could be our Command structure right here. Bill could be the Incident Commander. I could have Law Enforcement Branch. You could have Medical Branch. And the nice thing is if Bill needs something, he just talks to us face to face. If I need something, I simply tap Jill on the shoulder and say, "Jill, this is what I need from you." And she does the same thing. That's why it's so important. That's why we simplified it this way. We don't have to go through one dispatcher, to another dispatcher, to the Command structure on that side. But it's one Command structure and we talk to each other face to face.
Bill Godfrey:
And it's funny, we talked a little bit earlier about ICSB fairly opening the name and except for a few things. There's a handful of reserved words and Command is one of them. And I'll share for all of our brothers and sisters on the Law Enforcement side, I'll share a little secret. And Jill, I know you're going to laugh. As much as the Fire Service thinks that we are such ICS experts, and just ask us, we'll tell you we are, there's some things that-
Jill McElwee:
For sure.
Bill Godfrey:
No, not so much. We've bastardized or is that too strong a way to say it?
Jill McElwee:
You're breaking the code of silence, Bill.
Bill Godfrey:
I know. Well, the whole idea of I'm talking to my Command, it makes me laugh. I mean, Unified Command is where we end up with this conversation a lot. There are so many people in the streets, and the Fire Service especially, that believe that Unified Command means the Law Enforcement Incident Commander's talking to Law Enforcement troops, and the Fire Incident Commander's talking to the Fire troops, and the EMS Incident Commander's talking to the EMS folks. No. That's not what it is. It's not what it was ever supposed to be. It is a team that has a legal authority or legal basis to be in charge. But it's not a clear jurisdictional thing. You've got more than one particular interest that needs to be represented and you put that group together. But in order for that to work, they're supposed to be communicating with one person underneath them, which is the Operations position. And then Operations runs, wait for it, the operation.
Jill McElwee:
Mind blowing.
Bill Godfrey:
Mind blowing, exactly. So it's interesting. So let's camp there for just a minute and talk about how we've heard Command and Operations thrown around and sometimes misused because both of those are reserved words. And I've had some people that have really wanted to argue toe-to-toe that it's just semantics. And I've had to walk them through it and go, "But it's not." Whether you want to call it Rescue Group Supervisor or Triage, that's semantics. But when you're talking about Operations or Command, those are reserved words that were limited.
And mind you, you guys both talked about the light bulb coming on. I mean, we've been doing this for over 10 years, just Active Shooter Incident Management training. We've racked up over 150,000 hours of training. I think it's, we just went past 13,000 students trained with 5,000 full scenarios from Dispatch to last patient transported. So just a little bit of repetition here as we've gone through this. And like you said, Ron, we learn the lessons and adjust as we go. But the idea of Command, my Command, Tactical Command, Forward Command, no. It's really not complicated and it's not us being ICS purists, is it, Jill?
Jill McElwee:
Right. No, no. And we chat. My handle or whatever it is on social media is ICS Nerd Love.
Bill Godfrey:
Is it really?
Jill McElwee:
Okay. Now I've admitted it. Yeah, it is.
Bill Godfrey:
I don't know, Ron. I don't think I'd told that one.
Jill McElwee:
And I even said, "A self-proclaimed ICS nerd," because I've seen it work. I've been fortunate enough, unfortunate, to be on a type three team for the state of Florida on many incidents. And I've watched how the incident Command structure works. And I've seen that as long as we do abide by that structure, and the process, and the flow, and the span of control, and what we're talking about here, the common terminology, it prevents things from being lost in translation. Because we're all going to shorten things up on the radio. So Forward Command, that just becomes Command on a radio. Tactical Command just becomes Command on the radio. And what you've done is, to your point, you've bastardized that terminology. You're using it for something it's not to be used for.
Bill Godfrey:
And introduce confusion.
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
At a time when we don't-
Jill McElwee:
Not necessary. It's very simple. Exactly.
Ron Otterbacher:
And then again, in that, the title not only gives you what your name is on the radio, but it also gives you your responsibilities. My title as Operations Chief was different than if I was running Tactical or anything else. Tactical has certain responsibilities. Contact Teams have certain responsibilities. RTFs have certain responsibilities. And if we go changing all those titles, RTF 1 to Rescue Group 7, what's the different responsibilities there? And that's where I think we end up messing up as we move into that realm, is it tells you, again, like I said earlier, I don't have to know anything, but I do know someone's in command.
So if I'm from another follow-on agency, I simply get on the radio, "Otter to Command, where do you want me?" Or if they've established Staging, I go straight to Staging. We understand that each title has its own responsibilities and by understanding not only the title, but those responsibilities associated with it, it lets us know who to talk to.
Bill Godfrey:
I think it is really important to keep your eye on that ball of simplicity at the time, because as the incident unfolds for most jurisdictions where they're going to have mutual aid partners in their teams very quickly, it doesn't matter what jurisdiction Law Enforcement officers are on Contact 3. It couldn't matter less. What you know is Contact 3 does security work. What are they assigned to? What do I need them to go do? Moving them around. And the same thing with the RTFs. It doesn't matter a hill of beans who's on the RTFs.
And here's the other thing that I think a lot of Law Enforcement, even some Fire Departments forget is unless you're from a very large agency, your cops that you know are going to be the ones on the Contact Teams that are already in. The likelihood is the security that's going to be with you on your RTF is going to be your neighbors. It's going to be your mutual aid folks. And if you're not all on the same page, how's that going to work out?
Ron Otterbacher:
And again, having come from both realms, Fire Service and Law Enforcement, I understand that there's a lot of agencies say, "Well, we're just going to use our Law Enforcement folks as our RTFs. And we're going to go down and provide medical treatment." My questions is, I know how much training I went through to become a paramedic, and I know how much practical experience I had as a paramedic, and then going into Law Enforcement, are we sending someone in with basic first aid to try and provide advanced skills because we don't understand?
Those are all things that we need to think about. And just by the simplification of terms and simplification of what the responsibilities are, we understand that it may not be so easy to say, "I'm sending all my cops down range. They're going to provide aid." That's good. It's probably not going to work.
Jill McElwee:
I'm going to do this, Ron. If we were to say this, "Hey, we're just going to send the first four firefighters that come in to be Contact Teams," we're not equipped. We're not equipped for that. So if you can take your mind, are those police officers equipped with both medical training and medical background? Because some people say, "Well, sure, we'll send our police officers because all they're going to do is drag and drop." No we need to provide that medical care as we're bringing the patient or the injured to a casualty collection point. And so your point is valid. And if we flip that switch, then maybe that's where it's more understandable that, "Ooh, there's a better way to do that. There's a better way."
Ron Otterbacher:
Most of the medical training they receive is self-aid and buddy aid. So they're not pretty much doing either one. Now, they're giving aid to someone else and it may be requiring more advanced skills.
Bill Godfrey:
And I completely agree with you, and I think as we travel the country, that's the bulk of what we see is Law Enforcement, they're being trained to do, like you said, buddy aid, self-aid, things like that. But we also have to keep in mind that there are places where Law Enforcement do have advanced medical training. I remember we did a training session out in Utah. I believe it was Richland, if I'm remembering, it's been a few years ago where their Fire Service was mostly volunteers. More of a rural area. Their Law Enforcement was cross-trained as EMTs and paramedics. In some cases they had ambulance EMS system that was part paid, part volunteer, this mix that they've made work really well for their community.
Jill McElwee:
Well, they are equipped. That answers the question. They're equipped.
Bill Godfrey:
They're trained and equipped to do it. And I think to me, that's why it goes back to the idea of a Contact Team and an RTF as a building block is the key there. But how you staff it, that's a local issue. And in some cases, Jill, you served, I can't even remember how many years, but it was over 30 years at Jacksonville, right?
Jill McElwee:
Yeah. I started very young.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, because you're still a very, very young lady.
Jill McElwee:
Of course.
Bill Godfrey:
But Jacksonville has areas that are very urban, dense. You have a bunch of suburban areas and you also have rural areas. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your staffing in the rural areas doesn't match your staffing in the urban areas.
Jill McElwee:
Right. You're exactly right.
Bill Godfrey:
So there you've got an example of in a single agency, in a single jurisdiction, they're going to have different resource levels in the first 10 minutes of the response. Is it coming? Oh, yeah, you bet you. Going to get there. But in the first 10 minutes what's going to get there in the urban area is not the same as what's going to get there 10 minutes in the rural area. So I think that local element really matters. So we were talking about Command. And we talked about hearing the terms Tactical Command, Forward Command, all that other kind of stuff. What are the names that you've heard about for Operations, because I've heard some doozies. Forward Operations-
Ron Otterbacher:
Tactical Operations. It just depends on what moniker they want to throw in there. Again, being a cop, I'm probably not the ICS purist, but you have one Operation. That's it. No matter what it is, you've got one. Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
There should only be one person on the radio with Operations in their name.
Ron Otterbacher:
And those things add to the confusion we talk about. There's always problem with communication on these major incidents because of those things that we throw into it, that adds to the confusion that's there. So if we look at that and say, "You got one Operation. We don't have a Tactical Operation. We have Flight Operation, yeah, you can call a helicopter." So everyone could be in Operation, but that just confuses it. So you give them Aviation. With our agency, it was Chase. That's all you do. I don't call Flight Operations. I don't call Detective Operations, Investigative Operations. We got one Operations and everyone else has got a responsibility and they roll up to a certain person.
Jill McElwee:
I think for those of us ICS purists, it's like Operations, when we're thinking Medical ops, Air ops, our Fire ops, Law Enforcement ops. Also, we're using that when there's operational periods. It should be a single Operation. We're not talking about multi-day events. So that's where I think some of those Operations get lost, with, "Well, I'm medical ops," when we're thinking about dividing into branches.
Bill Godfrey:
Because here's the issue that the other thing comes in. So I've heard some people, we refer to it as Tactical, Triage, and Transport. We've nicknamed it Fluffy, the three-headed dog from Harry Potter. They are the ones that are operating at the edge of the warm zone or just inside the warm zone, but outside the building or the area, that are controlling everything in the hot and the warm zone. And I've had a number of people say, "Oh, no, no, that's Operations." And I'm like, "No." And this is again, Jill, you accused me of sharing the super-secret squirrel stuff, this is one of the places where Fire Service has gotten into the bad habit of, "Oh, well, Operations does that, and we're just going to stand up Operations."
Operations is responsible for the entire operation, including Staging, including Perimeter, including, including, including. The only thing that Operations doesn't run is the Command staff, which is your Liaison, your Safety and your PIO. But Operations is responsible for everything. And if you push all of that up to that forward area, then you completely blow apart the delegation and delineation that we've been trying to make clear to everybody so that people aren't overloaded. And oh, by the way, how is your Incident Commander supposed to have a conversation with their Operations chief when their Operations chief isn't in the Command post?
Ron Otterbacher:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
I just find it fascinating that people see that as a semantic argument and yet still want to say, "Oh, that's ICS compliant."
Jill McElwee:
Yeah, no.
Ron Otterbacher:
With that semantic also comes responsibility for that position. And that's what we've got to keep in mind. It's not just a name. It's a responsibility.
Jill McElwee:
Oh, right on, Ron. That's it, Ron. Be careful what you ask for.
Bill Godfrey:
No kidding. So Jill, I want to revisit something you mentioned earlier, which was-
Jill McElwee:
My southern accent?
Bill Godfrey:
No. I mean, we can talk about that if you'd like.
Jill McElwee:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
No, you mentioned span of control. And Otter, I think you were piggybacking on this to go down this road. So obviously, radio traffic gets out of hand on these things all the time. Part of that is a failure to teach responders basic radio discipline and for supervisors to straighten that out on day-to-day operations. And then it just goes out of control when you get something bad. But the other piece of this is that radio traffic is a symptom of lack of span of control. So let's talk a little bit about that.
Ron Otterbacher:
Or beyond span of control, Unity Command too, because they should be answering to one person for their response, such as Contact Teams are answering straight to Tactical. That's the only one. You shouldn't have the Incident Commander reaching past and dealing with the Contact Teams on everything he wants them to do. He should be talking to Tactical. Or he should be talking to Operation, or not, Law Enforcement Branch who would be talking to Tactical. So we circumvent both the span of control and unity of command because we feel like, "Okay, I'm just going to reach past. I don't want to have to talk to these people." And that just adds confusion to everything that's going on.
Bill Godfrey:
I agree. One of the things that I think, Ron, you and I learned when we were originally doing the checklist development work, because we were dealing with some pretty bad span of control issues and radio traffic, especially in that initial response, was we realized that if you begin to organize this thing early on and even just getting those dozen cops into two or three Contact Teams, and now all of a sudden you've got three people talking on the radio, Tactical and Contact 1 and Contact 2. Or four people if you're talking to Contact 3. As you begin to stand those up, all of a sudden now you've got dozens and dozens of people, but there's only a few of them that really need to be on the radio, because not everybody on that team needs to talk.
Jill McElwee:
No, no, no. And-
Ron Otterbacher:
I'm sorry. The other thing is you know where they're at and you've got the accountability factor. If you've got three teams of four, then each one's moving as a team of four, you know exactly where they are. So we can minimize the blue-on-blue situations that may occur. But if you had those 12 people all heading in different directions, you've got no idea. And then you will have that blue-on-blue situation.
Jill McElwee:
I wanted to bring up one of the most important aspects of maintaining control on this span of control is how we bring in the dispatchers to our training and how they are equally important as our teams, our Contact Teams, our Rescue Task Force. Because there are multiple frequencies usually. We're on multiple radios. We're not talking on the same channel as our Law Enforcement brothers and sisters. But having that dispatch component, helping us maintain that span of control. We see it typically when we're doing some of our training. I've got one team, a Rescue Task Force that are together, and everyone wants to talk on the radio now. We can also have a discussion on, conversely, no one reporting back and talking on the radios. We'll lay that on the table for-
Bill Godfrey:
Would somebody please give me an update?
Jill McElwee:
An update, yeah. So we have that as well. But identifying, we've got to get word to Command, a status update and to mitigate exactly what Ron was talking about, but clearly identifying ahead of time. And Dispatch does a fantastic job often of setting us straight, I'll say it. Just giving us a little left and right or repeating in a kind fashion what we should be saying, or doing, or how we should be reporting. And they're a vital component in this.
Bill Godfrey:
It's funny, there's two things about Dispatch that never ceases to amaze me. And we see this happen in almost every training session that they go to. You'll have Tactical be calling a Contact Team five times, or the Command post is calling Tactical five times. And they just don't hear them. And all of a sudden, dispatchers, there's just something about their voice, their cadence, the way they do it, they get on the radio, "Dispatch to Tactical," "Tactical, go ahead." It's like, "I just called you five times. What are you doing to me?" Command's trying to raise you or whatever on that. I think that is one of the things that makes me laugh. But it's true, there's something about the way dispatchers speak, and their cadence, and their tone, their inflection that we're tuned in to hear them. And yet we tune each other out.
Ron Otterbacher:
I think because we listen to them every day. They give us our direction every day, although they're not supervising, they're still giving us direction. They're giving us our calls and everything else. Like I said, when I used to get on the radio, people knew when I would come up who I was. It's like the dispatchers. They know who those people are. They listen to them every day. And I think that's the key thing is, "Wait, if I keep messing up, I'm going to get more bad calls than good calls, because they control the world." But it does. You've got a tone. We used to call it, "I've got an ear for that person." And the dispatchers have that ear.
Bill Godfrey:
Which brings me to the second thing. Dispatchers find incredibly creative ways to remind us that we forgot to do something. "Dispatch to Tactical, can you say again what that staging location was? Or where did you set staging?" And everybody knows damn good and well that the guy forgot to do it. He missed it. But that was their general little reminder that they needed to do it, which I think is just wonderful. There's a few agencies that have actually, after doing our training, have empowered their dispatchers to help the responders work the checklist if they miss items. And I think that's great. I wish we could get a little more trust there and some other ways. So fascinating conversation, Lost in Translation with a southern accent. You're right. It's the microphone's fault.
Jill McElwee:
A hundred percent.
Bill Godfrey:
Did we miss anything that we want to hit in this one because we're coming up on our time for this episode?
Ron Otterbacher:
No, sir. The only thing I would add to it is bringing the dispatchers into training has been phenomenal. Not only for the training, but also we know that they've listened to these incidents forever. Now they get to listen to it and see what's actually going on. So then they say, "Oh, now I understand why they're doing that. So if I take this step, I can help facilitate that." And I think that's why they've become more involved. Because now, "I get what you're talking about now." We never did that to explain to them what was going on.
Bill Godfrey:
They get that element of being able to look across the room and see what's happening and understand who's doing what. And suddenly, they're in the same training with the rest of us.
Ron Otterbacher:
And they're doing the job they do all the time, trying to keep us safe.
Bill Godfrey:
Amen. Jill, anything else?
Jill McElwee:
The only thing I added, and we try to bring this up in every training, is that terms matter. Terminology does matter. And keeping it common is a matter. That's why it is so important, that common terminology, we keep pushing for that and we keep correcting. We thank our dispatchers for correcting our titles, when we say the wrong title, the first three or maybe five times, by correcting that. Because it will absolutely bring that chaotic scene, bring more order because we know who is responsible. It aligns clearly with the area of responsibility. So common terminology, super important so that things aren't lost in translation.
Bill Godfrey:
It is. And I think that my last closing thought on this would be you and your neighbor don't have to have the same procedures, but you damn sure need to know what their procedures are and they need to know what your procedures are. Because when your neighbors come, and they're going to come, and they roll into your jurisdiction, they need to know what your plan is. They need to know how you do it. They need to know your thing, your terminology, your communication, your structure. And if you've done a good job, they've been included in your training and they already know it. So thank you guys both for coming back in to follow this up. This was fun. Jill, we'll get you a new microphone that gets rid of that accent for you.
Jill McElwee:
It's got to be this brand.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you have not subscribed to the podcast, please do so. Please share it with your friends. That's how we can help people learn how to do better in these tragic events. I'd like to thank our producer, Karla Torres, and everybody for their time in sitting in and listening. With that, until next time, stay safe.