Ep 79: When Communications Fail
Episode 79
Published May 6, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 25:23
Episode Summary
Sometimes communications fail – not just radios. Today’s episode looks at ways to work around radio transmission issues - be it technology, transmission overload, or radio discipline.
Episode Notes
When resources are coming from multiple directions, sometimes communications fail. Training for these failures, making a plan in advance, and finding solutions to these technology issues is critical to getting the information out and the mission on track. Today’s episode looks at various ways to work around radio transmission issues.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/chsPzNeR7a4
Transcript
Adam Pendley:On many of these active shooter events that we respond to, we know hundreds of resources are coming from multiple directions, and sometimes communications will fail, but not necessarily because the radio system fails, but because of other issues. We're gonna talk about that next, stay tuned.
Welcome to the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response, NCIER. I'm Adam Pendley. I'll be your podcast host today. That was easy to say, right?
Kami Maertz:
There you go.
Adam Pendley:
There you go. So with that, I am joined by my fire and law enforcement. Reverse that, my fire and law enforcement
Kami Maertz:
There you go.
Adam Pendley:
brother and sister here. Bruce Scott from the Fire Service. Welcome, thank you, friend.
Bruce Scott:
Thank you for letting me be here, Adam.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. And Kami Maertz from the law enforcement side.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
Thank you for being here.
Kami Maertz:
Thank you for having me.
Adam Pendley:
And let's get this conversation started. We talked, we were talking about this idea that the communications issues you're gonna have on a very active scene when you have multiple resources. And let's talk about one of the technical issues first.
So we know that our two-way radios and many of our systems are all connected to repeater systems. Most of us are on trunked 800 megahertz systems and whatnot. And we know that those types of radios have challenges in certain areas, like maybe when you enter into a school, or into a hospital, or something along those lines. What are some ways to kind of work around maybe some radio transmission issues to keep the mission on track? Kami, we'll start with you.
Kami Maertz:
So one of the main things is depending on what you're dealing with. If you have a complete failure, a complete outage, then you're gonna wanna start considering things like runners, something like that. So it also might just be that it's being overloaded. You might have, you know, bad radio discipline that is keeping you into, or pushing you in towards radio failure. So you might wanna, or depending on the technology failure that's going on, obviously get your technology person over there, start looking at what's going on with your radio technician. But also you have to keep going with the mission. So the main thing is to keep up with something. So get a runner, somebody to come in and help.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. Bruce, what are some strategies the fire service uses? I know personnel accountability is really important when you send crews inside. What are some other tricks?
Bruce Scott:
Well, I can tell you in my jurisdiction where I rode on a fire engine, I knew where my radios were gonna be difficult, right? So I say this often, the time to figure out the solutions is not when the problem's occurring, right?
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
So if I know in this school or this building, multi, hospitals, nursing homes are also really bad, right? We knew we had to come up with a different solution.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
Sometimes that was the person that stayed on the engine company. We flipped to a simplex frequency, which is radio-to-radio. That way we didn't have to hit the trunk system. But the real answer to your question, Adam, is we need to find out, we need to know where our problems occur and plan for 'em accordingly before you need to figure it out.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. And you talked about your technology people. I think when you're making a radio plan in advance of an incident, you know, while you've come to a new location, it's not the time to try to figure all that out. But get that person in a room when you're talking about a training or exercise or even a policy and say, "What are these radios capable of? "What are some of the solutions?"
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
And I know that in some jurisdictions, they've even made it a part of the building code that certain buildings have to have repeaters
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
built into them
Bruce Scott:
Correct.
Adam Pendley:
for this reason. So there may even be a legislative solution in your area to kind of address these areas. But like the simplex channel, and I know many law enforcement know that they might have that type of simplex radio-to-radio communication 'cause they go to it to talk about where we're gonna go for dinner or something.
Kami Maertz:
Exactly, the important stuff.
Adam Pendley:
You know, so they've used it before. Right, they just have to realize that might be a tool in the toolbox for some of these locations.
Bruce Scott:
Sure.
Adam Pendley:
And then you mentioned runners and I think if you know that you're gonna have to use that as a sneaker net, as some people have called it, running back and forth, you might have to add, plus up your teams to make sure that you have that.
And I really want to extend on something you said, Kami, about the idea of knowing what your mission is. So, you know, in some other conversations we've had in other podcasts and whatnot, we talk about the importance of having a team leader or the importance of understanding your task and purpose when you leave staging. And that, you know, you might have to go in and carry out that task and purpose and then come back out and report your progress and then get sent in with another mission.
So there are other ways to work around radio difficulties. Technology, either using a simplex frequency, figuring out what other alternative repeaters you have, using runners and that sort of thing.
Bruce Scott:
Cell phones, maybe.
Adam Pendley:
Cell phones.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
And that's a good segue to the next thing I was gonna talk about. We hear all the time that, obviously, many, many civilians in the area have been impacted by this event. So we hear about cell phones even being overloaded.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
Right? So, and I know there's some, you know, cell phone signup services now for first responders that you can get on FirstNet and some things along those lines. And again, if that's something that you haven't done yet and you're working in the field, that's probably a really good thing to think about. Or if your agency is using issued phones that are all part of FirstNet, that's something to think about. But understanding that if your plan calls for, you know, cell phones to be used either for apps for helping to track responders where they're inside, or sending text messages or phone calls, you might need to understand that those things might have some challenges.
Bruce Scott:
Right and it's also shouldn't be your go-to.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
We often think about, you know, we're all very familiar with texting and making phone calls, but it shouldn't be your first solution
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
is what I'm saying. And the only reason is because the only people that know that message is the sender and receiver.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And a lot of times that information sharing over your radio gets to a lot more people as opposed to a telephone call or a text.
Kami Maertz:
And it does seem that when you're having those radio failures, the same place you're having those radio failures, you're likely gonna have cell phone failures.
Bruce Scott:
Oh, that's true.
Kami Maertz:
You know, we have an area near where we live, and we actually did a a scenario last year, I think it was, and all of it went down.
Adam Pendley:
Oh, wow.
Kami Maertz:
The radios went down, cell phones weren't working, and it was in an actual populated that nobody would've thought that it would've not worked in, not functioned in, and it did.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
So what it did was up our training, right? So then we realized if we're in this really populated area, we're not going to be able to have radio and cell phone communications and we were on FirstNet.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
So even that was a failure.
Adam Pendley:
Wow.
Kami Maertz:
Nothing against FirstNet.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
But it just happened to be that area, for some reason, it has those type of technology issues.
Adam Pendley:
Sure.
Kami Maertz:
And it created a lot of, but it also helped our training 'cause we prepared for it.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. And then you add some follow-on actions
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Adam Pendley:
to make sure you kind of go back and get with the companies. I mean, again, it's all about an integrated response. And I feel like every time we get together, Bruce, I steal something else from you, but you've said before that these things are not a police problem, a fire problem, they're...
Bruce Scott:
A community problem.
Adam Pendley:
They're a community problem.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
Right, so that means, you know, we need to get their help to figure out some of these technology issues.
But I also wanna come back to something you said, Bruce, and I'm glad you said it 'cause I remember this coming up a lot is that we, especially today when people are so used to texting everything, you're really hampering the response by not putting things out on the radio.
Bruce Scott:
Correct.
Adam Pendley:
I mean, you know, and I know some of it, it's either you're old school thinking that, hey, people are gonna be able to tap into the radios, which is not true. Most of the time they're encrypted and it's just between us. Or that you're just not used to it because you're so used to texting.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
And important information is delayed because only two people are hearing it.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
And then the dispatcher, not including them in this loop of information
Bruce Scott:
That's a great point.
Adam Pendley:
is I think so important. And we were, you know, we were talking before we started the recording is that, you know, dispatchers can be really effective in, you know, you can call somebody, I can say, you know, "Kami from Adam, Kami from Adam, Kami from Adam," but then as soon as I say, you know, "Dispatch, can you try to raise Kami?" That voice, that dispatcher's voice cuts through everything and you hear it.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
Right, so.
Kami Maertz:
We've been programmed to listen for it.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
So that's the voice we're hearing all day long call to us our assignments and so it is very beneficial. And they also have tones,
Bruce Scott:
Alert tones, yeah.
Kami Maertz:
which is very nice, right? To be able to alert somebody and for everybody to pay attention.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah, a high-low tone in the fire department back in the day was shut up. They've got something important to say.
Kami Maertz:
Yep.
Adam Pendley:
Right. And keeping them in the loop as well because that CAD system,
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
you know, they're keeping a fantastic record of all the things that are happening on the scene that can help us in real time. You know, our intel people can go to dispatch and get good information, but then, you know, it's obviously becomes more of a permanent record of what's happening as well. So all of that I think is really important.
Kami Maertz:
And it's also important to.
Bruce Scott:
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was just gonna say, the dispatcher might have critical information that needs to get to those people,
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bruce Scott:
Those folks in the field. So, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Kami Maertz:
No, no, you're fine. And then the other portion is to consider is that if you do have those radio and cell phone failures, if you have multiple jurisdictions that are there. now you have issues with that because initially you might be able to patch them into your radio system.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
But if those are down, you might have to consider having a representative from each one of those jurisdictions to come to your command post or come to your, you know, tactical location to be able to make sure that there is a way to message out those responders who are on the scene.
Adam Pendley:
Yep, right.
Kami Maertz:
Which creates a whole nother issue.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. So it's, you know, we were, when you think about radio communication and we talk about having a team leader and all this discipline stuff we're supposed to do, it leads to this idea that if everyone were disciplined on the radio in an information sharing sort of way, we should, we could all be on one channel. You know, if everybody's really disciplined about their,
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
but the reality is there's a lot of stuff happening. We end up, at a minimum, we have two radio channels oftentimes, you know, the law enforcement and the fire, and potentially a third radio channel, for EMS services, right.
Bruce Scott:
For EMS.
Adam Pendley:
So, and then there are times when there's this tendency to want to put something else on another frequency. And in a technology sort of way, what are some advantages and disadvantages of using multiple frequencies you think?
Bruce Scott:
Well, I'll start, I think that it depends, right? It was just my standard answer for everything, right? You gotta solve that problem at the time. But a separate channel can help you minimize the conversations on your important tactical channels, right,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
your rescue task forces and your contact teams, right? You could move perimeter to another channel, you could move EMS to another channel. The problem with that is now everybody that has any sort of leadership role needs to have multiple radio channels
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bruce Scott:
to Kami's point, the ability to monitor those.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
You know, I always talk about staging. If you're sending people somewhere from staging, you need to know where they're going.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And the way to know where they're going is to be monitoring that channel. The call for that resource will come on that particular channel. So it's just a little bit more of a burden on your staging managers, if you will. Positives are, it helps minimize conversations. The negative is you just, you have a lot more radio channels to monitor.
Adam Pendley:
Right, absolutely.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah, and it really does, it keeps, and that's the whole thing though is if, especially with radio discipline anyways, right, radio discipline is so important and we preach and preach radio discipline, but we all know the one person who gets on the radio and speaks for a good 30, 45 minutes and can't get 'em to stop.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah, we all have that person.
Adam Pendley:
Right, right.
Kami Maertz:
And so that does help with when you switch those multiple different entities off into their own radio channel, sometimes that can help eliminate some of that unnecessary radio chatter.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
from those important channels.
Bruce Scott:
We used to make fun of some of our officers on the fire department years ago. We thought maybe they could talk the fire out, right? The more that they talked on the radio, the faster the fire will go out.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah, that's true. So you know, the, we know that your radio, your technology needs potential backup systems. You need to know that you may even have to fail back to just face-to-face communication.
Bruce Scott:
Correct.
Adam Pendley:
We know that good radio discipline helps using your position title as your radio call sign
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
instead of your individual number.
Kami Maertz:
That's a huge one, yeah.
Adam Pendley:
We know these are all tools in the toolbox to help use the technology to its best ability. But Bruce, I know you read a lot of after action reports and, Kami, I know you do as well. When the number one thing that shows up in all of them is what?
Bruce Scott:
Communication.
Adam Pendley:
Communication.
Kami Maertz:
Every time.
Bruce Scott:
100%
Adam Pendley:
And it's always talking about the radios failed, right?
Bruce Scott:
No.
Adam Pendley:
No?
Bruce Scott:
Oftentimes it's not. Oftentimes it's that we're not talking to each other. Whether it's whatever method you use, to your point, you read after action reports, you'll see commonalities in all of them. And one of 'em is communications. And people immediately gravitate towards my radio doesn't talk to your radio. Well the truth of the matter is, most of our communication failures could be fixed by integration.
Kami Maertz:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
Standing next to each other and having conversations and work together as a team.
Kami Maertz:
Yep.
Adam Pendley:
And knowing what's important to say to each other, right?
Bruce Scott:
Oh, yeah.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
I mean, like actually communicating. And we say this a lot when we're teaching, we're doing exercises, is that there's a communications loop that has to be closed, right? You have to have clear communication with confirmation so that you're not just speaking into the dark. That if you have something important to say, make sure it's going to the right person and making sure that they receive it.
Kami Maertz:
I think that's the most important thing is the acknowledgement. You have to have them acknowledge on the other side, just like you would any other messages. You wanna make sure that they understand the plan and their role in the plan.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
And so if you're just randomly throwing things on the radio and you're not getting back that acknowledgement, you're gonna have that communication failure.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And the often, the other thing we often see is you start your message and then I'll jump in with another message because whatever I'm getting ready to say is obviously more important than what you're saying. So you never get that loop closed.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And that, you talk about radio discipline, it's understanding that there is a message going back and forth here that needs to be acknowledged before I jump in, right?
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Bruce Scott:
Because you can potentially, you could potentially get somebody killed, right?
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
Because you're not getting that critical information or, you know, whatever you wanna say is obviously more important. So discipline's important.
Adam Pendley:
Well, it especially includes if you are on more than one channel, you know? This is seems like simple advice, but we need to be reminded of it, that if you go to a new channel, take a pause to make sure there's not that ongoing,
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
you know, communication first before you just jump right in there.
So, you know, one of, I heard somebody say one time, and I think it's in some of our written material, that good information can be sticky. And I didn't know what that meant at first.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
.
Adam Pendley:
And then I really thought about it and what it means is is you have it and you don't really know who to give it to.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
Or how to get rid of that information. And I think that's a big communication peril that we find ourselves in sometimes. So how do you discern important information from stuff that's just part of the background noise, if that makes sense?
Kami Maertz:
Well, I think it's deciding if that intel is going to be something that somebody that's actionable intel, right? That somebody can use that is gonna change the course of our mission, that's gonna change the course of our decision making.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
And so you're going to get a lot of information, you're gonna get a lot of double information. And that's really where that intel piece comes through. That the intel piece is gonna work through that information and decide what is the critical information and who does it need to go to through that command so that command can look at that information and say, "That needs to get to this person immediately." And you're having those discussions of who needs to know that. But I think that's really gonna come to your intel portion of things.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah.
So Bruce, if you're on the fire ground and the balcony in the back of the building suddenly collapses to the ground, how, I mean, I'm, I don't have that much fire ground experience, but how do you keep multiple people from calling that same piece of information in?
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
I mean, what's the discipline there?
Bruce Scott:
Yeah, and I, to be honest with you, it depends, again, my standard answer. The truth of the matter is as long as the message gets sent. What about the the engine company or ladder company that's under that balcony?
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
Right? They have important information to get out, too. I have personal experience with this calling a mayday.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
If you hear a mayday over the fire channel, everybody shuts up, right? And if they have to change channels, everybody else goes to a different channel. And the company that called that mayday stays on the channel they were on. Everything else goes to another channel. But, you know, you talk about sending and receiving critical information, the one time I had to call a mayday, nobody heard me but our communication center.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And we're able to just hit that high-low tone and go, "Hey," you know, "hey boss, "this engine company's in trouble." Right and get us some help so.
Adam Pendley:
And again, that's why it's so important to solve those challenges. And if you go back to the technology issue, the reality is, is you wanna make these places that you know you have communication problems, either from training exercise or real world incidents, get that fixed. Because being able to have everyone in the be able to hear those transmissions is really important. And then of course, your simplex channels is a solution, but it's not, you know, it's just, it's, it should be temporary. And of course face-to-face is another problem but.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
Well and with that, too, is when you're talking about the different is to get people patched in early. Is I do see that it's really common and in a lot of incidents where we have multiple jurisdictions coming, say FHP, something like that, that's also joining, there's a delay in that patch. We're waiting for it to work itself out before we do that patch. And that time delay is really critical in communication failures.
Adam Pendley:
Right. It's funny that you mentioned the state police 'cause I remember it and it wasn't an incident, thank goodness, it was an exercise we were involved in, but reminding everyone again to use plain language because even within our area, we were going through the scenario and the state police officer was saying that they had a signal 30 in the two more signal 30s in the kitchen. And I said, "Well, wait a minute, what does that mean?" He said, "Well, those are gunshot wounds." And I said, "Well, for us signal 30 means abduction."
Kami Maertz:
Abduction, yeah.
Adam Pendley:
So, you know, and again, you know, if you call that out, you're really sending things in a whole left field direction.
Kami Maertz:
Or confusing everybody, right?
Adam Pendley:
Yes.
Kami Maertz:
Because everybody's wondering how that happened
Adam Pendley:
Exactly.
Bruce Scott:
And it's hard to go to plain talk if day-to-day use 10 codes and signals.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
The moment you go under stress, you know, trying to remember to use plain talk is something we gotta be trained. It is gotta be trained out of us.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
And one of the recommendations that I would make under those circumstances is your day-to-day policy should be that, you know, using a lot of police agencies especially still use a lot of signals and 10 codes. But the moment you get moved to a tactical channel, you should, that it should be automatic
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
that you then switch to plain language. And if you did that in every day-to-day incident, the more critical incidents, I think, would come a little more naturally.
Bruce Scott:
That's a good idea.
Adam Pendley:
Yes.
Kami Maertz:
That's a great idea, yeah.
Adam Pendley:
So you have, so again, there's fixes, you know, you either figure out if it's a technology problem, if it's an actual, how do we talk to each other problem? Or if it might even be some sort of, you know, policy that can be updated a little bit to make some of this a little more natural. So in the communications, when communication fails, it's, again, it's not just when radios fail.
Kami Maertz:
No.
Adam Pendley:
But what's some of the other issues, you know, that you've come across as far as people talking over each other or all trying to repeat the same thing? Well, one that comes to mind when you were talking about the mayday type situation, one of the real world issues with gunshots at a scene is every police officer on the scene can hear the gunshots.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
But I don't need all 15 officers on the scene to tell me that they're hearing gunshots.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
We all hear it.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah and I think that's a big thing on it. And that's every day, right? Is that you have somebody who comes up on the radio and says something and they're not listening to each other.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
And so it's not, you know, you'll have somebody say something and then five minutes later the partner who is standing right next to them
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
says the same thing on the radio.
Bruce Scott:
Says the same thing.
Kami Maertz:
And that's that radio discipline, that is that being cognizant of what's going on in your area and listening to what is actually being said, which is gonna be very, very hard on a critical situation.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
Right, because you are gonna get tunnel vision. It is going to happen. You're gonna start, you know, losing that audio, you know, and it's going to be forcing yourself. It's back to training though.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
It's back to training. And every day when you're starting to hear those things and somebody does have a hard time in any small type of critical, you know, incident of listening to their partner, it's stopping that as a leader and going to them and saying, "Hey, you're repeating something he just said, "which means you're not listening to the radio "and that's gonna be critical."
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
So fixing those little things as you're seeing them come up so that it's not game day and then you're trying to fix that.
Adam Pendley:
Leaders need to lead.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bruce Scott:
Right, so you, if you're the leader on one of those teams, "Hey, I'll be the one talking on the radio. "Tell me what you want me to say or I need to say, "and I'll make sure it goes out over the radio." But again, it comes back to dispatchers, our communications professionals. I know when they started talking, somebody said it earlier, I started paying attention, right?
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bruce Scott:
Whereas that auditory exclusion from all the chitter chatter that you're getting is doesn't really, is not really relevant to you.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
But the minute the, you know, dispatchers start talking, you kind of keen up. And so they can help police that, I think.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
And I'm gonna give another best practice I saw that was actually developed by one of our other instructors some years ago. She developed scripted training. And what I mean by that is, is let's say you're going through an exercise and you bring a team into a room. You may or may not be using actors or, you know, potential moulage patients or anything, but what you can do is have something written down of that's what they need to transmit on the radio. And it does two things. One, it helps everyone else in the scenario hear information on the radio that they need to act on. But if you write it succinctly, you give them the practice of how to say something succinctly.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
So doing, you know, little scripted trainings 'cause the reality is we don't all have experience going to a critical incident, especially of an active shooter incident type.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Bruce Scott:
Sure.
Adam Pendley:
Where your brain really is, it's in a fog. It's trying to figure out what do I need to say? I've got all this going on in front of me, you know, and being able to kind of script through the kinds of things you need to say on these scenes, I think is really important.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
Not in a memorization sort of way, but just in a practice, you're kind of rehearsing.
Kami Maertz:
Well, that's what we do even in training, right? In FTO that's what we do. We give 'em for a, you know, a be on the lookout, we hand them a thing and say, "This is exactly what you're saying."
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Kami Maertz:
And so then they read it off and, you know, and they first start, it's kind of funny 'cause you can hear 'em and they're reading off a piece of paper versus once they eventually get it and they can just, you know, read off a BOLO from their, from memory instead of having that script in front of 'em. That is what we do. It's all about training.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely. So what are your final thoughts? What do you think, Bruce?
Bruce Scott:
I think the biggest thing I can say is most of our communication failures could be cured if we come up with a plan before we need it.
I read something somewhere that we gain experience a minute after we needed it, right? And I thought to myself at the time, that translates into what we do all the time, right? So we can take that out of the loop if we plan for it, train to that standard, we can take some of that out. We're gonna gain experiences from other people's experiences.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bruce Scott:
And communications is a big one.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
I think, I mean, I'd have to mirror the same thing is that it's all about training. It's about training for that failure and knowing what you're going to do game day is in preparing yourself that game day this goes wrong, what are we going to do? Even we talked about it earlier, even using runners. If you're using runners, you have to prepare them then that you're gonna have be going back and forth, ask for more resources than you normally would, right, because you don't wanna be going back and forth with that runner so you're gonna ask for more. And considering those things that early ahead of time through training, that's where you're gonna get that experience.
Adam Pendley:
Right. And thinking about things, communications can fail. I know back home, we had a plan that if our, the radio system went completely down, that we would use the phone to send out the calls to the various little substations that we had and the officers would go complete that mission.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
Use their simplex frequency to talk to each other for officer safety and then come back and get the next mission, right? So it's not wild, farfetched things, just things that could happen.
Bruce Scott:
Technology fails.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Adam Pendley:
Technology fails. Talk about it a little bit. But then I think again, borrowing from the experience of others, listening to podcasts is a really good way to hear best practices and tips and tricks that have worked for other people and borrowing from those experiences.
Bruce Scott:
Sure.
Adam Pendley:
We talk a lot about looking at after action reports and never in a second guessing sort of way. That's not it at all.
Bruce Scott:
Yeah.
Kami Maertz:
No.
Adam Pendley:
But unique things happen in other communities and you need to ask yourself if that happened to us.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
If we went into, you know, the fourth floor of a hospital and we had no communication, how would we get the job done, right?
Kami Maertz:
Exactly.
Adam Pendley:
And those are the questions that you answer now.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
Well, thank you very much, again, for coming in.
Kami Maertz:
Thank you.
Bruce Scott:
We love it.
Adam Pendley:
Welcome back to the studio. And it's been a lot of fun to talk about this issue. And again, I think there's a lot that can be done there. Thank you as always to Karla Torres, our producer, for keeping us,
Bruce Scott:
All her hard work.
Adam Pendley:
All her hard work.
Bruce Scott:
Keeping us on time.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
Keeping us well behaved at times.
Bruce Scott:
Ouch.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah, well, I didn't look at you for a reason, maybe. I don't know.
So, but again, if you haven't already, please subscribe, like our podcast, share them with others.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
We have topics that range from how civilians can help in an active shooter type event to all of these topics. And they're always just great discussions.
Bruce Scott:
Right.
Adam Pendley:
I mean, we have some people that have really had an opportunity to solve some of these issues. So if you haven't liked or subscribed, please do. And until next time, thank you very much.