Firefighters Free Man From Industrial Paint Mixer

Monday, December 08, 2008 | Posted by LAFD Media and Public Relations

On Monday, December 8, 2008 at 11:04 AM, 5 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 1 LAFD Rescue Ambulance, 1 Heavy Rescue, 1 Urban Search and Rescue Unit, 1 EMS Battalion Captain and 1 Battalion Chief Officer Command Team, a total of 36 Los Angeles Fire Department personnel under the direction of Battalion Chief Charles Butler, responded to an Industrial Machinery Entrapment at 7234 Atoll Avenue in North Hollywood.

Firefighters responded quickly to Circle Paint, a manufacturer of paint and coatings, to find a worker with his arm badly trapped in an industrial mixer.

With an LAFD Urban Search and Rescue Team and Heavy Rescue Unit en route, first-arriving firefighters promptly established Incident Command and scene safety for the rescue.

Physically supporting the conscious and alert 43 year-old man, firefighters made him as comfortable as possible, while machinery was stabilized and confirmed to be unpowered. Soon thereafter, and while medically addressing issues of pain management, firefighters manually unwound the machine to disentangle his arm.

In fair condition with multiple open fractures to his left arm, the man was transported by LAFD ambulance to the trauma center at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

No other injuries were reported.

Questions regarding the presence, need or injured man's use of safety equipment and approved worksite procedures remain within the purview of Cal/OSHA officials.


Submitted by Brian Humphrey, Spokesman
Los Angeles Fire Department

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2 comments:

Camilla Cracchiolo said...

I love the LAFD and am extremely grateful to all the brave men and women who put their lives on the line to save others. So I hope this comment will not be taken amiss.

I use an RSS reader and I have a problem with the format your blog reporter uses to describe fires. The RSS only lets us scan the first few lines to see if the story is relevant to us.

I don't want the first sentence to be how many units of what type responded to a fire. My big concern is *where* the fire happened, followed by whether there were any injuries.

It would be a great help to those of us who subscribe via RSS if the very first thing we read was the address.

I'd like to see "On such a date, at x time, a fire at address caused x damage." THEN put the # of units, etc. This is more or less how the LAPD RSS feed works and it's an excellent feed.

Thank you.

Camilla Cracchiolo
camilla4@mindspring.com

Monday, December 15, 2008 4:48:00 AM  
LAFD Media and Public Relations said...

Ms. Cracchiolo,

Thanks for the constructive note. We're grateful of your time and frankness, and assure you that no umbrage is taken.

First and foremost, we're pleased that you are using RSS to access LAFD News & Information. We're big fans of RSS, and have our feed set to 'full', so as not to purposely truncate your information.

We're also glad that you mentioned our friends at the Los Angeles Police Department, who do a remarkable job with their fully funded and formally staffed blogging effort, which stands in stark contrast (but strongly inspires) our amateur crafted endeavor.

As for the preamble...

You might be surprised to learn how much some of us detest the blog incident preamble (the first paragraph of incident related posts) on the LAFD blog.

The preamble dates back nearly 40 years in LAFD internal documents, and was meant to "identify the Commanding Officer and highlight the resources and span of control he manages during the course of the incident".

This 1968 protocol has long outlived its basis in reality or need, as we now publish externally, and there are both men and women in charge.

While my personal choice would be for a wholesale revamping that would include strict adherence to AP Style, similar to what you mention, there are some factors that prevent my unilaterally altering things.

The preamble is automatically created for our use, and merely copied and pasted simultaneously into the requisite Department document(s) and the blog template.

Any effort I might make to change things must not only be technically possible and administratively acceptable, but also sustainable across all three shifts in what is already a profoundly difficult to fill assignment at the LAFD.

Your comments however, remind us that we can and must change with the times (no pun intended), and to the degree that I can, I hope to implement some meaningful change in the months to come.

More on that will hopefully be forthcoming in early 2009. In the meanwhile, I offer my apology for your enduring our inefficiency, and pledge to do what I can to make things more appealing and relevant at LAFD.ORG/BLOG and via our RSS Feed in the future.

Thanks for being a part of our journey, and please never hesitate to offer criticism (constructive or otherwise) whenever you see the need. Without such input, there is nothing for me to show our Chain of Command how we must move forward.

Kindly accept our wishes for safe and happy holidays!

Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service (from home tonight),

Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department

Monday, December 15, 2008 9:14:00 PM  

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