“We Will Never Forget You—Remembering Andy Palmer”

Submitted by Jim McMahill (Regional Fire and Aviation Management Officer, Midwest Region - National Park Service and NWCG Leadership Subcommittee NPS Representative) and the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center

This—wildland firefighter Andy Palmer’s tragedy—is the story of how we arrived at today’s Dutch Creek Protocol guidelines for emergency medical response and extractions.

Fireline Leadership Challenge:

1. View the video and share this with your employees and incident management team members, either during your annual fire refresher or at your annual team meetings.
2. After viewing, discuss the contents of the video, which challenges us with three questions we should ask ourselves each time we are weighing the decision whether or not to engage on a wildland fire incident.

• What will we do if someone gets hurt?
• How will we get them out of here?
• How long will it take to get them to the hospital?”

This is the Wildland Lessons Learned Center's second presentation in this year’s “Firefighter: Remember This” video series. Check out the first, "Firefighter: Remember This - Engine Rollover: Why This Accident Started Months Ago."