270: The Trauma Backpack: Why "I’m Good" is a Lie with Capt. David Hoy

Guest: Captain David Hoy (Edmonton Fire Rescue Services)

How we handle the first 24 to 72 hours after a critical incident determines whether a call becomes a "memory" or a "trauma." In this episode, Nole and Kevin sit down with David Hoy, a 20-year fire captain and peer support specialist from the "Great White North" of Edmonton, Alberta.

Dave breaks down the "Gold Standard" of reintegration, a program that has led to a 75% reduction in long-term mental health claims, and shares the five physiological pillars every first responder needs to regulate their nervous system after a bad shift.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• The Reintegration Whiteboard: How Edmonton’s "Gold Standard" program uses a specific debriefing process to identify "hotspots" before they become injuries.
• The Bio-Chemistry of Trauma: Why stimulants (caffeine/nicotine) and depressants (alcohol) during the 72-hour "encoding window" can permanently scar the brain’s storage of an event.
• The Trauma Backpack: A powerful analogy for identifying which burdens are yours to carry and which boulders need to be left at the station.
• "Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty": Practical advice on interviewing clinicians while you’re healthy to ensure you have a "tactical" baseline for when things go south.
• Functional Disconnection vs. Reconnection: The biological necessity of shutting down emotions on a call, and the specific relational tools needed to turn them back on when you walk through your front door.
• Sub-Zero Firefighting: What it’s like to fight fire at -30 and how to prevent getting literally frozen to your equipment.

The 5 Pillars of Post-Call Regulation:

If you’ve had a "bad night," Dave recommends hitting these five marks within 72 hours to restore homeostasis:

1. Hydration: Flushing the "lactic acid of trauma" out of your system.
2. Nutrition: Avoiding the "sugar-crash" cycle.
3. Exercise: Utilizing cardiovascular work to process adrenaline.
4. Sleep: The essential phase for brain restoration and memory filing.
5. Physical Connection: Utilizing the release of oxytocin through intimacy to reset the nervous system.

Big thank you to My Epic and Facedown Records for the use of their song "Hail" in our podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2RZThURTU&ab_channel=FacedownRecords

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Transcript

Kevin (00:07.283)
don't

Nole (00:08.542)
I haven't started yet. I was gonna say at the end of the episode, if you remember when you're getting ready to close it out, just give me a little thumbs up or whatever and then I'll hit the button. If not, it's not a huge deal. We're still learning how to do this audio thing, Dave.

Kevin (00:15.925)
All right.

Kevin (00:21.651)
online.

David (00:21.779)
Like they like do you guys record? You know how you do your intro of like this is the fire you carry podcast and then the other thing this has been You do those live every time or do you just have one that you just loop copy in?

Nole (00:23.464)
or this video thing.

Kevin (00:32.97)
Yeah.

Nole (00:36.894)
So lately we've been doing more and more of them live because we're recording this here and we're using the video. But in the past, those were almost always post. And then it would just depend. So sometimes the closer we would do together, Kevin and I, after a recording, like in the same moment. But it's usually, in the past it wasn't live ever. It was always in the post. But now more and more often it's becoming a live thing.

Kevin (01:02.985)
We say it every time. Yeah.

Nole (01:04.72)
this has been the FireEU Carry Podcast, that line specifically.

David (01:06.119)
I know you say it every time but it sounds different a lot of the time so I wasn't sure yeah

Nole (01:11.57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's every episode. Yeah. Kevin's about to say it. He's going to say, welcome back to the Fire Your Carry podcast.

Kevin (01:11.751)
Yeah, I mean, it's a new one. Yeah, every episode. Yeah.

Nole (01:20.362)
I've heard it. All right. I'm going to hit play. Are you ready? Here we go. Here we go.

Kevin (01:21.457)
I heard it. Yeah, let's do it.

Kevin (01:33.617)
Welcome. No, I'm early on

Nole (01:38.248)
I'm gonna have to give you a signal.

Kevin (01:39.977)
Yeah, welcome back to the fire you carry podcast. Today we have our guest David Hoy from the great white north of Canada. Dave, welcome to the show, brother.

David (01:51.696)
Hey guys, thanks so much for having me, excited to be here.

Nole (01:55.058)
Before we get too deep into who you are and where you are, because we are going to have to have you explain that for our primarily American audience who really just knows Canada as a giant landmass above us. And I mean, I'm going to be honest when you first told me where you're from, I got on Google maps. looked it up because I'd never heard of it before. But we got to talk real quick about how we met, how we connected. It is a weird coincidence that we just had some other Canadians on.

completely unrelated to you, you will be our second or third really Canadian guest, is just, I mean, it's rad, but not something that we planned. Anyway, you had reached out via the Fire Ecary Discord to see if Kevin or I were going to be at the Hume Lake First Responders Conference. And awesomely enough, my wife and I were up there and you and I got to hang out, which was awesome.

Kevin (02:29.589)
Yeah, it is.

Nole (02:47.582)
We had some great conversations and you know, unfortunately, like all things like that, it's too short and there's not enough time, but it was super fun to get to meet you. And I did want to throw that out there just for the rest of you listening to the podcast. Apparently all you have to do is send us a discord message and the next thing you know, you're a guest on the podcast. So something to consider. That's not a promise by the way.

Kevin (03:04.767)
Yes.

Nole (03:11.54)
But Dave, tell us, where are you in the world right now?

David (03:15.429)
So I'm currently in the suburb of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And right now it's a little bit overcast outside. Yesterday was a beautiful, I mean in your language, 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The next couple of days we're going back to sub-zero expecting two to five inches of snow. But the following week it's right back up to 70 again.

Kevin (03:36.073)
Yikes.

Nole (03:41.204)
What does that translate to? you, do you have to frequently jump between Fahrenheit and Celsius? Like is that, is that a conversion you guys do all the time? You're just being kind to us. So what is that in Celsius?

Kevin (03:41.333)
Amazing.

David (03:46.627)
No, I'm just doing that for you guys and your listeners. That's right.

Kevin (03:48.725)
Well, we appreciate it. We appreciate it. have no idea.

David (03:55.013)
about 20 degrees Celsius and about 10 centimeters of snow.

Nole (03:56.778)
That sounds cold.

Nole (04:01.566)
Man, centimeters.

Kevin (04:03.827)
Well, I thought we'd segue this because you had talked to both Noel and I about some really cool peer support stuff that you guys are doing up there with Edmonton. And I thought we might need to check on you because coming from the silver medalist country of Canada, you guys probably needed quite a bit of peer support after we won the gold. Sorry, I had to bring it up to you.

Nole (04:20.218)
David (04:28.683)
man, know, a lot of tears shed, a lot of tears shed. You guys are big rivals for sure. And we've, I don't know how many years in a row we won gold.

Kevin (04:38.165)
Yeah, it completely dominated us forever. But we had some of our NHL guys this year, so it was great.

Nole (04:38.374)
all of the years.

David (04:41.358)
Yeah.

It's almost like that little brother big brother syndrome, you know eventually little brother kind of catches up big brother feels sorry for him maybe and kind of lets him have it. Gotta let him have a win.

Nole (04:54.698)
It's it's fair.

Kevin (04:55.943)
It's fun.

David (04:56.482)
My kids, so my kids are really into baseball and we were hoping, you know, that this year with the World Baseball Classic, Canada had a chance and got in there. We had that little, little bit of hope that maybe we could get you guys back on the baseball side of things, but didn't pan out.

Kevin (05:04.122)
yeah.

Kevin (05:11.573)
I think we got smoked too, don't we?

David (05:14.668)
No, you lost, but Venezuela, I think, got you guys.

Kevin (05:15.869)
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The Venezuela's. But then we took over their country for that. Yeah. But, you know, I thought, no, we could jump in. I thought it was kind of cool because I'm in the peer support realm. Obviously what we do with the podcast and the Fire Up program is very much peer support. I just on a different level. The program is very intimate and we kind of, you know, we get, we get right into it.

some of our things that we've struggled with, traumas from the past and how we can move forward. But yeah, Noel shared with me quite a bit of stuff that you're doing and I want to maybe see how you got started in that. And I know you said you've been with the department for over 20 years, but yeah, how did you see that kind of fruition and what you guys are doing?

David (06:03.564)
I think what has resonated a lot with me lately has been, know, peer support seems to now or has gotten a bit of a stigma over the years with some of the old sort of schism approaches and, you know, bringing everybody to the kitchen table and sort of making it almost mandatory and, you know, left a lot of bad taste in guys' mouths and is very reactive. So there's sort of twofold

Kevin (06:28.468)
Yes.

David (06:32.749)
You know, and what I was hoping to talk to you guys about today is a bit about how to process trauma in a better way. And also about, I have a different nonprofit that I'm involved with that is all about proactive peer support. And so the little shout out for that is called We See You Peer Support. And I believe we're starting to partner with, or we have partnered with Next Rung with regards to proactive peer support.

Nole (06:58.588)
right on.

Kevin (06:58.642)
cool.

David (07:04.067)
So a little bit about myself real quick. been with the department 20 years, like I said, on the peer support team. I also do what's called reintegration. And I was part of our technical rescue team for 10 years. I also serve as one of the lead members of the Firefighters for Christ chapter. We've been running that for about four years now. And looking forward to putting on

marriage conference, the first ever Canadian Firefighters for Christ marriage conference coming up May 23rd. So lots of different kind of things going on in the mental health area and just like really care about our members and making sure that they're taken care of. where, what really got me going down the road of like trying to change peer support or looking at it in different ways, this reintegration training that I got, what reintegration

Nole (07:38.995)
Rad.

Kevin (07:39.209)
Awesome.

David (08:02.549)
Essentially is is when we got a member that's on WCB or long-term it's a matter of helping them get back to a place of health to make a decision of whether they want to return to work or not and Part of that reintegration Training when I first got it was through our police service. Actually, we did a week long in service with them and Actually, eminent police service is probably the gold standard in the world of reintegration

they've created this program that has proven to be like remarkably successful. It's incredible how successful they are. And so we started to try to copy a little bit of what they're doing and try to make it more fire specific. So for example, what they'll do is on an officer involved shooting, what they'll do is they'll take everybody at ground zero when that trigger gets pulled, whether it's the bad guy pulling the trigger or the good guy pulling the trigger.

and they get put on short-term administrative leave, just 24, 72 hours. And then they'll bring those members back in to meet with their reintegrators and they'll do what's called a whiteboard. So they'll walk through the entire day, walk through the event. And while they're telling the story, one guy will be writing sort of all the things that are kind of coming up and sort of curious for themes. And then the other guy is kind of...

you know, watch for by language and cues. And then they'll go back to the member and sort of circle back and on the whiteboard, what's what's in front of them and see if there's any sort of themes or things that stood out, you know, and talk to the member then about hotspots. Like there's some things where that person felt, you know, like their life was in jeopardy or they witnessed serious harm to somebody else. And then from that point, they kind of are able to divert them into like a short term process where, know, 72 hours later, they're

kind of back to work or into their more long-term process. And so one of the things that they did over the course of developing that program is they did a self-study on their program and found that over a four-year period, they had a 75 % reduction in long-term disability and workers' compensation claims for mental health.

Kevin (10:23.017)
Wow.

David (10:24.971)
So a big, big number. What it looks like up front is that short-term administration has to commit to bringing in overtime staff to cover off for those people that are put off for that short period of time. But in the back end, the long-term, their department is saving millions of dollars in having these people still being at work. And then also the benefit of their members being healthy and being able to process it healthier.

So essentially what we've done is or what we're trying to go with our reintegration is that we don't really have that short term set up. We're trying to get there through our peer support program. With the long term piece though, so I do a bunch of work with guys in that and essentially you'll go through that first initial period where we kind of assessed it and then you're gone to a clinician now and you determine, okay, these are the hotspots. This is the thing that you need to work through.

or the issue you need to work through. And then I'm gonna help you by a process called prolonged exposure therapy. And so an example that I use for everybody if I'm gonna describe this is let's say that you guys go on a run and it's coming to the structure fire and it ends up being there's a fatality in a blue house and it was an older lady that passed away. And let's say you grew up in a blue house and your mom still lives in that blue house that you grew up in.

And so for you, that call kind of seems to strike a chord or kind of gives you a traumatic stress incident where now you've personally might personalize it because it's like, that could have been my mom, right? That could have been, that could have been me. That could have been my old house. And so what I, what the reintegration process does is are the prolonged exposure therapy process does is I sort of work with guys and we'll basically titrate or like micro dose that trauma until you bring their

Kevin (12:18.943)
Hmm.

David (12:20.832)
distress down. So when they first tell you about the call their distress, it's called a SUD score. you guys ever heard of that? It stands for subjective units of distress. So if you're reliving that or you're having those nightmares, those flashbacks, it's like 10 out of 10, right? You're way up there. It's like you're right back in it. And then as we kind of micro dose this trauma, we try to bring that SUD score down and down and down and down until now.

Kevin (12:28.383)
No.

David (12:47.964)
It's just an event that happened in the past. It doesn't change that it was a negative, horrible, awful, shitty event, but it's now something that just something that happened rather than occupying your every day to day. So what that looks like is we might start by just talking about blue houses and then maybe we'll look at a picture of a blue house and then next we'll maybe we'll watch a video showing a blue house and then maybe it's driving past a blue house and then maybe we stop then.

Maybe we walk past and then maybe we go up and ring the doorbell and see if the old lady inside is still there, right? But the deal is that each time you do it, you're checking in with a member, where's that level of distress? You never want to get them up above sort of a six or seven and then you kind of just slowly work your way down, down, down. And as that micro dose kind of keeps happening, now they're building up their resiliency to it and they're recognizing maybe this is a horrible thing that happened, but it's not.

Nole (13:22.954)
you

David (13:47.483)
At the end of day, he recognized it wasn't your mom and it wasn't your blue house. Those are still there, right?

Kevin (13:52.565)
right.

Now, are they assigned like specifically one guy like you that would walk them through this process? Or is it a team on the peer support team? Or is it a clinician? How does it work like Tangeley?

David (14:05.481)
So it's a team of as far as like, I'd be the only reintegration facilitator working with a member. And then I work in cohort with their clinician, whether it's a counselor or a psychologist or whatnot. And then, know, or if there's a WCB gets involved, that sort of their care team. But yeah, I'm going to walk with this guy sort of start to finish. And the goal for that is to get them back to health.

not necessarily back to operational, but back to where they can make a decision. Do I want to continue on in this career or do I want to go some other way? But to get them out of that place where that fear or that pain has been crippling them, you know, and get them back to a place of health. So that's the reintegration side of things. And then, you know, the peer support side of things is if we circle back to that EPS model, that first 24 to 72 hours,

That's the part that I really feel like we can get a whole lot better at. And so we'd love to share some of that stuff with you guys.

I think You know, I listen that one episode you guys did with having a holquist and he has that bad night protocol That's excellent like what he's got in there a bunch of those things are really good I even I worked last night and working tonight. I did that this morning I thought I looked back on that episode and I took notes and I decided just you know I'm gonna just bang it out and see how it feels So got on for my night. Yeah jumped in the cold tub Got out did some breathing

Kevin (15:21.737)
Yeah.

Nole (15:37.311)
Love it.

Kevin (15:41.215)
Nice.

David (15:43.443)
went in, did some foundation straining in the gym, hit a quick kettlebell workout, then on with the day. Yeah, feeling good. Wait, you got a haircut, right? No? Thanks, pal. Thanks. So as far as in that first 24 to 72 hours, that's where we can make a huge difference with our members. The first two caveats though, which are really tough,

Kevin (15:50.025)
That's great.

Nole (15:50.868)
proper.

Nole (15:55.142)
I love your haircut by the way. I meant to say that earlier.

David (16:12.062)
Let me just back that up. So right now with our department, we're still working through the aspects of how do we make this fully happen. But the administration and dispatchers can tell you what are the top 10 incident types that typically lead to a traumatic stress injury. And so what we're trying to do is because we don't have officer involved shootings, we're a fire.

We're trying to get basically peer support, auto dispatch to the stations so that they're either en route or waiting outside the hall when the crews return from the call. And then we're in there and it's not so much about come to the kitchen and sit and let's have a chat. It's more so I'm here as a resource. If you guys want to chat about anything, I'm just here, right? If you don't want to chat, if you want to go and hit a workout or go to bed or have a shower or something,

by all means, go eat, whatever you gotta do. I'm just here to hang out for a couple hours and I'm gonna remind them of a few things that they probably already know and just be there as a resource. So that's kinda where we're progressing to. But the first two caveat things to challenge or that are challenging the fire service is recognizing that in that first 24 to 72 hours, if we have either caffeine or alcohol on board, stimulants or depressants, how our brain

encodes trauma is vastly different than if they're not on board. And obviously in our culture, caffeine and alcohol play big part, right? We have a tough call on the other night. Well, yeah, I don't know if they... I don't know what...

Nole (17:51.72)
Yeah, don't forget nicotine. Throw the nicotine in there. I'm sure that's not helpful.

Kevin (17:56.783)
Yeah, well, that's that's kind of a trip because when we do peer support the first thing we do is literally brew a big old pot of coffee. Yeah, let's have it. Let's go sit down and have

Nole (18:02.536)
You gotta have a cup of coffee.

David (18:03.805)
I know. I'm 100 % with you. And so I don't think it's even possible to walk in there and tell the boys, we're not having coffee. But.

Nole (18:13.554)
How does that go? Have you tried that?

David (18:16.27)
Yeah, totally. It's more so like, hey guys, can we like, let's maybe use a little bit of moderation. So instead of drinking a whole pot of coffee each, can I cut after my first cup, I'll have a glass of water. And then after my second cup, I'll a glass of water.

Nole (18:26.078)
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

Kevin (18:27.827)
Yeah. And you guys work 24-hour shifts too, right? All right. OK.

David (18:33.304)
No, we don't. We work two 10-hour days, followed by two 14-hour nights. Then we have two off. Then we do that whole set of four again, two days, two nights. And then we have six off. So it's a 16-day cycle that just repeats over and over and over.

Kevin (18:48.533)
Crazy. Crazy. And how many guys are in the department?

David (18:54.351)
1300.

Kevin (18:56.447)
Good size.

David (18:57.916)
good size. We actually have some momentum towards 24-hour shifts. We've got that coming up here I think at the end of the month. There's a big info session. There's a committee that research it all and we're at considering it, seeing what the membership wants, they want to vote for it or against it. What's your shift schedule like? guys work.

Kevin (19:19.177)
Most of the American or the West Coast departments are on 24 hour schedules. There's a variety of different 24 hour schedules. They call ours a modified Kelly where it's one on one off, one on two off, and then one on one off, one on four off. then but most departments have been making a big push to do the 4896. So you're on for two days, and you're off for four days, which we voted on and it just went nowhere. I don't think we'll ever see it in our lifetime. But to me, that seems like probably one of the better schedules.

It would be, it's rougher for the busier stations for sure, which we definitely have, like a paramedic squad station at somewhere like where Evan Hawquist works. mean, that's a guarantee you're not sleeping for two days, but it does seem like that schedule, from every guy that we talked to that is on it just is better for your health and for your family and all that kind of good stuff.

Nole (20:11.336)
Yeah, I don't want to go too far down the shift road. want to definitely come back to the first 24 to 72 hours and the things we can do better to, for the encoding of the trauma. But real quick on the shift stuff, the thing that seems to be most obvious now with what we know based on studies and just our own personal experience is that that time at home and the recovery is really what matters. So you can really do a few shifts in a row as long as you have a good block of time at home.

Kevin (20:39.358)
Yeah.

Nole (20:39.774)
to really recover and get that good sleep. So when you have a shift schedule where you do one on, one off, one on, one off, that type of thing, it's actually pretty detrimental because you're never really fully catching up. You're always in a deficit. And I'd be really curious. I can't put it together in my brain right now what you told me your schedule is, but I'd be really curious how it compares to a 24 hour or 48 that type of rotation and where the recovery is in there. those things are, mean, right.

Kevin (21:06.869)
14-hour night shifts, dude. Yeah.

Nole (21:09.29)
Right. But with any of this stuff, the peer support or the shifts, you know, you're in a big department, we're in a big department. It's a big, slow ship and any kind of movement like that is it's hard. It takes work. takes guys that are passionate about it to make it happen. All right. So when your first 24 to 72 hours, you're in the station, you're giving you guys advice. First thing is moderation, which is for cowards on coffee. That's a joke. Tongue in cheek. No alcohol.

What are the other things?

Kevin (21:39.83)
or you're just trying to moderate, right? It's because, I mean, that's the first thing somebody's a normal person is gonna wanna do if they get off a 14 hour shift, they had a tough call, they probably wanna go home and have a cocktail and maybe try to go to sleep or something, you know? And like, I just know that's what the guys do, but I know it doesn't work for me, but I know that, is it a cultural thing that you try to just encourage them to just hate the stimulants or the depressants is something that we gotta avoid in these first critical hours.

David (22:07.355)
Yeah, I think, I mean, culturally, it's very difficult, we, the way, I mean, for you guys, it would be a little bit different because you're, you guys start and finish it at 7am, is that right? So yeah, going out for drinks during the morning, drinks is a little less common. But for us, we work, I'm sure it does, for us, we work those two day shifts. And so it's very cultural, second day shift beers. That's what, that's what the after that, you get off at five o'clock.

Kevin (22:17.214)
Yeah.

Nole (22:23.966)
little less common.

Kevin (22:24.827)
It happens though.

Kevin (22:32.937)
Yeah.

David (22:36.027)
And as a crew, a lot of times you go and have beers, right? And if you have tough calls during the day and you want to go and lots of guys get pie-eyed and make bad decisions. But part of that education process in sharing about the alcohol is not just that they don't do it. I tell them what happens. So there's a famous book called The Body Keeps the Score and the author Bessel

Van der Coke, think his name, I'm not sure if I get the pronunciation right there, but he talks about how caffeine and alcohol within that first window and how the brain processes trauma and encodes trauma is completely different than if they're not on board. And what happens is the body keeps a score and then you'll get a physiological response come back later on down the road. So for example,

Kevin (23:30.047)
Right, you're just delaying it, right? You're delaying the process, right?

David (23:33.731)
Yeah, and the challenge is you don't know when it's coming back. That's the thing, right? So like one of my best buddies, he's actually a guy that I'm doing reintegration with right now. And he won't mind me sharing this, but like he's 21 years on the job, but he had seven years as a volunteer prior to that. And, you know, for example, traffic fatalities, he was on a volunteer department right near a highway. So, you know, close to hundred traffic fatalities in those first seven years that he had been to.

Nole (23:36.863)
Yeah.

Kevin (23:37.109)
Hmm.

Nole (24:02.879)
Hmm.

David (24:03.821)
as an example, one of the fires in the volunteer department are much more advanced, so you're getting fire fatalities. His way of dealing with trauma was copious Jack Daniels. And so he would do that. And now, several years later, he quit drinking about 10 years ago, he's a Christian guy, he's got a radical testimony, awesome dude, but his body just

Kevin (24:16.105)
Yeah, that's everybody's job.

David (24:33.028)
finally said, no dude, enough's enough. We're not gonna proceed anymore. And so he'd have things that would come up where he'd all of sudden be heading into night shift and feel nauseous or diarrhea or vomiting and not knowing why. And so then he goes down the road of like trying to figure out what's going on. Do I got Crohn's or IBS or gluten intolerance or something like that? Goes and checks it out. All the doctors are like, yeah, man, like.

Nole (24:55.614)
Mm-hmm.

David (25:01.324)
everything looks good. Like, I don't know what's wrong. We can't tell what's wrong with you. So then he, you know, he has to go down like the elimination diet route and be out, you know, don't eat with the guys at the fire hall because you you can't control it and trying to sort out what's going on. So he had a few years of that, just trying to figure out what's going on and then couldn't get any resolution. so then the next thing that he's still coming to work, kind of having these

Kevin (25:09.397)
Brutal.

David (25:26.945)
his physiological issues and then all of sudden he's noticing that he's getting anxiety coming. And now he's getting upset before he's going to work. A couple of times he said he actually caught himself weeping on the way to work. And he's like, something's wrong. This isn't good. I shouldn't be heading to work bawling my eyes out. So he had to take a knee and he stepped back from work for a bit and went to see a psychologist and put in a bunch of work.

Kevin (25:40.085)
Mm.

David (25:56.122)
And then that's where he and I kind of, now that I'm in this reintegration role, we get to do a bunch of that kind of work together to get him back. But he's that exact example of how that having alcohol or caffeine on board when you are going through trauma, your brain doesn't process it correctly. It doesn't encode it. And then his brain probably just said, enough's enough, we're done here. And that's where he's left off with.

Nole (26:03.508)
Hmm.

Kevin (26:23.891)
Yeah, the brain is fascinating. I think you process things in sleep, right? I think there was this neurologist that I was listening to that said in a traumatic response, like your brain actually will process and clean up some of the thoughts and visions that you might have, hey, I forgot what that happened. And you get some clarity during sleep. And I can imagine if you're drinking, we know that causes sleep disruptions and same with caffeine, right? So you're not really ever recovering, you're just delaying the process.

Nole (26:52.148)
Would it be fair, Dave, I've read that book, but it's been a long time. I actually need to revisit it. I probably read it about six or seven years ago. But the thing that I most often hear when people start talking about post-traumatic stress in particular is the bucket analogy, right? Where everybody, or a cup analogy, where everybody has a certain amount of stress that they can, you know, that can actually be contained, that your brain can handle and that eventually

David (26:52.29)
Yeah.

Nole (27:19.708)
you keep adding stressors to that and not dealing with it, it overflows and that's where the problems come from. But would it be fair to say that if you're processing the trauma correctly upfront, even though it exists, you're then not adding to that? Does that make sense?

David (27:37.836)
Yeah, totally. I would say you're definitely on the right path with that. If we want to loop back to what Evan talked about in his bad night protocol, the number one thing he said on there was a healthy lifestyle. And so to your point about recovering from the 24-hour shifts or from busyness at work is at home being able to get good sleep and good recovery.

Nole (27:39.294)
so you're dealing with it almost on the front end.

David (28:05.559)
Well, it's been proven that in shift workers, typically the actual reason why most guys end up sick or booking off or having a lot of these things that come up is not necessarily the job stress. It's that they've ran out of margin in their outside work, their outside lives. Either whether it's relational stress or financial stress or a loved one who's sick or they got a side business that they're running and that's

Kevin (28:27.061)
Yes.

David (28:34.772)
occupying a bunch of their extra capacity and so by when we have so much in those buckets whether it's it's not just stress then it makes it much more difficult to cope with something when when you get that call at work that is like essentially it feels like the straw that breaks a camel's back but it's more a combination of a bunch of things coming together.

Kevin (28:56.925)
Yeah, I'm glad you say that. I've long felt that it's not just a bad call with a kid who dies or something or the blue house because you lived in a blue house. I feel like it's the surrounding stress in your life, whether it's financial issues, issues in your marriage, stuff with your kids, you've overextended yourself financially and then you have something that I think that's it's always been my idea that I seem like most of the guys are pretty okay. I mean, we've seen the worst of humanity. We've seen trauma all the time.

And it seems like the straw that breaks a camel's back is when the guy has so much surrounding stress in his life.

David (29:34.987)
Yeah, that's totally right. And Noel, to your analogy about the bucket and the cup, I heard a really good version of that too from another guy who does first responder mental health podcasting in Canada here. And he referred to it as a trauma backpack. And the way he referred to it that way was he said that we all bring those stresses actually before we even get to the job, we've got stuff from our lives that we come to work with.

And as we add to that backpack, whether it's like grains of sand or big boulders or rocks or pebbles or whatever, that thing gets filled right up and eventually you have to take a knee. But one of the things that he really advocated for was that we have the capacity and the ability to take things out of that backpack too. It's not like there's no way to drain that or that we always have to let it overflow.

Nole (30:20.01)
Hmm.

Nole (30:28.937)
Yeah.

David (30:34.453)
Well, no, there's a lot of healthy things. Like we'll talk about some of that coming up, but like if we do certain things to try to invest in our health and well-being that can lighten that load or that can remove some of that trauma or can remove some of those boulders or some of those pebbles or those rocks that are in that bag so that you're not having to slog along this hike carrying all that weight. The other thing with that too is recognizing a lot of times we might carry that weight

But there's also a lot of guys that will sometimes take on weight that's not ours to carry. So we come out of a call and say it was a terrible kid call and we've got kids at home and know, guys will say that hits close to home, That reminds me too much of what my life is like. And so if a guy chooses to hang on to that, however,

Now he's carrying this extra weight and at end of day, it's not his weight to carry. That awful, awful, shitty thing is awful for those parents, awful for those families that have to deal with that. But at end of the day, it's not your kid, right? It's not your loved one. You can go home to them and you can love them and squeeze them and just cherish them as much as you can. But if you decide to carry the weight of that, you're just unknowingly burdening yourself with weight that's not yours to carry.

Kevin (31:48.148)
Yeah.

David (32:00.416)
So trying to help you guys recognize.

Kevin (32:00.926)
Yeah, that's a that's a developed skill, I think. I mean, you have time on Nolan, I have a little time on and I feel like in the beginning, every single one of those full arrest calls or something, you kind of just held it just kind of like and then over time, I think I think it's a developed skill and I could be wrong. don't know. I'd love to hear what you guys thought. So is that it becomes a little. I don't know, I don't hold on to it as much anymore, knowing that I can't like I think it's subconscious, but I'm like, I can't get emotionally involved in every single call that we go on.

And I feel like that's developed over time, but I remember distinctively the first time I had to put a stethoscope on a dead body to see if there was no apical pulse. And I was very weird about that or touching or looking for rigor or levity. And now I mean, I could do it and have a sandwich two seconds later. I don't know if that's developed or a custom. What are your guys thoughts on that?

Nole (32:51.55)
You're just calloused and horrible, Kevin. I'm sorry.

Kevin (32:53.393)
Now I'm just a horrible, horrible human, yeah.

David (32:58.004)
I'd agree with you, Kevin. It's absolutely a skill and you've gained the experience over time, right? And those things that maybe when you first got on the job, you saw things that just your eyes were wide open because it was such a new world, right? You weren't expecting to see these things and now you did. And some of those things you feel like you can't unsee. But I don't know about you guys.

When I talk to people, people ask me all the time, like, you see all these terrible things, it must bother you for so long. I feel like I've developed that skill, Kevin, just like you're talking about, where I can, it's like I can see it, but I don't really see it. Do know what mean? Like I'm able to, in the moment, know, like years ago I used to do roofing. You'd be up on roof of a house, putting up shingles, and you'd be out on the very corner of like a two-story roof.

Kevin (33:40.317)
I do, yeah.

David (33:54.145)
and you're trying to get that last shingle on and you know it's like over one side is like a two-story fall and you still get it you just got you're leaning out you're in a really awkward position but you got to get the job done and so you you would find a way you know if i'm looking down at the ground geez that's a long ways down that's going to distract me from getting the job done but if i focus on the task at hand i can block out all that other stuff and just get that last shingle on on that corner of the roof same with you know going on a a tough call

You know, if you're doing CPR, I'm going to focus all my energy on doing the best that I possibly can to give that patient as high quality care and attention in that moment. And I'm going try to block out a lot of the other things around them. I'm not going to memorize their facial features. I'm not going to memorize or really burn into my memory the stuff that's happening around us. More so for me, it's like, I'm just there to really focus on doing that job. And then I don't know, you know, my wife prays for me every time I go to work and I feel like God protects me a lot about that.

Kevin (34:51.295)
That's awesome.

David (34:54.109)
you that sense that a lot of those things don't get burnt into my memory per se, where I'm able to like let go of it. Do you guys, would you agree or what do you guys think?

Kevin (35:03.285)
I think the only lingering thing for me is sometimes smells like, the smell of somebody burning or the smell of vomit in a full arrest or the smell of death is very distinctive, you know what mean? And sometimes those smells will either like linger in your nostril or on your, I don't know. For me, that's the only thing is sometimes the smells is like, that'll bring me back or trigger me in a weird way where I'll have bad thoughts or something. But I don't like hold onto the visual stuff.

Nole (35:03.528)
Yeah.

Nole (35:28.17)
That's really interesting because yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really interesting because what Dave's talking about there, I really, do identify with and I think I do the same thing subconsciously because there is a way to be there, to be present, to be paying attention enough to do your job, but not to take in all those other external factors that would become potentially part of a traumatic memory, right? Where there'd be those triggers or the memory of the people's faces in the room, which I've certainly done.

But now, but I think that's earlier in my career, the smell thing is interesting because that's probably one of the senses that you really don't, you can't really control that, right? You can control what you're focused on with your eyes and what you're kind of doing with your, with your brain, but you're, I don't know anybody that can control the sense of smell. It's a little bit too far removed from the controllable parts of your, your senses, but that's interesting. Something that a captain told me, I don't know how long ago, a long time ago about

tough calls was he said, just remember that, that we didn't create the problem. Like the, it's, it's kind of back to what you're saying where it's not your burden to, to carry whatever that traumatic thing is, because as callous as it may sound, that's not your family member and you're there to do a job. And if you can, if you can make a positive impact, awesome. You're going to most of the time you do your best and it doesn't come out well.

Maybe not most of the time that meant to be fair, but it feels like that sometimes. So just recognizing in that slight mindset shift of, know, I didn't create the problem. I'm just here to do my best and all I can do is, is my best with what I have available to me. And that was helpful for me. There are still definitely calls where it's still, it still gets to me, but I am right there with you, Kevin. was joking earlier that the, the full arrest that would have

that did like I'm right there with you. do remember the first time I ever had to, you know, print out somebody and go through those steps. Like I can remember that. But since then I've done it hundreds of times and I don't, you know, I'm not, I don't remember the last time I've done it because I've learned to, let that stuff go. We've gone way off the reservation. Yeah. Go back.

Kevin (37:42.536)
What I want to go back because Dave you were talking about the backpack and some ways to like remove some of those things. I wondered if you could talk about those things you mentioned before like a like Evan Hawquist that night protocol, which I think is great. Obviously caffeine and alcohol caffeine is one that I I'm taking away from you. Obviously, if there's something going on, maybe should avoid that.

which is we know we just need to practice, are there any other things that you can see like within let's say the first 72 hours of something going on that might be helpful?

David (38:18.245)
Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, when we're talking, first of all, about lightening that backpack, or trying to take some of those things out, you know, get some of those good health practices, but also going to see a clinician, you know what I mean? Getting outside, like you guys always talk about, you know, getting in the sun, getting your breath work, some cold exposure, doing hard things, building resilience, those things when you're doing having, you know, a good

healthy lifestyle that already automatically, like when you take that time to prioritize your health and well-being, that's moving stuff out of that backpack. Even that on itself, right? For stuff that's in there for deeper down or for some heavier things and that's usually where connecting with others or being in relationship or going to a psychologist or a counselor or somebody that can give you, help you unpack some of those things.

Those are ways that you would really would look to enlighten that backpack.

Kevin (39:23.637)
How's the attitude up there for when you do come in or when we suggest a clinician? Is it something like, dude, I don't want to talk to this guy, or they see you come in and they know he's a peer support guy, or is it generally more accepted that, we need to do some work here?

David (39:42.226)
I know where you're going with it and I think that that statement is starting to change a little bit. When it comes to talking to guys about going to see a psychologist or a counselor, a lot of my conversation with those guys around that is about digging your well before you're thirsty. So rather than going to waiting until you're in crisis to go find a psychologist is while you're healthy,

or while you're in a good place, that's the time to go out and find that psychologist or to create a relationship with the clinician. Then any good clinician worth their money is going to give you at least a 15 to 30 minute telephone interview for free. They're not going to charge you for that. you can, what I suggest to guys is I give them, I have a list of about, I took a years ago, a course from a company called Wounded Warrior and they gave me a list of questions to ask.

Kevin (40:14.953)
Yes.

David (40:40.753)
clinicians when trying to, you know, like an interview question, interview questionnaire. Here's 10 good questions to ask the clinician and to find out if they're going to be a good fit. And so what I recommend to guys is all, if they need referrals, I'll refer them to, you know, four or five or six different clinicians, say, go call these guys, take the time and set up that appointment while you're healthy. And then find out if it's going to be a good fit. Find out if you guys vibe well. Find out if you have things in common. Because

Nole (40:44.906)
Hmm.

David (41:10.243)
If you don't do that and you wait until you're now in crisis, mental health is only getting worse out there, right? Our society is going downhill. So there's more more demand for psychologists, but the wait time to get into one is two to three to four weeks sometimes. It can be a long time. So firemen are stubborn. Most of us, by the time we're ready to say, okay, I need help. I want to go to psychologist. It's way too late. We should have been there a long time ago.

So we're going to sell for whoever can get us in on short notice. And then that person might not be a good fit. That person might be a brutal fit. And so now that guy goes to that one psychologist and it's a crappy experience. Well, what is he going to do? He's going to say, yeah, I tried psychologists. They're all a bunch of quacks. Not for me. Right. So that's, that's where I think some of the stigma has come, you know, where, uh, when it's not a good fit. So.

Nole (41:41.588)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (41:56.136)
Yeah, doesn't work for me. Yeah.

David (42:08.918)
I'll often be encouraging guys to try to be proactive. That's what I mean by dig your well before you're thirsty is go out while you're healthy, get that introduction to that psychologist, find what's a good fit and then say them, hey, look, like this is my career. This is my job. There's going to be some moments come up in the future where I might be in crisis. I might be in a bad spot. Can you guarantee me or lock me in so that I can get priority treatment just given the nature of my job? And that person, typically those guys,

Nole (42:34.889)
Hmm.

David (42:38.084)
They're going to have some margin. They're going to say, yeah, I can stay late an hour today to get you in, you know, rather than just being some random guy calling them off the street because you've now got a relationship with them that that probably is going to curry a bit of favor with them as well as now they know what you were like when you're healthy and when you present with them now and you're not, they've got something to compare to a good baseline.

Nole (43:00.392)
Mmm, man.

Kevin (43:01.001)
Yeah, I love that. I really like it in the sense, marital counseling as well, it's like, hey, if we waited too long, she's ready to leave, that's not the time to go get marital counseling, you know? And I feel like when you're well, that's the best time to have like open communication, you can work on things. And I think sometimes having a third party is so beneficial in marital counseling. And you're so right. And I think that the time to develop a relationship and just know the nature of our job is that on a structure fire is not the time to say,

this is where I'm gonna get fit. I'm gonna use, no, you have to do the workout beforehand. It's gotta be part of your lifestyle. It's part of one of your operations is to maybe check in with somebody on a monthly or quarterly basis just to have that relationship. I think it's great.

Nole (43:45.224)
Yeah. And the difficulty in all of this, whether it's, you know, what you're talking about right now with, finding the right clinician upfront and doing that pre-planning or whether it's doing the right things upfront with the traumatic issues in your life or on the job is it, it's hard to get guys to buy into that stuff, especially if you're the, you know, if you're the guy where Jack Daniels is working for you or whatever it is in your life.

It's hard to go to that guy and say, man, you need to do things differently because in that moment, like it's working or with the, with the psychiatrist, it's like, well, I'm okay right now. So it's difficult to get that buy-in, but it definitely seems to me in the experience here on our job that in order to get that buy-in, what you have to do is just, you know, you got to do CE, you got to do continue education. It's got to be something that you're talking about all the time. And it takes, it takes a trustworthy guy, right?

Kevin (44:16.746)
Right.

Nole (44:41.086)
I want to balance this and not say things that sound like I'm super negative about peer support that I'm around and I'm not. there is an aspect of peer support where there are guys, at least in my circle, that are there for promotional point reasons or for other reasons. that creates, it just makes it more difficult, I think. And I think what that means is that for guys like you who are involved,

David (45:01.583)
Bye.

Nole (45:09.747)
You just have to be more proactive. You have to be more of, you know, who you are, where you're a good dude. can go on the station and the guys are going to gravitate to you. We need more of that because to get through to those guys who are using Jack Daniels and it's working or who don't want to go talk to a clinician early, you just got to keep reinforcing the message, reinforcing the message. And the more it gets normalized, the more guys will jump on board. And we are heading in that direction.

I think I told you the story of my first peer support experience on the job when we were up at Hume.

and

David (45:45.443)
Yeah, I don't fully remember, but.

Nole (45:48.082)
Maybe I didn't. It's something I've talked about on the podcast before. I'll just share it real quick, but this was early on. So 15 years ago, we had a call. It was a full arrest of an infant and it was super traumatic for me because of my past, but the captain activated peer support, had them come in and they came in and was set around the table and asked if anybody wanted to talk and, nobody was in, everybody was out. The peer support thing was still young and people were, but they were just out on it in general.

And so it was a really weird kind of awkward experience for me because I did feel like I needed to talk about it, but I was also new enough on the job that I didn't want to be the only guy to raise my hand. And it was clear that the other guys in the room were not on board. So I kept my mouth shut. I've seen it change. It's a lot more accepted now. And our, our peer support team has, has grown and done a lot of training and learning. So it is very different now. It's a lot more accepted than it was back then. And, you know, that's just a change in.

know, say 10 short years. So that is encouraging. And, you know, just a reminder to us that we have to continue to do the work. And then when those things come up, we got to speak up and we got to be an advocate about the right things to do.

David (47:00.846)
Yeah, I think you said a lot of good things there about the culture and I think really trying to normalize this kind of conversation, like when it comes to doing that type of good work. And the more, so we start trying to talk with our recruits, even in, I think you guys call it a tower or academy, getting in there and letting them know this is how we're trying to process trauma. This is.

you know, getting to see a clinician right out of the gate. Our department recently has made the move to, we have an annual medical checkup, but we've also added in, it's not a mandatory thing, but an availability for an annual psychological checkup at no cost to the members. they can, we're trying to tell the recruits, go away in your first year and get a baseline set up on both the psychological and the medical. Then the rest of your career,

Kevin (47:47.946)
Very cool.

David (47:57.87)
you that you can track and see changes that happen over time. And so the more that you start talking to them as they're coming in as new recruits, you know, that you can start changing that culture and start normalizing that conversation. And I think, you know, to your point, Noel, with being the new guy at the table in that setting, you know, as an officer, one of the things we're trying to change or trying to get away from

is that old school mentality of you get back in the truck after a tough call and you look over the driver and look at the guys in the backseat. You good? You good? You good? Okay, yeah, we're all good. Yeah, let's get back in service. If we can get to the officers and start talking to them a little bit about if an officer is willing to be vulnerable first, that creates space and saves space.

Kevin (48:38.397)
Yeah, good, bro. Good. Good.

David (48:57.549)
for the rest of the crew to feel that it's okay to be vulnerable. And so as an officer, even if you weren't rattled by that, making a statement like, boys, like that call was messed up. I'm feeling a little rattled right now. How are you guys holding up? Some of that effect, right? And just giving room for them to talk and to share, that creates that environment or that attitude of where it's like, okay, no, we can talk about this.

Probie who maybe wouldn't normally speak up or you guys call him a boot. That guy wouldn't normally speak up, but now maybe he will because he thinks, okay, these guys are actually open to me sharing my thoughts and my opinions. And so if that leader is willing to go first, the other really challenging thing is like, our job, I don't know about you guys, but we've been really proactive in the last few years at getting really good at doing physical.

decontamination after a fire so do you guys have more than one set of gear?

Kevin (49:58.581)
We suck at that. Yeah.

We do. We have two sets of gear and we do have a decon policy, but I think the majority of us are so busy that it's just like, Hey, get in service, get onto the next call.

David (50:13.665)
Yeah.

Nole (50:14.366)
This isn't official, but it's the most ignored policy we have. That's Noel's opinion. It's not official. Sorry.

Kevin (50:18.409)
Probably.

David (50:22.413)
So like we've been really trying to push that idea of Decon and again, it varies how much guys buy into it and not. And so, you know, we're trying to do really good job with physical Decon, but we have to also get the mindset of doing some psychological Decon. So we come back from a call like that and we're looking for hotspots, things that are stuck on our gear, not so much on our gear, but stuck in our mind.

Nole (50:49.642)
Hmm.

David (50:50.541)
and what can we do to kind of start rinsing some of that stuff off. And so one of things that we're trying to advocate for as far as a real culture change is, you know, with that decon, we often talk about shower within the hour, you know, getting back, swap out your gear, getting the truck ready to go, and then going to keep the truck out of service, so the guys jump in the shower and get cleaned up. And it's really difficult when you're at

busier stations because guys are very much duty bound and feel like we got to get back in service right away. We got to get back out there and serve our community. But you have to look at the mental aspect of it is no different than a physical injury. Like if you come back from being up on a roof and you know had something got jammed up or you got nicked up, you got a bit of an injury, well you're not gonna, you've got a broken leg, you're not gonna go back right in service right away. You need to get that thing set properly. It has to heal properly.

And so normalizing that fact that sometimes being exposed to trauma can lead to mental injury. We need to try to attend to that in the short term. We don't want to send people back out there that are broken. So trying to take even an hour as a crew to give the guys some space, some capacity to try to process that trauma so that they're not running right back out for another traumatic call. And now we're just doing, we're just compound interest. We're just making it worse.

Kevin (52:17.845)
Yeah, that's great. I think some of the most beneficial ones I've seen is just the captain said, he told the chief, we're going out of service for 30 minutes to an hour. And then just sit around and do exactly what you said, essentially, without the whiteboard. They just everyone just kind of verbally vomited like what they did on the call or how it's what it was and what. And I think that sometimes that's all they needed. They just needed to get that out. They needed to do it. And then I think as a good officer, as a good captain, if something was lingering, then it was

that's maybe a trigger to pull to try to get the guy some help or maybe bring in peer support or do something different. sometimes the guys just need to verbally just process what they just did, you know, and sometimes it just sit around the table and hearing everybody's perspective on it is the best way to start.

David (53:04.469)
Totally.

Nole (53:05.258)
Dave, can we do this? Cause we've, we've gone through some of the points that you bring to guys in the first and give them some advice for the first 24 to 72 hours. And each at each point we've gone down an awesome road and talked about a lot of details, but the Evan Hawquist example is perfect where you got the bad night protocol and we talked through it, but you really just need a moment in the podcast where there's a list. Would you, would you just assume that Kevin and I have just come off a bad call and you've showed up and you just give us your advice for the first

72 hours, the do's and don'ts.

David (53:35.689)
Yeah, you bet. Yeah, we haven't hit on the five main things, so I'll do that. Yeah, you betcha. So as we would run it, like the PeerSports back, I'm back in the hall, you guys come in and I'm just chatting with you guys. Some guys maybe want to talk about it, maybe don't. And my job really just remind you some things that you already know. We've hopefully had this conversation about the alcohol and the caffeine. The next thing is like,

Nole (53:40.818)
Yeah, we haven't made it to my favorite one yet.

You

David (54:04.715)
You know, your brain is dysregulating. You've just been through trauma. We need to try to help you regulate. need self-regulation. So we need to get you back to homeostasis. There's five things that you can do really quickly in those first 24 to 72. They're going to make a massive difference in helping restore that regulation. And the first is hydration. Second is nutrition. Third is exercise. Fourth is sleep. And the last one, most favorite, is sex.

Nole (54:32.457)
you gave it away. I was gonna let him guess.

Kevin (54:33.301)
boom. The business time.

David (54:37.524)
That's right. So if we can get, you know, tackle those five things in that first short period of time, it makes a massive, massive difference again in restoring homeostasis in our body, restoring regulation, helping us get back and feeling ourselves again and feeling kind of normal again. And so like we can dip into each one of those things, but obviously like you go on a run and man, hydration, right? So.

Our bodies get dehydrated super fast. We're wearing those superhero costumes. We're out doing the things, right? We're sweating. And then not to mention now we've got a dehydrated brain. So we need to get a good amount of hydration in there. Get some electrolytes going. Try to restore some of that natural fluid in your body, which is going to also help to start flushing out some of the toxins, right? I often think about trauma similar to like, you you get that lactic acid during a workout.

and you want to get that flushed out of your body, while there's hormones and endorphins that are rushing through your body that are the negative, the fallout of that trauma. And so some of hydration can really start help flushing some of that as well. Same with the exercise, right? We get our cardiovascular system pumping. We do, whether it's a lift or some kind of cardio, we get that heart muscle working and circulating everything through our bodies. Again, that's going to also help flush and help kind of detox some of that out.

Nole (55:46.623)
Hmm.

David (56:03.538)
nutrition, if we can avoid those sugary sweets, artificial foods, stuff that's not real food, and start putting in some quality nutrients into our body, that's also going to help restore that homeostasis, restore that natural feeling of the body. And then that pushes us then to sleep. And that's when we do the best restoration, the best healing. If we can knock those things out and get to sleep,

That's an amazing, amazing start. And then if we have a significant other or a loved one, you know, that physical connection, that physical touch, you know, and the release, right? Those things are so beneficial for also restoring the natural endorphins, natural hormone work in your body. So those are, that would be, you know, your top five things to get done. And then,

course those other two with the caffeine and the alcohol.

Kevin (57:03.999)
Fantastic. What's it like as far as you integrating your faith into the peer support realm? know sometimes that's one of the reasons, or two of the reasons I think Noel and I started the Fire Up program is we wanted to be more proactive, talk to guys before stuff hit the fan and give them some tools. And to be vulnerable ourselves to show that, there's strong men that have also gone through things that still struggle and that we still need help and encourage that. And then the second thing is that we could share

our faith where sometimes that was not as acceptable on the peer support.

David (57:42.249)
I would say that I haven't had a ton of guys approach me through the peer support side of things about faith. But when it's guys that know you, like I try to live as authentically as I can within a fire hall. You know, part of the mandate from firefighters for Christ is to encourage firefighters to live their lives for Jesus Christ. And so I just try to, you know, the way that I interact with crews, the way I interact with firefighters, the way that I interact with patients.

I try to let that be my example, try to let Christ shine through the way that I live. And then, you know, as I build relationships with guys, that more and more of that faith kind of comes out. And that's, I would say, so less than the formal peer support setting where the faith has come out. More so it's in a one-on-one relational where guys will call you off shift or, you know, and they'll ask if you want to go for coffee or you hear

through peer support you hear about somebody and I'll reach out to them and connect, let's go for a coffee, right? Let's go find out. And, you know, a lot of times where the question comes up a lot of times is a guy who maybe doesn't have a faith. He might say, well, like, I don't understand how, you know, how do you process this in such a way? Or what do you look to? How do you seem so peaceful after this really difficult thing?

Nole (58:42.474)
Hmm.

David (59:08.898)
And that is like kind when you get those open doors to kind of say, well, for me, from my experience, this is what has really worked for me. And this is how that has worked for me and what's been beneficial about it. And then if they want to pursue more down that road, then you can go down the road. But I definitely, I'm not trying to proselytize or witness a guy's all the time. It's more so just like in true relationship.

Nole (59:36.798)
Yeah, I find that that's the, think culturally, or at least down here, it's, you know, we work for the government. So there's not supposed to be any religious talk, you know, we're supposed to be separate from all that. But when it comes to the relational side of it, it's, it's going to be maybe not necessarily accepted in the sense that they're going to just agree with you and jump on board with what you believe. But I've never had a situation where.

when there's an opportunity to talk about it and you do talk about it in the context of like what you just said, like for me, this is where I'm at. This is what I believe. And this is how this helps me process that. Nobody freaks out about that. And the, think what we sometimes envision and what makes guys hesitant to share that stuff is you envision what might happen if you were in the firehouse, the fire hall, as I, as you guys call it, I like that. But especially if you're in a position as an officer and you start.

you know, just going after the guys and evangelizing them, just, you know, unsolicited. Like that is going to have a response where guys are going to, they're going to probably, there are going to be guys that are going have a negative response to that. But that's not even close to the same thing as you're in a, you're in a situation, you're talking about it and it comes up and you have the opportunity to say, well, this is what I believe in. This is how that affects me. And guys, guys will hear that and they'll take that in and they may or may not.

want to know more, but that's okay. It doesn't really matter, but they're not going to be in a position where, at least in my experience, where they're going to just tell you, know, pound sand, how dare you, that type of thing.

David (01:01:15.109)
Yeah, I think that, you know, they're not just in the fire hall, but in society in general, that there's people out there that have been hurt by religion. And I think, you know, sharing with people, if I'm talking to them about my faith, I very much focus on Jesus and how much he has made a difference in my life and how having a relationship with him changes everything.

Nole (01:01:24.308)
Hmm.

David (01:01:42.63)
putting the religious and the rules and those things aside, just getting to know who Jesus is and how much he loves you and how much he cares about you is so much more meaningful and more powerful. And where people will get their backup is kind of if they've had bad experiences with church or bad experiences with Christian people or whatever religion people. And then they create stereotypes in their mind and they sort of

form these rigid opinions about it. And I feel like very much so I just want to talk to them more so about what is their heart? Like what is behind some of that stuff? And just I try to be more curious in those conversations, like asking questions and then trying to probe and see what comes out of it.

Kevin (01:02:26.505)
Hmm.

Nole (01:02:31.518)
Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Kevin (01:02:33.863)
Dave, let me ask you about, mean, you've been married to your wife, Brandy, for 23 years, I think you said. And I often say like, the wife is kind of the canary in the coal mine because we can almost fake it at work. You wear a costume, you're on the war rig, and then you're offered like your six days or our four days or whatever. And then the wife's the first one to seize the issues. Has there been a time in your career where you didn't recognize something that was going on or maybe that your wife was like,

we got to do something different or something's up.

David (01:03:05.735)
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, well, actually, yeah, thinking about some of the episodes that you guys have talked about in the past. During that COVID times, know, Noel, you went through your battles and kind of shared a bit about that. I had a very similar experience to you, not in the sense that my job was put in jeopardy, but I was reprimanded and...

put on leave a little bit and had a couple of things happen. And prior to that, you know, there's, was a very tense time, right? And my wife definitely is got an amazing ability to put her fingers on the pulse. To your point, Kev, you know, as far as the Canary in the Comb line and where really, you know, she, she kind of just called me out and she was like, why are you being such an asshole like you're?

You sound like this great guy at school or at work, but you come home and you treat us like trash. And it's one of those things where you get that thing where you've got the sleep deprivation, you're trying to work through trauma, you're trying to process trauma, and you end up taking out on the people that you love the most, right? They're the ones that are closest to you, so you know what hurts them.

Nole (01:04:09.066)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:04:09.949)
I've heard that before.

Nole (01:04:11.827)
Mm-hmm.

David (01:04:30.981)
For me, more than anything, I would get tired and I'd get grumpy. And you walk in and the house is a mess or the kids are doing stuff and you feel like kicking the dog and just like you get frustrated. And so my wife called me out on that. And then the other thing that was really, really tough to take was because we have night shifts, my kids kind of got to figuring out after time, if dad has a bad night.

it's probably not going to be a good day for us. And so I had a couple of times where I noticed my kids asking me, I come home from work and they're one of the first questions was like, so dad, how was your night shift? Did you guys have a good night or was it? And they just want to know what kind of day it's going to be because it's going to be happy dad or is it going to be angry dad? And so, yeah, to your point about the wives understanding and the kids recognizing that,

Kevin (01:05:15.135)
Just walking on eggshells, yeah.

Nole (01:05:15.176)
Hmm. Hmm.

David (01:05:30.725)
I found that yeah, I was getting sort of angry and kind of reacting poorly and During that Kobe time I had like I said kind of like no I got reprimanded for something that really was it was a I was just standing for my convictions and So it took some time off of work and I used that time to go and actually do exactly what I said earlier I found a psychologist and went and I got

went and met with him a number of times and he gave me some really good tools to start to apply and just sort of change perspective on some things and to recognize some of the negative habits that I had picked up and started doing. And then it really also encouraged me to dive into that whole, a bit more of that health and wellness side of things of like, okay, I need to be selfish a little bit to take care of myself, to make sure that I'm able to be fully available and give my best.

my family and the people that mean the most to me.

Nole (01:06:31.178)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:06:32.809)
Yeah, that's great. I failed miserably this morning. I got off the ship. We got up a few times and then it's not nothing that too crazy, but it was enough for me to be and then drove home in traffic in LA for two hours. And the first thing on my mind was that I wanted to make like this. I had these fresh berries and I know I had this protein powder and this peanut butter. I want to make this fresh smoothie. It was in my mind the whole time driving home. And I got home and I cannot find the blender. And I'm like.

Nole (01:06:57.266)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:06:58.485)
I said hello to my wife and I went straight to the kitchen. trying. I'm like, where's the blender? You know, and she's like, are you gonna give me a hug and say hi? Obviously you had a pretty bad night. And there's like, know what I mean? Like, and it's funny because you know, the blender at the station or at the hall is at the same place for the last 38 years, it's never moved. And it's just like the littlest thing. Like I think we're trying to like organize in our brain a little bit of chaotic or something that if something moves in my house, I'm like, what is the problem? You know what mean?

But I think I need to do that work. I think I do think that they bear the brunt of some of the things that we see, even though it's not a traumatic call. It's just maybe sleep deprivation or grumpiness or you worked hard and you're tired. And that I think that sometimes we need to give them grace and explain quite a bit like a communicating. But I don't know if you have any strategies of reiterating if you had two night shifts in a row, do you have a strategy to reintegrate into the family with your three kids and your wife?

David (01:07:58.668)
Yeah, you know what, that's actually a really good topic. I hadn't written down to talk to you guys about, but I think this is also will tie in nicely to this. So our department had something. We had an external contractor that developed a course for us, not just us, but in general that we adopted and we ran through it as a training module. It was called before operational stress. And there's a lot of really good points in that. But one of the things that I

like that I took away from it was this idea of functional disconnection and functional reconnection. And so just like my example earlier about being on the corner of the roof and being able to lock in your focus, as firefighters, the nature of our job, it demands our focus and our attention and that we cannot be getting emotional on a call. We need to be able to turn off that emotion and block out all that crap that's happening around us and

Nole (01:08:52.031)
Mm-hmm.

David (01:08:58.229)
attend to the patient, attend to the victim, attend to the situation at hand and not be cowering in fear or not be breaking down and crying. We have to set all that stuff aside. And it's functional and it's to be on task, right? So we functionally disconnect from our emotions in order to achieve a task at hand. And we're all, the most part, alpha personalities, for the most part, we're all able to do that really well. That's a

aspect of a good firefighter being able to set that set myself aside because I'm here to serve What we suck at in general is reconnecting after with our emotions So like that part earlier when I was talking about coming home and feeling angry at the kids or wanting to kick the dog Or you can't find the blender like you've you possibly Kevin I'm not gonna speak for you, but for myself I Would come home and I'm still disconnected from my emotions. I'm not I'm not there and my you know,

Kevin (01:09:37.383)
Hmm.

Nole (01:09:37.48)
Hmm.

David (01:09:57.442)
my wife and kids want to relate on a completely different level than what I'm relating on at work. And so, the best way, so in that training we learned, okay, well, not only do we to be able to disconnect, we have to be able to reconnect. What's the best way to do that? The best way to do that is through relationship. And so, that can be as easy as when you get back in that truck with that captain, talking to the guys about the call a little bit, and engaging in relationship with your crew.

Kevin (01:10:02.003)
Yeah.

David (01:10:25.836)
Like that's one thing that puts us so far ahead of law enforcement or members, people that are in like either a medic, whether maybe just two people or whether working on their own. We get back in the truck, I don't know what your staffing is like, but we have four guys in every truck. So we get back in, now you got three buddies right there that you can start talking to and regain relationship. That's where like our black humor kicks in, right guys? Guys tell a funny joke like, can you believe how bad that guy's?

Nole (01:10:49.417)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:10:52.501)
Mm.

David (01:10:55.68)
that guy smelled, right? Or how, how, you know, filthy that order house was, or how many cats are in there, Kevin, I know you like cats. Yeah, so relationship is the best way that we can sort of reconnect with our emotions. And so if you want, as far as coming home strategies, you know, try to do that before you leave the hall, even is reconnect with your guys, you know, have give each other a bro hug, whatever you got to do to just kind of start that out.

Nole (01:11:00.618)
you

Kevin (01:11:03.936)
I hate

David (01:11:25.824)
And then intentionally, I know you guys have long commutes, intentionally on your commute now, start doing things that are gonna be beneficial for yourself to decompress, to get back into that self-regulation so that when you get in the house, now you know, okay, I'm showing up for these guys, I've kind of processed the stuff that I need to process, and I'm ready to be the best dad, the best husband that I can be, and be able to do that.

Nole (01:11:50.59)
Hypothetical question for you. So there's this guy, he works at the fire hall and he's had a bad shift. He's super frustrated with the guys he works with. It's been a bad day. He's got an hour long commute back up to the mountain. It's hypothetical. Is constant, is just like loud blaring death metal in his ears, the whole drive, is that good or is that bad? Like what's the consensus on this?

Kevin (01:12:03.029)
This is hypothetical completely.

David (01:12:14.625)
Well, it depends, I suppose, depends what death metal does for you and how you respond. Some people might take that death metal and it calms them down, it just gets them in a good place. Other people, it maybe takes them to a place they shouldn't go. I would just say it depends on how it affects you.

Nole (01:12:17.802)
Okay, okay. I'm liking this answer.

Nole (01:12:30.172)
Mmm.

Nole (01:12:34.89)
Fair. Good answer.

Kevin (01:12:35.413)
Yeah, I had it.

David (01:12:35.733)
What does it do to you when you listen to Death Metal?

Nole (01:12:39.966)
well actually I really like it. And usually if it's the proper stuff, if it's sleeping giant, for example, or maybe some impending doom, it's really positive because the message behind it is about Jesus. So it's awesome. But there are other bands that I listened to that I for sure know I have to stay away from. They're good for crushing dead lifts, but they're not good for a drive home when I have to go reintegrate. do. And I do know that.

It's an interesting thing. I don't want to go too far down this road, there's an interesting aspect of at least my brain that if I'm kind of in that mode where I'm angry, which happened a lot during COVID, I got super angry during that phase. I kind of want to stay there. There's an aspect of it where I do want to put on knocked loose, which is just pissed off and I wouldn't recommend to anybody, but I kind of want to, I kind of want to stay in that, in that mode. And I've done enough long drives home and reintegration.

Kevin (01:13:22.965)
Yeah.

Nole (01:13:37.096)
wrong that I know that's not the answer, which is why I asked the question. But yeah, I'm with you. I wouldn't always say that aggressive music is bad depending on how you react to it. But you got to be aware of it. You do for sure.

Kevin (01:13:50.39)
Yeah, I had a therapist tell me that she said she encouraged me to have no coffee and to listen to instrumental music on my hour and a half drive home. And it's really frustrating because I think we definitely I want to be elevated. I want to be like jacked up most of the time. That's me. don't like it. So I do notice I'm not great at it. But when I do do that, I don't come in as hot and don't.

Nole (01:14:01.268)
What? No coffee?

Nole (01:14:08.255)
Yeah.

David (01:14:15.393)
you

Kevin (01:14:17.043)
yell for the blender is hot if I'm like listening to that. And I noticed like if I'm listening to any sort of like news or political stuff, and I have the car, I'm an a-hole, you know what mean? Like I definitely need like to do something different on the ride home than just having coffee, no food and listening to like something that's going to irritate me. I have to, I have to do something different.

Nole (01:14:24.586)
Mmm.

Nole (01:14:39.624)
Yeah, I found out a long time ago. I've unplugged from a lot of the political podcasts and stuff and news, but part of that was because I would come home and that's what I would have listened to on my whole drive. so immediately that's what's in my brain. And so I come, I come and I check in with my wife and that's, that's what I want to talk about. Can you believe this happened? Can you believe they're trying to pass this bill or whatever outrage and lo and behold, she's not interested and.

It's not effective. It's not good. So for sure, for me, that's one of the things that I have learned to avoid on those drives home. If I want to successfully reintegrate when I get home, which I do generally.

David (01:15:24.648)
Like I might, I'm fortunate. My commute at best is maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes tops on a, on a busier day. but the, one of the things that I, I, I'm not good at this necessarily, or I don't put this into practice. I don't know where I heard about it, but some guys, even if they do listen to whatever podcast or the news or something that puts them maybe a bit off, one of, one guy gave me advice of like,

Kevin (01:15:30.037)
Beautiful.

David (01:15:50.624)
At least the last thing he does before he goes in and out is he gets in the garage, the vehicle in park and then takes five minutes to just decompress there. You know what I mean? Like y'all, whether it's doing breath work or doing whatever he's going to do to kind of push away what he needs to push away so that he can focus on his family. So I'm not great at doing that. I try to just, as I'm driving home, do the decompression. But that's another tool that I've heard is good.

Nole (01:15:58.516)
Hmm, yeah.

Kevin (01:16:18.165)
That's good stuff. How did you get fired up on this? How did you get into the peer support realm?

David (01:16:26.112)
I'd say honestly, it just came about from really being interested in caring for members through that Firefires for Christ opportunity. I think from there, you know, the relational side of like caring for members and getting to know them better and then also stepping into like an officer role. So we're a little bit different in the way that our department operates. We don't do a promotional exam or a

emotional process the way that you guys do. We're a seniority based fire department. So just as that big wheel turns, you kind of gain seniority and eventually you get to the top of the mountain. So the last five years or so, I've been what's called a firefighter qualified or a senior firefighter qualified. And that qualification is a class that we take. have to go through that process, but then you're now qualified to act as an officer.

And so I've been like a substitute teacher for the last five years where I fill it in, you know, at different stations around the city when guys are off on vacation or holiday or whatnot. So it's good in that you get a lot of varied experiences. You get to be on different trucks all over the city, all kinds of different apparatus and different crews. But it is also challenging because you don't have a home. You know, you may be able to get in station for

maybe three or four blocks or maybe even a block of four months. But for the most part, you're on the move. What becomes challenging with that is you don't get as deeply into the relationships with the crews because you're on the move so much more. And then you also get the challenge of, I'm on this crew and I don't really know anybody here. What if the shit is a fan?

Who are my go-to's? Who are my guys that I know that are gonna be a beast or a savage? And who are the guys that are gonna maybe not be tip of the spear? I need this guy doing something else. And so you really, with crews, you gotta really try to be quickly to get an assessment of at least a gut feeling of which guys are gonna be what, and then you gotta roll with that. it makes us very good at being able to improvise and adapt and overcome. And then on the fire ground, you gotta figure it out.

David (01:18:50.59)
But now, you know, I'm promoted to captain, so I've got a position and I've got a home station and a home crew. And so now a lot of those lessons and things that I've been talking about today, I can really put that more into practice. The part of, I guess, stepping into that leadership piece as an officer and acting as an officer, that's where I really just I think I'm more gravitated towards this. want to be there and be a better leader. I want to be a better

captain and mentor to these guys. And as I learned more about these tools, I really decided this is where I want to, I can be an educator as well. So I've been able to bounce around, acting at all these different halls and I share this information with our guys and be able to tell them, here's some ways that we can process trauma. Here's how we can get better at doing these things.

Kevin (01:19:29.845)
Mm-hmm.

David (01:19:46.822)
So that's one of the benefits, I guess, to get into Bounce Run. And that's something that really just developed over the last number of years.

Nole (01:19:55.259)
Can I shift gears? This is something that I wanted to ask you about when we were at Hume, but we were actually talking about real stuff every time we were talking that was important, so I didn't bring this up. we're at end, we're at the kind of the, what is probably the tail end of this podcast. So I'm going to ask you this question. As a Canadian, as a Canadian fire captain, you've had some interaction with us Americans, some American fire guys.

Or even just Americans in general, like what are some things that we do down here that you think are just ridiculous, comical, you don't understand, maybe you think they're stupid, like what do you got? You got anything?

David (01:20:36.221)
Well, the first thing I won't actually the first thing. This will start with me first. When you guys talk about the station that you're at, you say I'm at 13 or 33. Well, yeah, like I guarantee there's got to be some history behind that that's kept it going. But what's the deal?

Nole (01:20:40.158)
Just go for it. Just let it rip. We got thick hides.

Kevin (01:20:51.314)
Yes, the plural.

Nole (01:20:51.978)
66s.

Nole (01:21:00.478)
Nobody knows.

Kevin (01:21:03.615)
Yeah, I don't.

David (01:21:03.643)
Nobody knows.

Nole (01:21:03.732)
Do you know Kevin? you know?

Kevin (01:21:06.197)
I think it's because at some point there was different apparatus. It'd be like in New York, first example would be ladder 19 and engine 33 in the same house. And I heard allegedly, and I could be totally wrong. Somebody is going to fact check this and I hope they do. That that was like, hey, I'm at 33 engine. So they call it 33s, but out of station 19. I don't know. So for whatever reason, we pluralize everything. We say no big deals.

Nole (01:21:34.206)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:21:35.431)
and we pluralize the station. So no big deals, not no big deal. We say no big deals. And we say, I work at 13s. I have no idea. That's a great question.

Nole (01:21:44.97)
The fireman I relieved this morning said that to me. No big deals. It is the de facto changeover phrase that you will hear. The funniest thing about no big deals is when the guy says no big deals and then he goes on to describe the shift and you're listening to it you're going, those are some big deals, man. That was a day. You're telling me anyway. Yeah. The pluralization thing is a legitimate question and you get asked that.

Kevin (01:21:52.404)
No big deals.

David (01:22:05.4)
Shit.

Kevin (01:22:13.109)
It's legit, it's legit.

Nole (01:22:13.886)
by other American civilians. Like, why do you guys say 66s? Like, what is that? And I've never had a good answer. Kevin's is the closest I've heard. And I've asked around.

David (01:22:25.03)
No, I can run to that. The other thing I would say I find interesting, you know, listen to your podcast and interacting with Americans is the gun culture. And that, you know, I find it really interesting, like, you know, when you're talking with a few different guests about your conceal and carry permits. And, you know, when you I think you're talking to a certain guy about situational awareness and

Nole (01:22:33.77)
Hahaha

Nole (01:22:43.722)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (01:22:53.012)
Yeah.

David (01:22:55.964)
you know, to the idea of having a gun on me and how I would respond in a situation is completely foreign for me to think about. So I was really interested, like listening to you and how you guys sort of process that or hash that out. And then you look at, I don't know what the exact statistics would be, but the gun violence in the U.S. would be radically different than the amount of gun violence that we see here in Canada.

Nole (01:23:23.902)
I'm laughing just to be clear for the, for the podcast listener. I'm laughing because we can't go down this road. Not because it's a funny topic. We just, we don't, we'd have to do an entire other podcast to have that conversation. Yeah.

Kevin (01:23:34.151)
Yeah, but I could see how that would seem absurd from an outside perspective because we have so many mass shootings like it's daily, right? So it's like,

Nole (01:23:42.088)
Yeah, and it's the type of thing.

David (01:23:42.723)
One thing, Noel, another thing, I gotta tell you this story, Kevin, that you'll probably laugh as you recognize it, but so I sit down with Noel, probably like the end of day one, you guys weighed me down, you're like, hey, come sit with us, come eat dinner with us. It was like a really good meal we were having at Hume. It was like some kind of steak or something like that. Was it ribeye or some kind of cut?

Nole (01:24:01.162)
true.

I don't know. was a giant meat though, whatever it was. They were carving it off. It was huge.

David (01:24:06.619)
It was a huge piece of meat and I sit down next to Noel and I got my cutlery and I'm looking at it like this knife that I got just is not sufficient really. But then I look over at Noel and he's got the equivalent of like a kitchen butcher knife. Like he's got this massive blade and he's holding it like daintily like a proper steak knife and he's just

Kevin (01:24:21.781)
He's got three on him, yeah.

Yeah, he's got three on him.

David (01:24:33.901)
It's like one stroke and he's cut right through this steak like butter. And he's so he's got this knife that is just envious. And then at the end of the meal, of course, he pulls out like a napkin and wipes the blade off and puts it in his holster.

Kevin (01:24:44.809)
Yeah, you gotta clean it up. That's because he was a ranger, you know, he's got he's got he's prepared.

Nole (01:24:46.014)
Puts it back in my pocket. Yeah. Yeah, my wife.

I remember the first time I did that, cause I don't know what it's like up there in Canada, but down here, you go to an American restaurant, they're going to give you a quote unquote steak knife, but it's basically a butter knife with a, a wood handle. It's worthless. And I remember the, I don't remember exactly the scenario, but at one point it dawned on me. I have a razor sharp knife in my pocket. I don't have to struggle through this. And so I pulled it out and my wife was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm going to cut my steak.

She's like, people will see. I'm like, so what? So what if they do see? And she's like, well, they're going to, I'm not worried about it. So now that's my thing. do that. And she will then ask me for my knife. She'll, if you know, this is not a real scenario, but supposing I was eating a salad and she was having a steak, she would ask to borrow my knife. So it's great. It's one more reason why I advocate for people carrying a pocket knife. Like you should be eating meat. You might as well cut it with the right cutlery. I don't know who makes those.

Kevin (01:25:32.959)
funny.

Kevin (01:25:43.081)
Yeah, this is.

Nole (01:25:48.596)
those knives they give to steak houses, maybe I'm going to the wrong steak houses. They're garbage.

Kevin (01:25:54.579)
I spent some time, yeah, hit me.

David (01:25:54.917)
Kevin, I got a question for you. I know on episodes in the past you talked about you got your daughter or one of them are two of them into hockey. How big is hockey culture down where you live?

Kevin (01:26:03.603)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:26:08.607)
There's pockets, right? So it's like, it'd be surprised, but like the, one and only Dave Tebow, who we've had on the podcast multiple, his son is in a triple. He just got a AAA team under the Kings, which is the LA Kings hockey team. And so you have pockets. I think there's so many people and so many things that, you know, that's why I think American sports in general is such a huge thing. but you know, you're in the NHL playoffs and I think there's, if you're a hockey family, those guys are all in on hockey.

And it's really hard to find ice time. And it's really, it's nowhere near as prevalent as it is in Canada, of course. And we have no ice. It's 80 degrees here all the time. So it's a lot of roller hockey for my daughter, but the people that are into it are wildly into it and can tell you everything about it. And I think the majority of people are here are like fair weather friends. We're going to watch the NHL playoffs. the, like what the ducks are playing your oilers right now. So somebody's going to watch that. but I think there's too many sports. it's like football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse track, like

hockey. it just it's very niche. But if you're in the niche, you're a wildly raving fan like the Teebo's are a hockey family and they're traveling all over the country, including your country to go play hockey. Yeah.

Nole (01:27:20.102)
I will say this about hockey. can tell you where hundreds of baseball and football fields and soccer fields are. I do not know the location of a single ice hockey rink. I know they're out there, but they're, mean, you could tell me better, Kevin, but I think they're pretty rare.

Kevin (01:27:37.013)
Yeah, and that's the problem. That's the problem. Because you can't like, know, Dave was talking about pond hawking up in Canada and he was just he loves the cold and he was in a t-shirt and jeans and they played until the end of the earth at all, all through the night on this pond. And he was just having a time of his life. That is not a thing unless you live in Minnesota here. Right. So, you know, so but yeah, there's three ranks, there's three ranks within an hour of us. And to find the ice time between that and

David (01:27:37.508)
That's gotta be a lie, Noel.

Nole (01:28:05.822)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:28:06.23)
what do you call it? The figure skating is like, so that's one of the reasons we avoid hockey here is because I really don't want my daughter because practice would be at nine o'clock at night on a Thursday, an hour away from us. I'm like, we're not doing that. Like that's your bedtime. Yeah. So that's, that's the sad thing. Why don't think it is as big is because the access to it is pretty tough.

Nole (01:28:17.61)
Hmm.

David (01:28:27.063)
for sure. Years ago when my kids were heavily involved in hockey, I had a backyard rink. I made a rink in my backyard. That's like a thing that happens here. You can go to the store and you can buy a backyard rink kit. My yard, the one yard that we had it in was quite a slope to it. It was like a swimming pool basically. I had a deep end that was about

Kevin (01:28:33.621)
Exactly.

Kevin (01:28:38.259)
Yeah, it's a birthright. Yeah.

Kevin (01:28:50.037)
Mmm.

David (01:28:55.321)
22 to 23 inches thick and the shallow end was probably three or four inches thick. But the kids would come home from school and they go out and they play until dinner. They eat dinner and then come back in and they go back out and they play until bedtime. And just awesome.

Nole (01:28:57.796)
my gosh.

Kevin (01:29:00.307)
Wow.

Nole (01:29:07.379)
off.

That's so wild. I love that.

Kevin (01:29:10.645)
That's amazing. You know, this last winter, there's a, I live in Temecula, it's in Southern California, but they have a lot of wineries and there's one winery every winter creates like a manmade ice rink. And it's, you know, we live in a desert climate and so it's really popular, but it's hilarious because I would say 80 % of the people that are out there, they make these fashion, these PVC like walkers, cause nobody knows how to skate.

Nole (01:29:34.441)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:29:34.549)
And I was laughing my head off. I'm like, if anybody from Canada would come up here, they would just vomit in their mouth because how embarrassed it is that nobody knows how to skate here.

David (01:29:34.701)
Yeah, I've seen them.

David (01:29:42.201)
Very true.

Kevin (01:29:45.044)
You know, it's funny on the, on the flip side, I had spent some time. I've been up to Vancouver bunch. I haven't been to Edmonton. I'd love to go, but it was funny. This is many moons ago. There were some loose laws around marijuana and things. And I had a couple of buddies that were partaking in some loose laws over here. Well, it's back in college days. And I remember these two mall cop dudes came up to us and they were like the most friendly. I thought they were like, just like the security guard of the park or something. They're like, Hey.

How you guys doing? Are you guys lost? Anything? Any problems you need help in? You know, we were so nervous that it was like some sort of law official, but I'm like, they're not cops. didn't have guns. didn't have. They absolutely were. They were the police officers of the town, but I didn't see him have any like weapons or shotguns on them. And so, and they were outrageously friendly. And I was just thought it was like, what a great people. Everybody that we met up there was just so friendly and warm and welcoming. And I just thought they were just great people, but it's just really funny how different it would be.

We're used to working in Los Angeles where everybody hates the police officers and they have to, I think have to create a pretty hard shell around them. And I think it's probably the hardest job in America in my opinion. But yeah, what a different interaction.

Nole (01:30:53.642)
Mm-hmm.

David (01:31:02.296)
Totally.

Kevin (01:31:04.437)
Do you guys, I have seen these videos, it's like in our East Coast, like Chicago and stuff, of like these frozen buildings that are on fire and like the water freezes. Do you have to experience, I just wanna talk and geek out on that stuff where you have hydrants that freeze, water that freezes. It's gotta be freezing.

David (01:31:22.208)
Absolutely, man. It's a completely different animal fighting a fire when it's... I mean, I don't know the conversion for Fahrenheit to Celsius when it's negative temperatures. But we'll get temperatures where it's minus 30, minus 40 Celsius, and then you've got wind chill on top of that. And so like one of the first... As a pump operator or an engineer, one of the first things you got to learn is you got to keep a bleeder open or keep a line crack open so water is flowing.

Nole (01:31:31.818)
You

Nole (01:31:48.926)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:31:50.549)
through the pump.

David (01:31:50.807)
Because if you let that water get stagnant for any period of time, it's going to freeze up. And so, you know, one of the worst things, you you sometimes have to do is you're on a line and say it's a defensive attack and it's kind of like a surround and drown. And if you're sitting on a hand line on it, on this thing you're holding, I guess would be, we call it a 65, but you guys would be like a two and a half inch. Um, and if there's a fine mist coming off, right. Well, you end up being

Nole (01:31:54.655)
Man.

Nole (01:32:17.759)
Hahaha

David (01:32:20.975)
entire shell of ice like coated on your gear like you are like a frozen ice cube and you're frozen to the you're frozen to the host we had we once had a crematorium fire in the middle of winter and we used to have like we now all of our ladder trucks or tower trucks now have they have a bucket on them and we used to have aerials which would just have the tip and this so they weren't

Nole (01:32:22.634)
Yeah, yeah. God.

Kevin (01:32:22.645)
We don't know nothing about this

Nole (01:32:30.804)
Ugh.

Nole (01:32:45.023)
Hmm.

David (01:32:49.707)
they didn't actually have the platform. And I remember on one of those fires, minus 30, the nozzle freezes up. And now the ability to articulate the nozzle is not working. So the captain's like, I need you to go up there and manually move the nozzle for me. And this thing's fully extended out like a hundred feet up in the air and it's minus 30 out. And I got a radio and he's like, just go up there and move it and then just stay there for a little bit. And then I'll tell you if we need to reposition and move it again.

So was, okay, sure. So literally I'm up there on this thing and I'm moving this nozzle back and forth whenever he says to move it. But I literally froze like onto this. You had to keep, like if I didn't keep kind of making movements, I was going to get stuck and I would, they would have to bring the whole stick down to get me unstuck off the stick. Yeah.

Kevin (01:33:28.309)
You

Nole (01:33:38.74)
to get to break you off the ladder. my gosh. That's next level.

Kevin (01:33:41.685)
So I had to look it up. That's negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit for us. are your regular turnouts sufficient with gloves in to fight a fire in these conditions or do you guys have to prep with other gear? I know I sweat my brains off underneath my turnouts on a fire. I can imagine that would be fairly challenging if it's below 30.

David (01:34:02.43)
Yeah, typically, you know, you're not dressing a whole lot warmer other than, you know, because the other thing is you're in station, right? So you're in the station and then you got to go out. So some guys will wear like we have a we can get a base layer that's kind of lighter. And we have also in the past, we've had heavier base layers. can some guys will wear those. Some guys will wear like wool socks in their on their feet, but they often get really hot when you're in station. So it's kind of, you know,

cumbersome to have to switch back and forth. But what a lot of guys will do is one captain actually told me years ago they used to have wool gloves for fighting fires. And he's like, wear the wool gloves and then you get them wet and then you get that ice over top and then the wool actually stays warm and the outer shell of the ice over the mitts will keep your hands warm. But yes, there's not a lot.

Nole (01:34:46.42)
Yeah.

Nole (01:34:54.644)
God.

David (01:34:56.636)
Extra that you can do the turnouts are good as long as you're moving and active. It's good It's when you get stuck say for example in a spot on it on a defensive attack like I was telling you about earlier Well, the other one that's tough is if you're stuck in a car accident and you're waiting for you know You gotta get the vehicle can't get the vehicle off the roads. You're waiting for a tow truck or waiting on scene Babysitting something and yeah, you get you can get pretty cold in that's those situations

Nole (01:35:24.764)
so wild.

Kevin (01:35:25.109)
My hat is off to you. I have no idea what that would be like. That's insane. But yeah, I've seen those videos or it just looks like ice particles coming out of the nozzle and like the whole building is frozen on half of it. It's on fire. It's just insane. Yeah.

Nole (01:35:37.554)
Yeah, yeah, it's still on fire. Yeah, yeah.

David (01:35:40.086)
Another crazy one is trying to break up when you got highball hose, your supply line, when that freezes solid, that's real pain in the butt. You gotta get in a crane truck with a flat bed and come and haul them away in these. We used to have 100 foot lengths, now we have 50 foot lengths, and they're frozen solid. We'd have to pick up the line and try to hold it up against the exhaust on the truck to try to heat the coupling up enough to be able to disconnect the coupling.

Kevin (01:35:47.177)
Nole (01:35:55.306)
in sections.

Kevin (01:35:59.733)
frozen salt.

Nole (01:36:08.938)
so you could disconnect it. my gosh.

Kevin (01:36:10.133)
Yeah, because if you're not flowing water, mean, that's going to freeze pretty quickly, That's insane.

Nole (01:36:14.555)
man.

That's wild.

David (01:36:17.398)
for sure. a good operator has got to keep that water moving.

Kevin (01:36:21.365)
I love it.

Nole (01:36:21.406)
That's off. That's off to you. That's crazy.

Kevin (01:36:24.103)
Yeah, Dave, I feel like we barely scratched the surface. I'd love to I'd love to deep dive into this more. I think this is a given that we're to have you back on because I think there's a lot of those strategies. I think one of the things I'm really taking away is the five things I'm to definitely tell the wife. You know, sex is one of the five things that has to happen. It's on the list and experts know this. So but but yeah, it'd be fun to talk as I think as the culture accepts.

David (01:36:42.857)
five.

Nole (01:36:43.131)
on the list.

Kevin (01:36:53.193)
more peer support wildly and it would be fun to revisit some of these things down the line to see how things are going. But I really appreciate you coming on brother.

David (01:37:01.96)
I think thank you guys so much for having me. It's been my pleasure and really feel honored that you were willing to have a simple guy like me come on the show. And I really enjoyed the conversation. It's great to just get that message and that information out there. Noel, I wanted to show you I'm flying the flag today too. Got that GQ on.

Kevin (01:37:19.996)
Yeah buddy!

Nole (01:37:21.566)
matching shirts.

David (01:37:23.698)
Noel gave me a shirt while we were at Hume Lake together, Kevin.

Kevin (01:37:26.557)
I love it.

Nole (01:37:27.634)
It was super good to hang out with you up there, Dave. And this was a good conversation. really appreciate you giving us the time. This has been fun. I am going to close this out though, cause we just got a call. I'm pushing the button.

Kevin (01:37:36.309)
All right.

David (01:37:36.669)
Okay.

Kevin (01:37:39.091)
This has been the Fire You Carry podcast. Thanks, Dave.

Kevin (01:37:52.896)
You're this salt dog, black t shirt at work. love it.

Nole (01:37:53.374)
Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next week.