LFD Lt Col Bobby Cooper talks fireworks safety

Louisville Fire Department Lt. Col. Bobby Cooper talks how to become a firefighter and how to enjoy fireworks safely...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All right, Paul, thanks aton. You're with news radio eight forty

(00:02):
whas Terry miners here. I'm seeinga report from WLKY the Shoreline Independence Day
celebrations set for it says Wednesday.I don't know if they mean tonight or
they meant Thursday. The Riverfront Amphitheaterin New Albany, they're saying is canceled
because of a threat for extreme heatand storms throughout the day and evening.

(00:26):
So we'll talk to Jay Cardosi againin a few minutes and get into that.
But you need to check on thesevarious shows because I've noticed there's been
some movement around by some people schedulingvarious shows. Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Cooper is
here. I like saying that becauseI've called you major for so long.
Yeah, it's tough. It's hardto change. Just do the other firefighters

(00:48):
call you lt? Now? Isthat how that works? No? No,
you don't get that, okay,colonel. I always see that on
they just say colonel. Okay.Well, I see that on various shows,
and I'm always wondering, did theycome up with a new nickname for
you? Anything like that. I'msure there's lots of nicknames out there for
me, I may not hear allthose. By the way, thanks to
the Louisville Fire Department for the helpwith the WHA S Crusade for Children.

(01:11):
Tamra helped us as Stuart Tamara Stewart. She is delightful, she's amazing.
She does a great job. Iknow she did a good job with you
all. She is a hard worker. We wish we had a hundred of
them because she is great. Yeah, she helped us set up so we
could do some video shoots ahead ofthe Crusade for Children using your fire engine
in the background. Then they gota call, they go, they took

(01:32):
care of that, they came back, they got another call out it goes
so Yeah, and then she wasjust composed the whole time. And yeah,
she's composed, she's conscientious, she'scapable. She tries to do a
good job with everything that she does. She is incredibly hard work and we're
lucky to have her. Yeah,and she's got a funny story to tell
about her days playing football. She'sa baller. Yeah, she's tough.

(01:53):
She's tough. So she came tous from she was a teacher before she
became a firefighter. And she wasa She taught choir and she was very
involved with educating the youth. Andnow she's involved with the Fire Department.
She's worked her way up through theranks very quickly to become a captain already.
But while she does the public informationofficer work for she's also down at
our training academy quite often and doingthe instruction for our new recruits down there.

(02:15):
She is amazing. She's a goodget up. I was going to
ask you about that before we getthe fireworks. What about the recruitment and
the ranks for Louisville Fire Department?Of you there or you're searching for people.
So, just like any business orany industry, right now, it's
tough to find people. You know, the workforce just isn't there like it
used to be. We have aboutsix hundred applicants right now. It's kind
of tough because with civil Service,we can only open our application period for

(02:38):
about a month every year. Soit opened in early June. It closes
on Friday, So this Friday,July fifth, at midnight, it closes
and if you don't apply within thatwindow, then you don't have an opportunity.
It's a long process. Because there'sa testing. There's a physical test,
there's a written test. So ifyou don't apply, you don't have
the opportunities to encourage anybody who's listeningor anybody who may know of a young

(03:00):
person who's interested, to encourage themto apply. You can go to any
of our social media sites Facebook,Instagram, Twitter. That'll take you to
our web page to show you howto apply. It's a very simple process
and it's an amazing career. Okay, you said young person, So what
is the age windows there's not necessarilya specific age, but I will say

(03:20):
it's a young man young woman's job. It is tough work, you know,
it's blue collar work, but it'sincredibly rewarding. While we fight fires,
we're also emt Some of us areparamedics as well, so we make
the med runs. That's the majorityof the work that we do, but
we also fight fire. We alsohave opportunities in fire prevention. We have
a robust fire prevention bureau that doesthe work to try to keep us from
having to fight those fires. Sothere's all kinds of different jobs that we

(03:44):
have within the fire department, withinthe suppression bureau. So being a firefighter
that's what our application period is for. Right now. You come in.
All you need to do is havea high school diploma, a GED be
over the age of eighteen. Youcome in, we teach you, we
train you. When you get outin six months, you're an EMT.
You have your IFSAC one and two. Throughout your career you have tons of

(04:05):
opportunities for advanced training and technical rescue, whether it's ropes, structural collapse,
dive rescue, the stuff you sawon the bridge back in March. Those
are the things that we train peopleto do no cost to them. So
all that training is paid for bythe city. You walk out with a
tremendous amount of skills that you canapply other places. It's a shift that's

(04:25):
twenty four hours on forty eight hoursoff, So whether it's having a job
on your off day or being aparent, like I was incredibly lucky to
got to take care of my kidsand help raise my kids while my wife
worked on my off days. Itwas an incredibly rewarding opportunity. Encourage anybody,
if you've ever considered it, applynow, give yourself the opportunity.
Go through the process. You'll findit. It's a great career. You

(04:48):
referenced it, but man, thatstory of the bridge rescue touched people around
the world. Are you still hearingabout that? Every day? We hear
about it. You know. Itwas outstanding work that the whole crew did
there. You had over forty firefighterson scene, and there's not a whole
lot of on the job training forthat sort of thing, right, But
it just goes to show you thededication that our members have, the work

(05:10):
that they put in that scenario,and the pickoff that was done by the
firefighter on the end of that ropeis something that's that's practiced on a regular
basis. And while we have alot of on the job training for medical
runs, we make a whole lotof structure fires. We do a lot
of that stuff. A semi truckhanging off the end of a bridge isn't
something that we practice for, butit's a testament to them putting in the
time to do the training to whereit seems seamless a dangling tractor, you

(05:38):
know, and then that high abovethe river. It was like all the
optics of that were just so unbelievable. Yeah, that come out, yeah
perfectly. The way it did islike incredible. Yeah, they did tremendous
work. We're incredibly proud of them. Yeah, all right, Bobby Cooper,
let's talk about fireworks. Yeah,we need to do this all the
time, just because new people moveinto the arena of the area where they

(06:01):
think I'm okay, I'm big enoughto handle this. Yeah, And so
sometimes parents say, you weren't sittingover here, Johnny, go on and
do it. And that's really nota smart thing to do. You gotta
be so careful, you really do. It's like people don't realize how dangerous
they are. They're explosives, andit's a reality. It's not something that
just happens around the country or withinthe Commonwealth, but right here in our

(06:23):
own hometown of Louisville, Kentucky,in our very own neighborhoods, we have
devastating injuries every year. We seepeople that lose digits. If you go
to our Facebook page or Instagram,you'll see an X ray of a hand
that had fingers blown off where thatindividual allowed us to use that and to
post that to show the reality ofthese fireworks that you use. So aside

(06:45):
with those traumatic injuries that you have, we've also had fatalities in recent years
here locally in Jefferson County from peopleusing fireworks, and while that's an extreme,
it's a reality. What we usuallysee, however, is the tragedy
of our young, our young people. So the overwhelming majority of these injuries
occur to people under the age offifteen. And it's not necessarily the big
mortars that are that are going off, but it's a small things like sparklers.

(07:09):
You put that in the hand ofa child, it burns two thousand
degrees. That's like putting a blowtorch in the hand of a kid.
And then you have, like yousaid, Jim or Joe or Margaret over
there, just watching them run aroundin the driveway with it in a wrong
turn or a kid running up onthem. They can burn a hand,
they can burn a limb, butsometimes it might be an eye. So
you're talking about devastating injuries that aresometimes debilitating that these children are they're gonna

(07:31):
have to deal with for the restof their lives just from fireworks. Those
are legal in Jefferson County. InJefferson County, we have different ordinances than
they have around the rest of thestate and in Indiana. If it flies,
if it leaves the ground, ifit explodes, it's illegal in Jefferson
County. Now we know people goright across the bridge. They bring worse
like we can't. It's incredibly difficultto police. So that's why we sincerely

(07:54):
appreciate you having us on and othermedia outlets to try to spread the word
that take it serious. You know, if you're in if you're in a
crowd, if you're at a partyand you're watching people set off fireworks,
realize how dangerous they are. Lookout for kids. Make sure that whoever
is in charge is first off,an adult, they're over the age of
eighteen, that they are sober,right I mean, I mean we laugh

(08:15):
about that, but we want themto be sober, an adult, responsible
person, and that they have aplan in place so that if something bad
does happen, if they light offa firework, if somebody gets hurt,
if something catches on fire, thatthey have a plan to deal with it
immediately. And then also after theyspend those fireworks, after they light them
off, that they have a planto dispose of them, that they're not

(08:35):
throwing them in a trash can andbringing them back in the house. Let
them sit for a while, havea bucket of water close by, have
a hose close by so that youcan dispose of them properly. And let's
say it rains tonight and people think, well, this thing's inert. You
know, there's nothing. It's ano, no threat to anybody anymore.

(08:56):
That's not true about any of thesethings. You never know of a poor
of something burned right, right,you don't. They're volatile, right,
I mean, they're explosives. Wedon't know what they're gonna do. You
don't know what they they're gonna do. People modify on the time together.
We encourage people not to do that. But if you have, you know,
a dud, we call them adud that doesn't go off. That
doesn't mean that it can't still explode. So leave it alone, understand,

(09:18):
you know, go ahead, putit in a buck of water, douse
it, dispose of it properly,just like what had gone off. But
don't leave it because we see thatoftentimes. While we talk about the fourth
of July, oftentimes it's the daysbefore the fourth of July and then very
much so the days after the fourthof July where we see injuries to kids
who get a hold of those fireworkswho you thought were the adult thought was
a dud they left in the yard. They didn't pick it up. A

(09:39):
kid finds it, finds a wayto light it off, you know,
a few days, a week,a month later, and you see a
devastating injury. We also see tonsof fire. So you mentioned the weather
in the dry weather. Yeah,we might get a little bit of rain
tonight, but it's been incredibly dry, so you'll have grass fires. You
don't know what people's gutters are lightare like right now? If there's leaves
in the gutters, people lighting offbottle rockets, things that fly in the

(10:01):
air, and they don't know wherethey land, right they land on a
roof. Nationally, we see overtwenty thousand fires every year, which totals
up to nearly fifty million dollars inproperty damage. So aside from the injuries
that we've already discussed, you havetons of property damage this time of year.
And Bobby, let's close with this. People are gonna mess up handburns,
neck burns, face burns. Whatever. What do you do right away

(10:22):
when you're before you can get aprofessional help? There is that ice?
Is it? Butter? Wow?So douse it with cool water. So
douse with cool water for three fiveminutes, they say, and then you
want to wrap it in a dry, clean bandage. The general rules if
it's over the if the burns overthe size of a palm, to seek
medical attention right away. But it'sa reality. You talk about closing out.

(10:43):
Before we close out, what weencourage people to do is leave it
to the pros. You mentioned allthe different shows, some are maybe being
canceled or maybe postponed or suspended.But leave it to the pros where you
can sit back and you can relax. You can go to the waterfront,
you can go to the bat's gameand watch the pros do it. It's
a much better show than your uncleor your aunt or your dad or anybody

(11:03):
else is going to put on muchnicer fireworks and choreographed. So go back,
relax, leave it to the pros. But if you are going to
do, if you insist on doingon your own, have that plan in
place so that you have that waterclose by if there is an injury that
you can deal with it immediately,and that if there is a fire,
if something, if a fire breaksout, somebody's clothes catches on fire,
stop, drop and roll. Butyou have those those hose lines close by,

(11:26):
that bucket of water close by whereyou can douse it quickly. Let
me go back to where I startedhere. City officials and public safety leaders
been analyzing the weather. So tonight'sShoreline Independence State celebration in New Albany is
indeed canceled. We are sorry toannounce tonight's Shoreline Independence celebration is canceled,

(11:46):
according to Mayor Jeff Gahan in NewAlbany. And we will work forward rescheduling
our favorite fireworks celebration in the nearfuture. So again, like you say,
it's not necessarily tonight tomorrow. Whateverthe bats is on tonight, there
are a lot of fourth that lieones. There could be a lot of
rain tomorrow. We don't know.I can't speak for him, but I'm
sure they've already purchased the fireworks forthat display. They're going to put the

(12:07):
show on. They will have somepatience. Indeed, Colonel's good to see
you, Thank you, Terry.All right, coming right back in a
few on News Radio eight forty whas