Same, Yet Different

Chris Salafia, CEO (back left) and John Brunelli, Senior EMD Trainer (center front) with PowerPhone certified EMD students from Singapore Civil Defence Academy

This week, John Brunelli, a Senior Trainer with PowerPhone, gives his insight into the differences and similarities of the International Emergency Communications community.  A retired Firefighter/Paramedic with the Mansfield Massachusetts Fire Department, John Brunelli was responsible for fire suppression and on-scene triage of sick/injured patients, and for training public safety dispatchers in call taking techniques and radio procedures.  As an instructor for PowerPhone, John specializes in both fire and emergency medical dispatch disciplines, and holds students’ attention with his boundless energy and enthusiasm in the classroom.  PowerPhone is lucky to have him on board, and we look forward to his monthly office visits.

I have been with PowerPhone now for 2 years, full time.  It went by quick. I enjoy everyday that I’m up in front, instructing you, and doing my thing. Sure, there are times I miss riding in a fire engine; joking with my brother and sister Firefighters around the fire house. It’s a rush being in a house fire. Dragging a 1 ¾” attack line, and knocking down a room or two, fully involved.

As a 911 dispatcher, I was able to experience another type of rush. A similar, but different, rush. It’s the rush I get when talking to a frantic mother whose baby has stopped breathing, and successfully taking control of the situation while giving pre-arrival instruction. Makes me thank god for my medication.

PowerPhone has injected a rush in me similar to the previous ones mentioned, but different. As a senior Fire and Emergency Medical Dispatch Instructor, I get the chance to deliver PowerPhone’s years of experience through presentations, dialogue with students and our vast audio/visual library. One effective training tool is playing A/V clips which demonstrate dispatchers performing correctly and incorrectly in emergency situations. I have the students critique the calls, pointing out the good and the bad, and discuss how they would handle each scenario differently.

It is always an honor to meet students throughout the world. I get to know each one on a personal level by talking to them before, during, and after class. In my travels, I’ve noticed some similarities and differences with my students.  No matter where I am, when class members walk in on the first day, the front row is usually the last row to fill up. The last row will more than likely occupy the 10 plus-years, veteran dispatchers. In fact, when I was in Japan on a USMC air station, the last row contained Lance Corporal’s and above.

Also without fail, the last row in the room inevitably sits the class clown. He or she is usually well known and respected, and sometimes even feared through out the dispatch community. I suppose it takes one to know one… I think my paramedic instructor retired the day after I graduated.

Here is another similarity among students: Their reaction to my accent. I was in Singapore for just under a month (what a great experience for me, and for PowerPhone). I taught at the country’s Fire Academy, and the students were mostly former firefighters.

The first day, my students were acting particularly quiet. They would laugh at my jokes, but I think they were still trying to figure me out. They learn English very early, 4th grade, I think. So my Massachusetts accent knocked them for a loop. They were probably saying to themselves, “Where the hell are his R’s? Is he leaving them out to trick us?”

I was teaching an EMD class in Beaumont Texas, and on the 2nd day of class, I talk about the heart and its many functions. I noticed a student with a confused look on his face as he raised his hand, asking in a deep Texas drawl “You mean like temperature HOT?” I replied, “You know the thing that beats in your chest.” He said,” Oh, you meant the H aaaahhh Rrrrr Tttt.”

PowerPhone is my vehicle to reach out to these incredibly sincere, human beings. No matter where I am, students always make me feel welcome. I mean it, no bull. I have received so many thoughtful gifts; coffee, fire t-shirts, fire hats, cards, and candy. When my family travels with me, they are treated like royalty also. I’ve gone out to eat with my students, visited fire houses, and been introduced to their family and friends.  I have attended a rodeo, played golf, and even gone target shooting. Me with a gun! Most of my students still stay in touch with me through email, twitter, and facebook; we’ve become friends.

A major common thread that sews us all together is our desire to help others. People we don’t even know. Even though our pay isn’t all that bad, we definitely do not do this for the money. The feeling of helping someone, however, mild it may be, is awesome. It is not an understatement to say this job requires a special kind of person.

Each class is unique in its own way, but the people, my students, are always the same crazy, wonderful, warm hearted, down to earth people, wherever I am in the world. Thanks for being you.

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