Overnight was another wild night with thunderstorms, lightning, flooding and winds as well. There was apparently tornadoes elsewhere in the State. And for a second day in a row the I65/I70 crossover was closed due to a truck incident. This time a truck got blown over in the wind blocking the freeway. Yesterday it was a crash between 2 trucks with a fire.

Today was the last day for classes, well in the morning anyway. Once again I left Jenny in bed and headed in early with water everywhere.

My sessions this morning were “Responding to Motor Sports Incidents” by Andre Biron from Manchester FD in New Hampshire, and “Firefighter Rehab: Best practices for implementing NFPA 1584” by Captain Frank Califano from Roslyn FD in New York. Both provided some valuable information I can use back in Adelaide.

That completed the classroom sessions for this years conference. Jenny had arrived at the Conference Centre so we went in to have a look through the trade show before catching up with Billy and Teri. Billy had organised for a couple of the Chicago Fire cast to come down and do a photo and signing session. It was overwhelming the number of people that turned up for the session with many missing out as there was only a 2 hour window.

The session was to raise some funds for the Firefighters Cancer Support Network with Eamonn Walker (Chief Wallace Boden) and David Eigenberg (Christopher Herrmann) providing their time free of charge for the event. Even though we missed out on a photo with the actors, we did have a good chat with Steve Chikerotis (District Chief Walker). Steve was a District Chief with the Chicago Fire Department and is now the fire department advisor with the Chicago Fire TV show as well as playing District Chief Walker in the series.

After a bit more time looking around the trade show, we headed back to the apartment to freshen up before meeting up with Billy, Teri, Steve, Molly and Mike for dinner at the Marriott. Another good meal but without the shock of a huge check tonight.

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It is now Day 4 of FDIC and again the day started with a couple of keynote speakers, both of which had a medical focus but were still interesting. The first was Dr Denise Smith, a cardiac researcher who has been looking at the effects of firefighting on the heart for 25 years. This definitely was close to home. I will need to chase up some of her work. The second was Mike McEvoy, a paramedic director, and his topic was “Making a Difference” and while related to the EMS field, could be used in the fire side as well. It was all about making the client experience the est you can do. A good take home was “It is not about ME, it is about WE and WE are here for THEM”.

Today was the first day for the trade display to open up so the mid morning session guy was always looking at his watch to make sure he didn’t go the full time allocated for his session as most would walk out anyway to get into the trade hall at midday. The session was “The First Five Minutes: Size-up, Decision Making and Fireground Communications” by Assistant Chief Charles Ryan from Fairfax County Fire & Rescue in Virginia. He did well and finished 20 minutes early at 1155, allowing everyone to make the 12 noon door opening on the trade display.

And the trade display is huge covering 3 halls in the main Convention Centre and then the Lucas Oil Stadium which is an indoor football stadium and then the outside real estate between the two.

Jenny had already caught up with Jason and Belinda from back home. Steve and Rebecca were soon here as well. The four of them had flown in at 3 am from New York City and were a little weary. Another Aussie working here on the Darley stand was Damien and then there was Geoff our fleet manager and his wife. Quite an Aussie contingent and that was just from South Australia.

After wandering around the trade area for a couple of hours, I had an afternoon session to attend, “First Due Battalion Chief” by Battalion Chief Daniel Sheridan from New York City FD. From his presentation, you certainly respect the experience that those FDNY firefighters have with the large amount of working jobs they attend each day.

Jenny and Rebecca went to the movies (I think they are over the FDIC experience), while Jason and Steve kept checking out the trade area.

At the end of the day, we all attended the International reception and managed to catch up with Senior Station Officer Ian from NZFS as well as the Bronto crew from Finland. They drunk us well but didn’t feed us too well so it was time to head off and find some tucker for tonight.

After looking at a few of the restaurants, we decided on St Elmos Steakhouse which had been recommended to us for their shrimp cocktails with a special horseradish sauce. We had also been told chances of getting in were pretty slim. I guess they like Aussies as we were seated within 15 minutes.

We all started with the shrimp cocktail. If you had blocked sinuses, this was the dish for you. It had plenty of kick but mellowed out after the initial shock of each bite. The meals were very nice, the waiter really made the night and the check gave as much shock as the shrimp sauce. It was a good night out, being a sort of 50th celebration for Jason’s birthday in a couple of weeks.

We only had 5 seats in our car but with 6 people it wasn’t going to work without a couple of trips. It was decided we would take the Kiwi to his hotel and the Aussies would Uber.

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With our Facebook feeds having gone berserk with all the Anzac Day references yesterday, you would be excused in the knowledge that there is any other countries in the world. Certainly there was no mention of Anzac in the US, so we had to make do with the various online references to Dawn Services back home.

Today for me was another day of FDIC workshops, no public holiday for me.

This mornings workshop was “Training with Incident Simulations“, presented by Deputy Chief Ted Nee from Albuquerque Fire Department in New Mexico. It was an interesting presentation covering Fire Studio and SimsUShare and the process of putting together the simulations for training of crews. We use both of these programs back home.

This afternoons workshop was “Fireground Strategies: Command, Control and Accountability“, presented by Deputy Chief Anthony Avillo from North Hudson Fire Department in New Jersey. He reminded me of George from Seinfeld with his accent and mannerisms, however he also had a lot of knowledge on Command and Control as well as some experiences from the Hudson River Aircraft Incident.

Tuesday night at FDIC is Comedy Night. The Firefighters Cancer Support Network has been putting on a fundraiser comedy night for a number of years now and it has been getting bigger each year. We attended with Billy and Teri tonight and it was a great night out, even if we ended up at the wrong Marriott Hotel initially. Who would think there would be two Marriott’s a block apart.

One of the fundraising raffle items was a leather helmet signed by the cast of Chicago Fire. I bought a few tickets and we will see if I am taking it home at the end of the week. The other prize is a trip to the set of Chicago Fire.

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