By: Michael Melchionne
Train inside the box
Like many fire instructors out there, I find myself
always seeking out new scenarios to keep my
training classes interesting, relevant and most
importantly, ensuring the students are engaged.
The very commonly used phrase “train outside
the box” sparked my interest one day in recent
trends in auto accidents. As we all know, the
drastic increase in MVA’s due to texting and
driving has elevated run numbers for many fire
departments across the Country. With that, I
went to the old faithful plethora of info - the
internet. I googled cars into construction
trenches and there it was, more pictures than I
had time to view. I came across quite a few cars
that drove into roadside construction sites, down
into ditches where utility workers may be doing
repair work, installing new pipes, underground
wiring, etc. These two photos below inspired
my thought process for my next auto-x class.
This fire department in Massachusetts hires me
annually to come in and do their auto-x training.
We go to the same auto recycling place for
training due to their accessibility of props to use
during classes. The owner of this business has
his son in a front end loader 8 hours a day and I
believe he has more fun creating the scenarios
for me than the firefighters do handling these
scenarios. This huge grin he gets when he
crushes cars into pieces for me, or sliding a