Episode 251: Talking Drones, Mental Health & the Fire Service in Mexico with Fernando Palacios & Gabby Durantes

Episode notes

What can we learn from the fire service in Mexico?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

How can the Mexican and American fire services share knowledge and value with each other?

What EMS initiatives in Mexico are reducing costs and improving patient care?

What are the top concerns for the fire service, and what can we do about them?

Hear from Fernando Palacios - the Chief of Department for the Queretaro Fire Department - and firefighter Gabby Durantes.

In this episode, Fernando and Gabby discuss the importance of integrating the Mexican fire service into the American fire service through knowledge sharing, which can foster advancements and positive changes for both. They explore EMS initiatives in Mexico, including bringing doctors to the scene and utilizing real-time video communication to improve patient care while reducing costs.

Fernando shares his experience using drones in the fire service for surveillance, mapping, and search and rescue, emphasizing the need for better integration of software and platforms. Gabby stresses the importance of affordable technology solutions, especially for fire departments with limited budgets. Both express their concerns about firefighter safety, from tracking physical fitness to prioritizing mental health support for firefighters facing critical situations.

So take a listen to hear what they have to share!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro to the FRI miniseries
2. 0:36 Fernando Palacios and Gabby Durantes join at FRI
3. 1:04 Putting the I in International
4. 2:17 What Mexico and the US can learn from each other
5. 3:27 Bringing the doctor to the house
6. 5:28 Response times and fewer transports
7. 8:05 Video 911 and the Good Sam program
8. 8:45 How Fernando's department uses drones
9. 10:26 The right drone for the right job
10. 11:55 Finding the right cost for tech
11. 12:38 Make platforms that work together
12. 15:37 What excites them and keeps them up at night
13. 18:41 Looking ahead to TSI
14. 20:54 Final words: take care of yourselves
15. 22:26 It's okay not to be okay
16. 22:35 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the Doc on the Street program in Mexico?

Fernando Palacios describes it as a hybrid European and American style EMS system where doctors respond to houses or are available by phone during 911 calls. Gabby Durantes explains that when people call 911, a doctor is on the other line and speaks with the patient. If it's not a big issue, the doctor gives recommendations. If an ambulance or truck is on scene, the doctor goes to the scene and treats the patient there. They also have a non-emergency model where the doctor goes to people's houses for ongoing care like high blood pressure and provides meds and treatment without taking the patient to the hospital. Fernando adds that two or three days after a call, patients can get an appointment and the doc will come to their house with free medications and orthopedic equipment if needed. This brought their transport rate down to only 12 percent of EMS calls.

Hear it at 4:32

How has Mexico reduced emergency response times with new technology?

Gabby Durantes says their typical response time in Mexico is 20 to 30 minutes, but with the new program using BLS units, fire trucks, and direct doctor contact, they've reduced it to four or five minutes. The program also focuses on prevention, so real emergency calls are going down.

Hear it at 5:38

How is Queretaro Fire Service using drones?

Fernando Palacios says they use drones for surveillance, fire operations, and mapping. They can create a live topographic map of a fire ground in 20 minutes for search and rescue operations, identifying crevices or caves. They also use third party software like lock aid to locate people by analyzing pixel colors.

Hear it at 9:10

What does Fernando Palacios say about choosing the right drone?

The best drone is the one you have available. He says you don't always need the biggest platform. A smaller drone may be better for surveillance, low noise operations, or carrying up a mountain. The key is learning what the drone can do if you process the information it gathers for you.

Hear it at 11:55

What keeps Fernando Palacios up at night about firefighter safety?

Tracking firefighters on the fire ground worries him. He wants to be able to locate crews inside commercial structures with hidden or void spaces during a Mayday. He also worries about measuring physical fitness on scene, like heart rate and blood pressure, since those health issues are what kill firefighters on the job.

Hear it at 15:52

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 251 transcript

Talking Drones, Mental Health & the Fire Service in Mexico with Fernando Palacios & Gabby Durantes

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Fernando Palacios, Gabby Durantes

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Sofen. In this FRI miniseries, we're taking a closer look at how technology and smart solutions are shaping the future of the fire service. From the role of artificial intelligence and assessments to cutting edge tools like wildfire drones, each episode dives into how these advancements are improving firefighter safety, efficiency, and real-time decision-making. Stay tuned for some great conversations with the innovators pushing our fire service forward. Enjoy. We are live here in the final day of FRI, sitting alongside Fernando Palacios and Gabby Durantes. Welcome. How are you doing?

[0:43] Fernando Palacios: Good. Thank you very much, Kevin. Everything's good and happy to be here.

[0:47] Gabby Durantes: Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Well, so you flew up from Mexico. Where in Mexico are you from? I'm from Queretaro. We're from Queretaro, Mexico. Just in the middle of Mexico, real close from Mexico City.

[0:59] Kevin Sofen: So what brings you from Quetero? I wish I could say it as beautifully as you. What brings you to Dallas and what brings you to F.R.I.?

[1:09] Fernando Palacios: I think we're putting the I in International for the IAFC. I think IAFC needs to expand into the Mexican firefighters, fire chiefs, and I think we can do a lot of changes down there in what we need.

[1:25] Kevin Sofen: And why is it important to continue to involve the Mexican Fire Service within the American Fire Service? And ultimately, tell me more about some of the lessons learned and why is that so important for this knowledge sharing?

[1:37] Fernando Palacios: I think it's really important because we have a lot of American-based companies. In our town, we got three data centers from Amazon, one from Microsoft, and they're just building the first one from Google. It's going to be built in Mexico. It's going to be built in our town. So there's a lot of US investments down there. So getting involved into the same standards, the same, the good practices is what we call it from you guys up here, putting them down in Mexico, I think it builds a lot. So this kind of IAFC, FRI, TSI, all those events can pretty much gather leaders that can make the change and evolve Mexico into the right path.

[2:17] Kevin Sofen: Gabby, any thoughts in terms of the alignment between the Mexican Fire Service, American Fire Service, and why we're here?

[2:23] Gabby Durantes: Well, we're here because it's the international answer. I really enjoy being here because I learn a lot of things, a lot of things from here, and we transport those things to Mexico, and we start to do the things right. You know, all the protocols and the professional and everything. I really enjoy this part from you guys. It's amazing. I like it.

[2:47] Fernando Palacios: It's mutual, and it's a symbiotic relationship. I think it goes both ways. We had a chat downstairs about how our EMS hybrid system works, where we combine in our town the European style with the American style, and how is it bringing something called Doc on the Street program, and how are we putting costs, not just costs and money, but also costs and the amount of calls we're running for the EMS and the fire service down, and transferring it not to the hospitals, but having those doctors on the houses to attend for that. But we're learning from you guys, and we hope you can learn some of the stuff we're doing down there as well.

[3:26] Kevin Sofen: I couldn't agree more. And you both are practitioners in your own craft in a few different areas. But one that I want to dive into both individually but collectively is, Gabby, you gave a presentation this morning on some evolutions and using different EMS initiatives and different EMS technologies. Can you shed some light in terms of what you're working on, what is it, and what can you share about that?

[3:49] Gabby Durantes: Well, basically what Fernando says, it's about to bring the doctor to the house and bring all the emergency care to the house or to the street and reduce costs. Because we don't have that much money in Mexico as here in the US. So we need to take care, really take care of the patient, of the citizens. So we transport everything to the street or to the houses and take care of the people who need it most. low-cost.

[4:19] Kevin Sofen: I would love to double-click into that a bit more. Is it like doing FaceTime with patients to be able to kind of have a real-time video? Is it like, you know, bringing doctors there? Like, tell me more about that.

[4:32] Gabby Durantes: It's, well, the first step, it's we call. When they call 911, it's the doctor on the other line, on the other part of the phone, and the doctor speaks with the patient, and maybe it's not that big, you know, that big issue, and he just talk with the patient and give recommendations if there's an ambulance in there or a truck or whatever the doctor goes through the scene and stays in the scene and treat the patient in the scene and we have this other model it's not the emergency one but the doctor goes to the house of the people and take care of them just not for emergency it's because oh you have a blood pressure, a high blood pressure all the time, all your life. Yeah, it's your meds here and all your treatment is this one. And we don't take the patient to the hospital and take a lot of time waiting for being treated. The doctor goes to the house.

[5:30] Kevin Sofen: And how have you seen efficiencies and resource management, the response time, what kind of feedback has there been?

[5:38] Gabby Durantes: Oh, come on, no, Oh, well, when we do that, in Mexico, our times are like 20 minutes or 30 minutes from the call to the scene. But with this program, it's only four minutes, five minutes. Wow. Because, yeah, we have a lot of units, BLS units, like fire trucks, not only the ambulance or just a truck. And I think the most important part is the prevention, because the doctor talks with patient before he get on an emergency and hey you need to take care you need to do this and so the calls reduce the emergency calls the real emergency calls are getting down.

[6:17] Kevin Sofen: And allowing you to then allocate resources towards other stuff. Yes.

[6:22] Fernando Palacios: It brought the transport rate to 12 so we just transport 12 of the patients of the EMS calls we do so on a BLS side the patient doesn't need a transport. If there's already an ambulance on scene because they got dispatched, they can call the doctor and they could get medicated on scene and left on scene without being transported. And on the ALS side, if we need a doc on scene, he'll be on scene, we'll work in the patient in there. And if it didn't go as we need it, the patient will be declared on scene, so you won't transport at the end, on the other bad side. And then on the BLS side, where the paramedics, through the doctor, medicated the patient and left them in the house, it gets referred to a program called Doc on the Street program. So two days from there, three days from there, whatever, they can do an appointment and the doc will come to their house and they'll give them free medications. They're supplying right now orthopedic equipment if it's needed. So on the big picture, on the small picture it will be low, we'll be getting less money because they're injecting it into the doc program, but on the big picture it's reducing everyone's costs, because we can relocate all those ALS units for the real ALS cause we need. Of course you always need an ALS personnel on scene because you're becoming the doc's hands, ears, and eyes on the scene, and you're referring it to him back on his command center, where he can give you all the information he needs, or the legal backing up as well.

[8:05] Kevin Sofen: Man, and it seems like a lot that we can continue to learn and apply within America. I know San Antonio, Brian Norris has implemented the Good Sam program and being able to have dispatchers being able to send a text message and have a real-time FaceTime, and there's that whole phrase of, a picture's worth a thousand words, with a video's worth a million, and being able to real-time video from a dispatcher who's a trained EMT to be able to show you and talk about this is what you should be doing, and being able to reduce the amount of EMS, the ambulances being sent out, but also being able to provide better care immediately, virtually, before something could potentially go wrong.

[8:43] Gabby Durantes: Yes.

[8:45] Kevin Sofen: So, interesting stuff, a lot that we can more impact on that, but I wanna do a little pivot to some of the work that you have been working on, Fernando, and I know we've spent some time talking about this at TSI, but all things drones, unmanned systems, uncrewed systems, UAS, whatever we're calling them these days but you are a practitioner in them and are using them. Tell me a little bit about your take on drones and the fire service and I'd love to know more about how you are using them in an operational context.

[9:10] Fernando Palacios: I think drones is one of the best tools the fire service can use. We use them for everything. We use them pretty much for everything. You can use them for surveillance, you can use them for the fire. the normal stuff, but then we're talking to guys from S3, we use them for mapping. So we can have a live topographic map done in 20 minutes from the fire ground, where we can do the, for a search and rescue operation. So we can know if there's a crevice or there's a cave in the area. And then if you bring up some technologies like a lock aid, there's a whole bunch that can look into a pixel size colors to locate people. So when you evolve into the usage of third-party platforms, softwares, apps into the normal drone, then it... maximizes the true thing, so my big issue with the drone is a drone is not just to fly it up and take a look at what you're seeing on the screen, it's letting the drone map for you, take pictures for you, process those pictures, process those maps, and then you'll have 10,000 more fulfillments on things to see on the screen, not just the live feed of what you're seeing through the drone. And tell me a little bit more about the idea of the right drone for the right job. I mean, there's all different types of drones for different tools from your experience. Tell me more about it. We've been talking about it earlier. The best drone is the one you have on your available, but we use like a big platform for thermal because there's no smaller platforms for thermal. But sometimes when you're doing surveillance, you don't need a big platform. You need a small one because you need a low footprint, no noise and stuff like that you can fly even though indoors. There's some drones systems they're using for a SWAT operation. So they're sending a drone into the house before sending a dog or before sending an officer, like an officer into the house for a search, all those kinds of platforms. I think it depends on one, the needs for it. And of course the fire, we always want to, the biggest is going to be the best, but it's not always the right one that what you need. So sometimes a big platform and for a search and rescue operations in the mountain you got to carry it up the mountain. You need a smaller thing. Sometimes for mapping a wildland fire you're not gonna map it from the command post because it's way far away and we don't have the money to buy a big huge fixed wing platform but then you can walk up to the top of the mountain you can map from there so you need a smaller platform that can allow you to do the map and you don't always need like all the cool gadgets with the thermal and this. Pretty much what you need is learn what the drone can do if you process the EM full, it's gathering for you.

[11:55] Kevin Sofen: And I heard you say the word cost a few times, and Gabby, I'm interested in your take on this. So just any tech within public safety, whether it's EMS tech, whether it's drone tech, whether it's some of the PPE, and some stuff is requirements, some stuff is still kind of emerging, but would love to hear your take on kind of defining, speaking to entrepreneurs and companies, the idea of finding the right cost and the right balance to acquire tech that can help you do the job without it being ungodly expensive to the point where you can't afford it.

[12:24] Gabby Durantes: Yeah, that's really important for us because, well, we don't have that much money in Mexico or in the fire department, so we need to use something that help us, but we need to take care of the cost too.

[12:38] Fernando Palacios: I wanna add up something on the platforms for technology. I think there's super cool app softwares out there, but we're not talking together between each other. and having one, just one solution that can take care of the whole thing, I think it's gonna be impossible to find it, right? I think that the true balance is allowing, if you're a software developer, if you're an app creator, if you're creating technology for the fire service, you gotta, and you're a specialized in a certain thing of mapping or something, let's make it shareable. Let's make it shareable so we can integrate it. I'm a fan of integrating platforms there's no one platform that can cover all our needs, and you're going to end up needing several different softwares and apps, but let's get them to work together. It doesn't matter if, and it's going to become a cost, it's going to probably be, I don't know if it's cheaper, more expensive, but it's going to fulfill the needs because you're going to have five different apps and softwares that do different stuff. How do we put them together? How do we make them work together? So if you're out there designing software and designing platforms and designing apps for the fire service, make them friendly, so we can share them together, and we can make them work together all into one.

[13:53] Kevin Sofen: I don't know, Fernando, how do we do it? I agree, there's a like, I couldn't agree more with that statement. And I think part of it's how do we check the egos at the door? How do we make it so data isn't all blocked off? And it's tough. Those companies want to make money, but they also want to work with fire departments. And it's sort of finding that balance between allowing companies to make money, but also making an operationally relevant for the fire service. Are you doing any sort of exploring new technologies or exploring pilot programs, or is there ways that, if companies had a new potential technology to see how we could integrate different components and bring value, is that something that you're exploring or considering?

[14:31] Fernando Palacios: So we built our own platform for all the managing dashboards, EPCRs. Everything is self-built through a free platform that got donated to us so we could build it. And then we distribute it to some fire departments that apply to the program in Mexico. And then we use those third parties that want to get involved into, hey, try it in. There's that software, try it in. Okay, we'll put it in practice. And then it comes in, how do we integrate it to one same platform? How do we make them talk together? How do we share that info? I think same thing. I know it's an ego thing and it's a business thing and it's gonna be hard to get over it. But at the end, the only way we're gonna build a better fire service technology applications is if we specialize in something and put it out on the market and let it be shared into other platforms, instead of trying to build just one platform that can cover everything.

[15:36] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. So this is kind of now rapid fire questions for you both of what's something that really excites you about new technology within the fire service? And then what's something that's kind of keeping you up at night and you're worried about? You can start with either one first.

[15:52] Fernando Palacios: I think it keeps me up at night. Oh, we've been talking about tracking firefighters in the fire ground. I think it's something we can work with drones. I think we could map insights. I know there's some technologies we see. I saw in TSI about inside a 3D mapping live. How do we feed it back to command center? It keeps me up at night, not being able to locate my guys on a fire scene and having a Mayday go in and you can't find him. And you can't find him because it's inside a commercial fire with a, or a commercial structure with some kind of like hidden space, like a void space. It kind of keeps me there. How do we keep like a true mapping from the inside? How can we do it and keep our guys safer? I know there's tons of technologies out there. How can we locate them up to the two by two feet distance? Can we use commercial technologies out there? Like the ones, you use to track your bag or your phone, or do we need something bigger through the radios? But that's something that keeps me up at night. Can we go into it? And the other one that keeps me up at night is how are we measuring our physical fitness for the firefighters on the scene. Can we see their heart rate? Can we see their blood pressure? Are we doing, are we caring about it? Because at the end, this is killing guys on the job. This is what's killing us on the job and we need to take charge of that. I know tactics and operations have been, every day they become safer and safer and safer according to the technology and the new SOPs we develop. But we're not putting a lot of emphasize and really tracking our guys into the physical part. I don't want to say it's a grim picture, it's a relevant picture that we need to figure it out.

[17:42] Kevin Sofen: Gabby, if you have anything that you're worried about, and also the flip side, excited about, anything else Gabby or Fernando you want to add to that?

[17:50] Gabby Durantes: I'm kind of worried because in Mexico we don't have this internet like in here, so sometimes we miscommunication with the doctor, with the physician, we're talking about a patient, a real fatality patient or something like that. So it's hard for us to keep communicating. So we need something to put, I don't know, on the ambulance or I don't know, to keep this communication. It's vital for us because we put meds. We do some interventions that it's only on the mandatory doctor. So we need to keep always the communication with the doctor. I think that's very important for us, and sending the EKG and all the information that we need to have in the moment. Because it's vital. It's dead or alive.

[18:41] Kevin Sofen: So it's August 2024, TSI is coming up in December, a few months from now. You attended TSI last year. What was your takeaways? What did you enjoy? And, you know, any positive, any messages you can tell us about what's been TSI?

[18:55] Fernando Palacios: I think the biggest part for TSI, and I spoke about drones that day, is a lot of folks, a lot of chiefs weren't worried about how to start a drone program for the department, and how would they fund it, how would they start running it's easier for us in Mexico's regulations, it's a little bit easier down there, but it's still a drone program if you don't have it started. I think for TSI for this year, I think a lot of people need to see what a drone is really capable of, like on a live demonstration. How can we map, how many people do we have in this convention center right now in FRI? Can we do a headcount with a drone flying above us in five minutes? Can we do a headcount with that and have it map it for ourselves? Instead of, how can we use that in advantage for us?

[19:41] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, it's a big focal point of TSI this year of having it be as hands-on interactive as possible. Drones is obviously a great one for outside, hands-on exploration. You know, I we need to dive in with the Oklahoma Fire Chief to make sure we can do some outside flying Maybe get some waivers and yeah, I guess be able to show what the tech can do and then not only just it's a flying piece of plastic but what can you do with the cameras, what can you do with the data in terms of transmitting it through GIS and showing it on a different map overlays and different companies that are streaming the video and how to be able to use that. So really important to show it's not just a toy but it's a tool with a lot of different life-saving applications.

[20:19] Fernando Palacios: And it's not a fancy tool. That's the thing. For us it's not the fancy oh those guys have a drone program. It became as important having a radio on your hip. It became as important having an MBT on your rig. It's that important having a drone on our rigs. And I think we're in Mexico, it's expanding a lot, especially in our town. We started with one drone pilot on a rig. Now the RBCs have drones and they're pilots for the drones. And it's pushing towards having way more platforms flying in there to give you a situational awareness and all that stuff they can provide to.

[20:56] Kevin Sofen: I love it. All right. So final curveball I'm gonna throw at you and either of you can answer in any capacity but any final thoughts or a favorite quote that you live by or a word of wisdom or a mic drop of sorts that you could leave us with here today and it could be relevant to the fire service or it could be maybe something that your parents told you growing up I'm always curious to know any words of wisdom that you can leave us with you today?

[21:20] Gabby Durantes: Well, I think, I really think that we need to take care of us. I sadly have two partners who kill themselves because of all the stress on everything on the emergency system. So I really think that we don't take care enough of us or our health or we need to start to talk and take some programs. So if we want to help others, we need to be healthy.

[21:54] Kevin Sofen: Well said, I agree. There's a lot of different programs out there, but continuing to make it accessible to prioritize. Going to therapy doesn't mean you're weak, it actually means you're quite strong.

[22:03] Gabby Durantes: And we need it on this work.

[22:06] Kevin Sofen: Heck, I need it. I go to therapy. My therapist talks about the healthiest people are the ones sitting in the chair most often.

[22:12] Gabby Durantes: Yeah, so we have a lot of stress, and that kill all of us. And besides, we work with people who is in critical care, so we need to start to take care about their health.

[22:24] Kevin Sofen: Well said, Gabby. Fernando?

[22:26] Fernando Palacios: I will say just into that, it's okay not to be okay. It's a common phrase out there, but we're not paying enough attention to it. It's okay not to be okay.

[22:35] Kevin Sofen: Well said. Well, Gabby and Fernando, I sure can't wait to cross paths with you both again. Thank you for what you're both doing and representing the eye and TSI and FRI and just keep up the good work. You're doing awesome stuff.

[22:46] Gabby Durantes: Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. We're really happy to be here.

[22:50] Fernando Palacios: Thank you very much, buddy.

[22:51] Kevin Sofen: And thank you to Jeff Dooling for connecting us. Our guy. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. I truly would love to know what you think. Send me a note, post something on Twitter, and if you were so inclined, give us a review on one of the podcast channels that you listen to. Have a great day and hope to hear from you soon.