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Firefighter kept residents plugged into department

Longtime spokesman Jim Flaherty retiring after 28-year career

By Bob Albrecht
Published: November 29, 2010, 12:00am

He used to bike past the fire station during the warm Bay Area months, beckoned by a cool drinking fountain, shiny red engine and an ever-welcoming group of guys.

“That resonated with me,” Jim Flaherty, now 54, said of regular stops at the fire station near his boyhood home in San Carlos, Calif., that marked the halfway point of the daily jaunt to his best friend’s house. “When we rode up, it was like they had been waiting for us all day.”

It’s no wonder, then, that Flaherty was drawn to firefighting years later, and to creating — and filling — the job in 2003 that positioned the Vancouver Fire Department for more meaningful engagement with the community it’s charged with protecting.

And now he’s retiring.

At year’s end, Flaherty will conclude his 28-year tenure with area fire departments, including the last seven as the Vancouver Fire Department’s public information officer. His most recent role called for frequent contact with area media outlets he calls “a tool where the community gets its information.”

Over the course of his career, Flaherty saved lives and responded to homes where it was already too late; filled just about every role within a fire department; attended dozens of funerals for firefighters killed on 9/11; and helped create the position he’ll give up at the end of December.

“To this day, every day I’ve showed up and learned something new,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty, who has spent his entire firefighting career in Clark County, said it was not until after he announced his retirement that he took the time to reflect on his career and what lies ahead.

Among his reflections was the first time he drove an engine to a fire, sitting next to then-Capt. Joe McCoy.

The engine seemed to be running poorly, according to McCoy, who, Flaherty said, leaned over to see the gauges. McCoy asked Flaherty what was going on, to which he responded, “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

After they put out the fire and returned to the station, Flaherty realized what had happened. “It was my leg shaking on the gas,” he said, laughing now, but certainly not then.

“I remember him saying, ‘Is this going to be a regular thing?’ ” Flaherty said. “Once I got that one under my belt, it was like clockwork.”

‘Emotional blender’

Flaherty described the ups and downs of his career as “an emotional blender.”

He said he thinks about the successes and the gut-wrenching failures that, through no fault other than that of the human body, resulted in lives lost.

Of the calls that stand out, Flaherty said there was one in which he saw the response from the victim’s point of view.

Flaherty’s engine company was called to a serious accident where they found a man pinned inside his vehicle, bearing the weight of the car’s entire front end. The victim was speaking, but not without difficulty.

Being one of the smaller firefighters in the battalion, Flaherty climbed inside the vehicle during the 40-minute extrication. The man was undergoing compression, and Flaherty knew it was likely he would bleed to death once the weight was lifted.

“I remember looking out and (our firefighters) were working so furiously,” Flaherty said. “I was talking with this guy about his family, his sister and his dog.”

The man died. “It didn’t end well. That guy was looking at me and talking to me. It was a look and a conversation I’ll never forget,” Flaherty said.

“There’s something that happens when you put your hands on someone and they’re having the worst moment of their life,” Flaherty said. “The events that stick with me, that I remember, changed me.”

Sept. 11 memories

Flaherty returned from New York in October 2001 to questions from local media about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and firefighters’ response.

He made four trips in total, all with the same mission: To attend funerals of firefighters who lost their lives when they rushed into the damaged towers. “I just flew back there and I’d go to funeral after funeral for days in a row,” he said. “You’d finish one, get in the cab and go to another one.”

He said he attended four funerals a day during his trips. “You’d just kind of sit there and go, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ “

“There was an influential piece in that event that led me to believe in the difficulty of communicating, and also the good side of communicating,” Flaherty said. “People don’t understand until they can ask questions.”

The department’s public information officer position, and its accompanying approach to communications, was born in 2003 out of conversations among Flaherty, Fire Chief Don Bivins and former Union President Bill Garlington.

Flaherty, who recently trained Fire Capt. Chris Moen to take over, has spent seven years with a pager attached to his hip. It’s that pager that serves as the initial contact medium between Flaherty and the media outlets that report fires, car crashes and other emergencies to the public.

Flaherty said he was part of three meetings with Bivins and Garlington. He missed the fourth. “That’s the one I should have been at,” he said. “It was me.”

He explained the fire department’s approach: “The fact is the community wants to know what you’re doing. Media has been, and will be, a tool where the community gets its information. To me, it was pretty black and white how we needed to plan, design and implement a strategy.”

In addition to communicating with media, Flaherty and his backups, a group that previously included Moen, have met with organizations, like assisted-living communities, to prepare a strategy for informing the public about any damage and the path forward following an emergency.

“You don’t want to meet and make your introductions at a high-rise fire,” Flaherty said.

Asked what he looks forward to in retirement, Flaherty said: “I’d just really like to hit some (golf balls), because I haven’t hit any.”

Flaherty and his partner, Maureen Pimley, built a 256-yard driving range on their Battle Ground property.

He said he looks forward to reconnecting with friends and enjoying the occasional night out; the pager attached to his person around-the-clock has necessitated sacrifices. It was worth it, though, he said.

“There are people who have gotten an extended lease on life because of teams I’ve been on,” Flaherty said. That’s service.”

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