Success Stories

Everyone Goes Home® Success Stories are happening every day in departments and organizations around the U.S. Firefighters are adopting and promoting the importance of the Everyone Goes Home® Program and the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. In this special section we’ll feature Everyone Goes Home® success stories, creative ways departments are promoting a culture of safety, and ways departments have implemented the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Intiatives.

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  • 2017 Virginia Fire Officer Academy Celebrates 10th Anniversary Program – The theme of the Virginia Fire Officer Academy is Safety through Leadership and is based upon the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and the Everyone Goes Home® Program.
  • East Hartford Fire Department Issues Second Hood and Wash-Your-Hood-Sunday Program – I am writing to you related to the “Wash-Your-Hood-Sunday” program. This program promotes what should be common sense. This simple act of washing your hood can have a significant impact on you and your families’ lives.
  • One Step at a Time – Rituals with Laura Ling is a series that takes viewers on a journey through the psyche and habits of extraordinary individuals to find out how they survive, thrive, and gain focus. This episode shares the ritual of Greg Collaco, a San Francisco fireman who uses stair climbing to fight PTSI.
  • Penn Forest Firefighters Know the Power of Personal Safety – What started out as a routine response for a vehicle crash with possible entrapment on Sunday, January 18, 2015 quickly became an example of the critical role seatbelts play for everyone.
  • Initiative 6: Saving Our Own – During the winter months, our members gather once a month on a Sunday, to have an extra one hour’s worth of training for the week and share a meal together at the kitchen table at the firehouse. I share this today with you as one of these trainings paid off educationally and became enlightening to all and empowered our Fire Chief to do something that will no doubt enhance the lives of all of our members.
  • Courage to Be Safe® Course Held at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania – The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s (NFFF) Courage to Be Safe® (CTBS) training was conducted for the first time in a deployed location. This course was held on October 22 – 23, 2014 at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base (MKAB) in Romania. It was also the first Courage to Be Safe® course held in the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Major Command.
  • Showing the Fire Service That It’s More Than Just Seatbelts – While forming a committee to achieve a goal may not seem like an original idea, the Illinois Firefighter Life Safety Task Force is an exception. This unique group, representing all branches of the fire service, comes to the table with one common goal: to advocate for firefighter safety. The result is a successful approach to… Read more »
  • An Eveyone Goes Home® Success Story: The Courage to Be Safe® Class Saved My Life! – My name is Corby Coney, a firefighter from Liberty, NY. This is my testimony to the Everyone Goes Home® Program.
  • An Eveyone Goes Home® Success Story: How the Life Safety Initiatives Saved My Life – Four years ago, based on the publication of the Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives, our department applied for and was fortunate enough to receive an AFG grant for a Firefighter Health, Fitness, and Wellness program. As part of the grant, we were able to offer our firefighters a full slate of medical tests and screenings giving our department a starting baseline.
  • An Eveyone Goes Home® Success Story: Reflecting on Positive Change – There is no greater achievement for an educator than to identify and witness behavioral changes in a student whom you have influenced and educated. If and when that lifelong dream comes to fruition, one can personally acknowledge that in a way, their beliefs, challenges and efforts have come full circle.
  • Defining Moments – In 2004, the first National Firefighter Life Safety Summit was held in Tampa, Florida. What resulted from that summit were the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and the Everyone Goes Home® program. When many of us first became aware of the Everyone Goes Home® Program we thought to ourselves, “Bonus!” A lot of us already had a passion concerning firefighter safety and wellbeing.
  • Walking the Talk: Training is an Essential Part of Survival – The community of Lidgerwood has a 26 member, all volunteer fire department. The success of this incident and lessons learned and reinforced are a direct result of this fire department’s commitment to the 16 Life Safety Initiatives and the Everyone Go Home® program.
  • Courage, Motivation, Inspiration – Everyone’s motivation is different, which is what makes this program great. Spreading your personal motivation really touches the audience. Knowing the message, knowing the mission, and partnering them up with motivation and inspiration, gives you the recipe for courage.
  • What a Difference a Day Makes… – As a career captain and volunteer fire chief, I believe that the Everyone Goes Home® and Courage to Be Safe® programs have changed me personally by bringing the 16 Life Safety Initiatives to the forefront of my thoughts when showing up to work, teaching a probationary firefighter, or encouraging a veteran to think about their actions.
  • He Thought He Was Healthy – I read your letter in the newsletter and commend you for the 2×4 between the eyes approach to drawing attention to this issue. I suffered from a cardiac related incident this year that I am recovering from. In the long run I believe that the event was a blessing in disguise in that it moved me from the suppression side to the inspection/investigation side.
  • Firefighter’s Weight Loss Fight – A Severe Approach – What’s 40 years old, 350 lbs, 5 feet 9 inches tall and completes a Firefighter rookie / recruit challenge in less than 8 minutes? Well sorry, there’s no punch line, truth is it was me three years ago before I made some radical changes in my life.
  • Responding Wisconsin Tanker Rollover – Seatbelts Used – People in nearby Mill Pond Park heard and saw the crash, called 911 and helped the two injured firefighters, who had been wearing seatbelts.
  • Seatbelts Save Texas Firefighters in Rollover… – All four firefighters inside the engine, however, escaped safety because every one of them was wearing a seat belt. The fatality was that of a civilian involved in the pileup.