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Colleton County
Fire-Rescue hosted Philippe Mariotti, a French Firefighter from Mulan
France on Friday evening 15-August. Mulan is located approximately 50
miles south of Paris. He spent the night at Station 19 and visited
several Colleton County Fire Stations while here. The 27 year old
Mariotti is riding a bicycle around the world in an effort to raise
money for the orphans of French Firefighters. He reports that France
loses approximately 24 firefighters a year due to line of duty deaths.
He is working with the organization ODP to raise funds and awareness for
the cause. So far he has been riding his bike for nine months, crossing
England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Cuba and
now the US. He has pedaled over 4600 miles. He attempts to travel 40 to
50 miles a day, with one day of rest in between, staying with local fire
stations or camping near the road in a tent. Traveling alone presents
many challenges, including 16 flat tires during the past nine
months of riding. He has only been sick once on the trip which required
hospitalization for a few days in Brazil.
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Mariotti
arrived in the US two weeks ago starting in Miami. He spent a
few days with Miami Dade firefighters and started his travels north.
Following closely to the route of I-95 he is headed to Quebec Canada
on this stint of his journey and hopes to reach the country before
winter. His immediate goal is to make the September 11th ceremony in
New York City, less than a month from now.
Mariotti has
made hundreds of new friends and has chronicled his journey on a GPS
device, laptop computer and with a digital camera. He checks in
regularly with his family and department by using the internet.
Already speaking French and Italian, he has learned three new
languages, Portuguese, Spanish and English. His English was good
enough to communicate and greatly improved since his stay in England
at the beginning of his journey. Videos of his visits with English
Firefighters showed marked improvement.
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While the basic
principles of firefighting are the same in France, the operations of
their fire service are very different. The crews are French Government
employees and all services are free to the citizens. The Fire Service
provides the ambulance responses, however they are not permitted to
provide Paramedic Level care. The firefighters assigned to the
ambulances are trained in First Aid only. There are no Paramedics,
cardiac monitors or medications carried.
Anything
requiring advanced care is referred to Emergency Doctors who respond
to the emergency scene in an emergency response car to provide
care in the ambulance. He notes there are five such units in Mulan,
but much like our Emergency Medical System it is tasked to the
limit. The City has career and volunteer personnel. Career
personnel work a rotating schedule of 24 hours on duty, 24 off duty,
24 hours on duty and 48 hours off duty. The fire service complex
where he works takes up an entire city block and is equipped
with a residence for the Fire Chief. The station houses some 30
vehicles and has a 20 story apartment building attached to provide
free housing for the firefighters and their families.
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In the evening,
the on-duty firefighters are permitted to return to their apartments
and respond from there in the event of an emergency. All personnel
carry a digital pager which provides information on the response. On
large incidents, the Command Staff direct operations from Headquarters
and view the scene on large TV screens from cameras located at the
scene. Most of Mulan has pressurized hydrants, but some areas require
tanker trucks for water supply.
Fire Marshal
Roger Johnston made arrangements for Mariotti to stay with the Santee
Fire Department upon leaving Colleton and then with Sumter Firefighters
later in the week. Johnston and his family, who live in Orangeburg
County, entertained Mariotti in Santee Saturday evening.
Personnel
interested in learning more about his journey or his organization can
visit the following websites. They are in French, but you can select the
British Flag icon at the upper right corner of the screen to view some
of the text in English. www.sdis-tour.com
or www.sdisff.fr
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