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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Making Moves Life Coaching Services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and Moore, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Pick it
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back and pick it south. Come on, talk to me, so you can't see what's going on.
Yeah, what's going on? Tell me what's going on.
Dave Washington 0:48
Great day, Las Vegas. Great day. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. After I have a few announcements that I will make here, we're going to have Dr. I. David Daniels, colleague and friend, will get him properly introduced, and he's got some things that I think are important to share with our not only to our veterans out there, but other public safety type folks who listen to the program. So with that, once again, Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Look, just this past weekend, myself, Steve Stowers, my wife Marsha, Jerry Smith, Nedra Cooper, and Justin Hobson. We did in honor of Dr. Ruby Duncan, who was an activist within our community, better known for welfare rights, but she's also knew how to move around in politics. So we did a voter education project, and my grandsons Chris and Dave we passed out over 300 flyers in the neighborhood, and we only had about five. We well, not only, but five people did show up, and believe it or not, one lady who told me she wasn't interested in voting. I said, "Please come in and hear what we have to say, and she actually registered to vote. So it's very important, and and once again, the whole project was not about trying to tell anyone who to vote for, but you need to vote. And a couple of basic things that we covered were voter basics. You must be a U.S. citizen, must have resided in the state of Nevada for at least 30 days, and you got to be a resident of your precinct area at least 10 days before the election. And everyone, everyone out there, whether you know or not, please check your voter registration because there are so many games that are going on today that you better know, and also check your your party affiliation for whatever purpose that may serve you. And then one other thing I'll cover real quick, and that is what is a primary election. It's basically you're nominating a candidate. The winners from the various parties will go to a runoff in the general election, so we need to make sure that we get that done. Remember, Nevada is a closed primary state. It's called where you can only vote for the candidate of your party. For example, I am nonpartisan. I don't have a party affiliation since 2012. I just it's best for me. And of course, we know the major parties are Democrat and Republican. There are other parties, of course, Independent, Green, Libertarian. But again, I will cover some more next week. But it's just important. Don't feel that your vote doesn't count, because I've seen people win in the smaller elections by two and three votes, and and somebody will say, "Oh man, I didn't vote. Well, why are you sitting here making all this racket, and you didn't even exercise your right to vote, Doc? I heard you chuckle, but I'm gonna get to you in a minute, sir. Look, I also try to cover birthdays for sure. In in the month of September, I got my uncle L.C. aunt Magnolia, of course, retired fire chief Eugene Campbell, who is also the president of the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute, and he is the current president. You know, Gene, he's a retired fire chief as well, like David and I, and also Miss Mary Fountain. She is an ancestor now. That's Marcia's mom. Her birthday is this month as well, and then in terms of other quick announcements, condolences to the family of Floyd Cross and Dwight Golden. You big head dude, you didn't even tell me that he had passed away, and I've been knowing Floyd for a lot of years. Nevertheless, we're going to go forward and again acknowledge his family with condolences, and then one other thing that's going on, this will be in October actually, and I'll have those dates next week. Is the Armstrong Family Foundation golf event? So be looking out for that. With that, now with a drum roll, I'm going to introduce Doctor I, David Daniel.
He is a fire service colleague of mine. He's a retired fire chief. He's an international speaker with emphasis on workplace safety. He is an author, and he writes in that same area of concern. But he has something that I don't know if I've ever heard this before, Doc. I'm assuming you coined this phrase, psychosocial. It's hazard to that is real in the workforce. So, again, this is Doctor I, David Daniels, dear friend. How you doing, Doc?
I. David Daniels 5:30
I'm doing good. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you.
Dave Washington 5:33
Oh, for sure, for sure. So, give our listening audience a little bit about who you are. Give us some of your background, if you would.
I. David Daniels 5:40
Well, I'm a proud native of Seattle, Washington. Born and raised there, I entered the fire rescue service up there. Was there for about 20 years and bounced around a few other places. As a matter of fact, that I tell folks often, I'm now at my 40th address
Dave Washington 6:01
in my
I. David Daniels 6:02
lifetime. I lived a lot of places. It was not because I was in the military. You know, I did register, but I was, you know, I hit that space when I, you know, there wasn't an active conflict going on. So my my service ended up being in the fire rescue service for 32 years in six organizations in four states, and got to be the fire chief of three of them, and the part-time chief of another one. So that that taught me some things about really more. I think I learned more about myself than I learned about you know the fire rescue service, and that kind of led me to figure out that I was really more interested in health and safety than I was in going into buildings on fire. So, you know, my doctorate is in is in occupational health and safety. And strangely enough, when my degree was conferred about five years ago, I was the first black male in the country with a doctorate in safety.
Dave Washington 7:01
That's interesting.
I. David Daniels 7:03
Yeah, the first interesting side note. Interesting side note. So,
Dave Washington 7:07
oh, for sure. I mean, you're really embarking upon something, man. When you're the first in an area, I trust that a lot of people be looking for you for a lot of advice, and I trust that you're getting you're getting many calls to come in because, in fact, ladies and gentlemen, just for your edification, Doc was down. He was a keynote speaker for us in our evening session down at the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute. Gene invited him in, and what a nice presentation he put on. So, in fact, Doc. So again, born and raised in in the Seattle area. So,
I. David Daniels 7:38
yeah.
Dave Washington 7:39
But you you didn't you didn't go up through the ranks to become fire chief. There you left that department.
I. David Daniels 7:44
I did. I did. Yeah, my my first fire chief's job was in the Atlanta area, and I was there in Fulton County, Georgia. It's a county that surrounds Atlanta, and that that led to again a couple of other spots. The interesting thing about is I didn't know a single person there before I moved there. Just like a lot of the communities I've gone to, I don't really know anybody. But that's the benefit of having the 40 addresses that you know I'm able to go from place to place and you know kind of you know I can figure it out. I figure out kind of what's going on, and but but I, you know, you just said something that makes makes me think. You, I often thought that when you do something really unique, that people are really interested in it. Well, the fact of the matter is that they aren't, because the study that I did was I studied the lived experience of Black workers' exposure to psychosocial safety habits in the American workplace, and my my it was difficult to find research that was done by any other safety professional on the safety of Black workers.
Dave Washington 8:54
Wow!
I. David Daniels 8:55
And so there are not you know not a lot of people who talk about this specifically. And again, the research could apply to any group, but I wanted to apply it to a group that I actually understood,
Dave Washington 9:06
right,
I. David Daniels 9:06
and that I had similar experience with, and so. But it rubs up against a lot of the traditional beliefs because there are those that believe that safety is all about physical stuff, and it is. That's that's important, but there's a whole area of psychosocial related hazards that people are exposed to that they've kind of just normalized and they think it's supposed to be that way. So, and then when I bring it up, they go like, "Well, what is that?
Dave Washington 9:32
Yeah.
I. David Daniels 9:33
So, yeah, here in the here in the United States, we're still figuring out how important mental health is. A lot of the countries have figured out that both mental and physical health aren't the same thing. You have the same responsibility to keep people healthy and safe, but we're not quite there yet.
Dave Washington 9:50
Yeah, you know, and as you make that point, it kind of triggered something in my head because I remember when I first came out of the fire academy. Oh, don't worry about don't worry. Wearing that air pack, that's no big deal. Now that's the physical part. But in my head, I didn't even think about until now, Doc. In my head, I'm like, "What are they trying to do to you? Are they? You know, what are you doing? And I'm just thinking about that now because I'm only thinking about the physical part, where you know you don't even be done, man. Just sling a little snot when you come out, and you'll be just fine. No, I'm not doing that. I told him. I said he trained me to wear my air pack, but also now from the arena that you're operating in, it was also unbeknownst to me. It was probably affecting my my mental psyche as well because you're being challenged by veterans that you a little wimp. What you need a hairpack for? So go ahead,
I. David Daniels 10:43
yes, yes. Well, well, and this is this is the real similarity between the fire service and the military.
Dave Washington 10:49
Is
I. David Daniels 10:49
that you know? And again, I I don't say this because I serve, but I say this because I observe that there are a lot of things that, particularly men, you know, we've been kind of cultured as men to think that we have to show how tough we are, and we have to do a bunch of things to put ourselves in harm to prove our maleness. Right, and I don't have to do things to put myself in harm. I'll be a male if I'm safe or unsafe.
Dave Washington 11:13
The
I. David Daniels 11:13
genetics just say that's what I am. Now there are folks who, you know, who claim all kinds of different things, but I don't have to prove how tough I am by harming myself. But that's so so deep in the culture, you know, across the world that often we do things and and we try to convince other people to do things because we're trying to prove something. And the thing that we're trying to prove is something that we don't need to prove. I didn't need to prove I was male. That that wasn't even important. And I was fortunate, as you were, to start in the fire service under an administration that says you will wear this mask. So I did it because I was told. I didn't know they didn't. They didn't really tell me a lot about the safety part. They just said I had to, and I did it. But as I started to see, I had my first colleague die on the job. I'd done on the job for a year and a half, and that emotionally. So, so the Seattle Fire Department did an excellent job of teaching me how to go into buildings on fire. What they didn't do is teach me about dealing with the mental aspect of doing the job.
Dave Washington 12:16
That's right.
I. David Daniels 12:16
In yeah, 1987, I was at a fire on july 12, 1987. One of my colleagues got killed, and that was that was the fourth one in the six years of my career. And I literally thought about quitting that day. I did. I was going. This is getting way too close. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. You know, again, I I decided to stay, but that was it. Didn't make sense to me why we had people dying doing a dot?
Dave Washington 12:43
Right.
I. David Daniels 12:43
People shouldn't die for their work. It just didn't make sense to me, and that so that that put me in a lot of situations in conflict with other people because I go like, well, what are we hurting people for? And when you're a fire chief or or a leader and you stand up and say people shouldn't die, then people look at you funny! Like, what are you saying that for? We, you know, we love these big funerals and all that type of thing. So that put me in conflict with a lot of people, and it took me going to therapy not to be mad at them. But I get it now. I understand that many of these folks, again, they're in the fire service, EMS, military, law enforcement. They believe that their job is to die for the work, and I just don't.
Dave Washington 13:25
So, so all all all of that roll into one is what had you in your own mind to pursue this this area of of discipline.
I. David Daniels 13:35
Yes, yes. Well, there was something that was a little bit more a little bit more direct. I and I shared this with my last fire chief's job was horrible. It was, it was horrible because I was in charge. But I, you know, so I come into this organization, I find out they're involved in federal tax evasion, and and there were there was a group of people who said you should just turn your back and act like that's not happening. I said, "Well, I'm not doing that. And and and that got me in trouble with some of the people in the organization, and they made life really miserable for me. And and after you know the last two years, I had to leave myself because of how, you know, the the the the stories placed in the media and you know, asking for my email every week, and you know the, you know, it got to the point where I couldn't go into the fire station just because of how I was treated when I went there. It was just now I was the only black person in the organization that might have had something to do with it as well, but maybe it didn't. I, you know, I don't know. Nobody will. If you ask them, they're not going to say that. But that emotional experience-they paid me really well. Matter of fact, that organization even paid for me, yeah, about 80% of me getting my doctorate. But it wasn't worth the emotional, you know, toil and the emotional damage that it was doing. So I said, "Look, I'm out. I can't. And I and I was on a call the other day with some folks who've done. Some studies of the wellness of leaders, and they said, and I don't have these numbers. You know, I just heard a couple of days ago, but they said that that the wellness scores of the leaders are like 40% lower than the workers were.
Dave Washington 15:13
Wow!
I. David Daniels 15:14
And and and I'm here to suggest that many of our leaders in all kinds of occupations,
Dave Washington 15:18
sure,
I. David Daniels 15:19
they're told you got to take care of the people. Take care of the people. Take care of the people. But who's taking care of you? Who's watching out for you? Who's caring for you? And and I also heard this a while back that you can only give to others out of your abundance.
Dave Washington 15:33
You know what? 2.1. when I was first offered a job by the city manager Virginia Valentine and Dr. Doug Selby, who was a deputy over the fire department, I told them, I said, "Look, I appreciate this opportunity. However, I just want you guys to understand that I will never do anything that I feel is wrong under any circumstances. And they told, "Oh no, we never, we never, we never do that. And I and I appreciated that their answer, but I also knew from the horror stories that I had heard in the past from others who actually were told, and you're you're an example of it. What they wanted you to do was continue to hide this madness of this illegality. That see, Dave, you know when when you have integrity, man, you can't you can't operate it in vain. That's
I. David Daniels 16:22
right. That's right. And I don't want to say that in the case the folks didn't intentionally do this. Right. Because they weren't well trained. Right. They did by accident. Sure. But when you find it out, there are a lot of really good people in government that want to do the right thing, but because their training and expertise isn't good, they make a bunch of mistakes and then they cover them up instead of trying to fix it.
Dave Washington 16:43
Yeah, yeah. And another thing, you know, you mentioned, and I have the okay to use this young man's name, Lamar Lucas. He was a county firefighter, and he left this city. This is more on the mental side because every time he passed by this place where these four children had passed away due to a fire, it upset him so much that he had to leave town. And I'm like, "What? He said, "He said, man, that's why I left Las Vegas. I'm, you know, I moved out of the city, man, because it was driving me crazy. And once I got out of here, I'm better off. Even though I went to EPA and all of that stuff. And another example, which people have heard me mention many, many times. When I was fire chief, an engine rolled. Firefighters got injured. One became a paraplegic. And do you know that our incident debriefing person just kept Brenda Donoho? She and I have talked about this many times since. Hey, chief, you okay? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. You know, typical firefighter, police type mentality. I'm a tough guy. No, I don't need. We don't need to talk. I got. I, Doctor Daniels. I got debriefed at EDI in front of a class. In front of a classroom, a woman officer said, "Chief, were you ever debriefed on that incident? And tears, tears start flowing down my. Because every time I talked about it, I start crying. But after that debriefing, I haven't cried since, but and and that and that's just a that's really just a scratch of the surface, you know. It's just
I. David Daniels 18:07
it's just one example. Yeah, and I so
Dave Washington 18:09
I had no idea what I was carrying. Seemed seemed like seemed like there was a relief once I did that. I'm like, oh my goodness! So so, what you're embarking upon, I think, is going to be so good for not only fire service, military, and other occupations, but somebody's got to take a look at that psychosocial activity that goes on that sometimes pressure people to do things. Well, not get a relief, if you will, from from the pressure that's occurring in their in their head from whatever the issue
I. David Daniels 18:41
is. Yes, yes, yeah. Well, so the the definition of a psychosocial hazard is a psychosocial factor that is perceived or experienced by the person exposed so threatening that it causes their behavior to change, and that that's different for every. You and I could be in the very same space, experiencing the very same thing. You feel one way, I feel another.
Dave Washington 19:07
Right.
I. David Daniels 19:07
You may feel fine. I may not. I may feel fine. You may not. And there is no way that the organization is going to know unless I tell them. Right. Now, if I show behavioral change, that's when the organization really needs to our organizations and groups and societies and friends and family. Until people's behavior changes, we won't know.
Dave Washington 19:26
That's right. You
I. David Daniels 19:26
know, if I I I've been you know in a committed relationship with the same woman for 39 years and we married 38 years ago. She can see stuff. I mean, I I don't even have to say it. She's been around me long enough. She can tell. Most people probably couldn't because they don't know me well enough. Right. The same thing happens at work. You're not going to know that the person that you're sitting next to, that they just had a death in the family, that they that they lost their cat, that they're going to lose their home. That there's all these things going on, and you can say all you want, leave that stuff at home. You can't. It comes to work with you. It goes. Every place you go, particularly the things that are really, really difficult for you, and with fire service and with military and law enforcement, EMS, we expose people to all kinds of really horrific things.
Dave Washington 20:11
That's right,
I. David Daniels 20:12
really horrific things, and then we expect people just well, yeah, just move on. And sometimes you can, but sometimes you cannot.
Dave Washington 20:20
Yeah, yeah, and that
I. David Daniels 20:21
follows you for the rest of your life until you deal with
Dave Washington 20:24
it. Yes, sir. And I know one thing that that affected everyone. If we had a fire and some kid, some small child got injured, you could feel it. And if they pass, it gets real quiet around the firehouse, no doubt.
I. David Daniels 20:38
That's right.
Dave Washington 20:38
But
I. David Daniels 20:39
that's right.
Dave Washington 20:39
After that, it's gone, you know. Even though, like you said, and I agree 100, it ain't gone in the head of some. Yes, but not all.
I. David Daniels 20:48
Yes,
Dave Washington 20:48
some are still. Some are still being affected by it, and I think what what you're onto is something that's very important. And I've told the current sheriff, Kevin McMayhill, he's got four doctors on his staff now, and they actually they're going through their entire six 7000 employees, man. He said because there's been some things that have gone on that's been just kind of overlooked, and when it come down to the to these incidents that people go on, man, it can affect you for a long period of time. So I said, man, you're going to be a model for for for our for our country and possibly the world because you got to look out for folks when they go through these types of incidents, man, and and everybody thinks everybody's cool, and then you know you can't be the weak one. You everybody's hiding stuff because I you know I can't whimper down, man. Man, you got to be who you are.
I. David Daniels 21:40
Yeah, that that discussion about how the environment itself-that's the area where we can really make a difference. So we, if we're going to have organizations with human beings in them, our focus first has to be on making sure those human beings are as safe as possible. Right? You can't. It's not going to be perfect. The job requires that you be exposed to things, but just like when you were in the fire service, when you got exposed to a chemical, there's a law that says you have to be able to track what that person is being exposed to. Right, it's the hazardous waste operations and emergency response, hazwoper. It's a federal law. So when we expose people to physical things the employer is required to make sure that the person is that that that that we tried to prevent it, that we tried to you know make to minimize their exposure. When it comes to mental and emotional things, it's like well whatever. But in the United States, that's it's that way. There are 40 countries around the world right now who have laws that say if we expose you to emotional or psychosocial hazards or physical hazards, the employer has the same responsibility because we knew we were going to expose them to this stuff.
Dave Washington 22:52
Well, we got to get on board once again, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. Have Doctor I David Daniels. He is an expert. He's he's doing some work in this psycho social type,
I. David Daniels 23:07
psychosocial safety. Yeah, please
Dave Washington 23:08
say it for me, Doc. Because but but I think it's so important that you know what what I have this platform. When I heard you speak, I said, man, I got to get him on the show because I know that it it will help some of the firefighters, police, and veterans who actually listen to the show for sure. So we appreciate you. Let
I. David Daniels 23:26
me, yeah. If I could share one more point, that sadly, you are more likely in the fire rescue service to die by suicide than all the other physical causes. Same thing in EMS. Same thing in law enforcement. Same thing in oil and gas. Same thing in construction. Virtually every occupation that has high hazard associated with it, people are dying more often due to suicide than all the physical issues. And that's why this is so important. We know people are going to be exposed to stress on the job, and it's not just the emergency stuff. A construction worker, that's right, is four times more likely to die by suicide than all the physical causes.
Dave Washington 24:08
That is, so
I. David Daniels 24:09
we it is. You got to address it. Some of it is the stress of life. A lot of it is the stress of work.
Dave Washington 24:15
Right,
I. David Daniels 24:15
stress of work.
Dave Washington 24:16
Yeah, I know when I first got on the apartment in '74, there were several several guys who committed suicide. I'm like, what is going on? But, but I don't think it was ever really addressed to any degree because it took us a number of years before we got an incident debriefing person on staff. And I, and I told Brendan, I said, soon as I leave, more than likely you'll be one of the first ones that they go, we don't need this. And sure enough, that's what that. But but we do need that, man, because it's a difficult position that that people, man, men and women, build to deal with all this tragedy. You know, even though we we get the training, man, but we're we're human beings with certain you know sensitivities, et cetera, et cetera. Once again, this is veterans. Affairs plus on 91.5 jazz and more. We got about four minutes, Doc. So tell us some things that you think are important that we can share to include. And I know you've you've written a book, and we don't talk about price on here, but certainly I think people need to to be aware of
I. David Daniels 25:15
it. Well, if folks want to learn more about this topic, I mean my my research has really been to convince, or to try to share with people. I may not convince them, but to share that this is an issue at all. What you do about it? There's lots of ways to address psychosocial hazard exposure. Lots of them.
Dave Washington 25:33
The
I. David Daniels 25:34
challenge is that sometimes people don't think that how people feel is important, and I'm here to suggest it's important. And the more time we spend on dealing with how people feel, we're going to have less physical injuries. It doesn't, you know. So you can be in a safe environment objectively. There are no physical injuries, but there's a lot of emotional injury that's going on that we can do something about before it becomes physical, so I wrote a book. Book's called Psychosocial Hazards Are Real. The easiest way to get to it is to go to my website, ID2 Solutions, and you can find you know a lot information about my work and about the book. And also, I have a podcast that I do. A new episode just came out today. As a matter of fact, comes out twice a month. It's called Psychosocial Safety USA, and in both these cases, I'm just trying to spread the word. To be honest, I'm not. I don't believe that I, as a single person, can change the world. I don't. I'm not even trying to. I'm trying to put the information out there, and folks can decide whether or not it is something that is better than what they're going through right now.
Dave Washington 26:40
Well, I think that's absolutely important to not only fire service, but but in general, because you say there's 40 different countries that recognize the need for this work to be done. Yeah, and we keep calling ourselves the greatest men. We got a lot to learn, and I think we need to to get on board and care about our people. I don't care what industry that you're in, people can be affected by certain tragic things that may. And some of you may think no no big deal about it, but it could be some of the smallest things that will throw one person, you know, kind of off their track versus another person. That's right.
I. David Daniels 27:15
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And again, a lot of the if we deal with this, with this when it's small, when it's early, then it doesn't. So what happens is you're exposed to a hazard. The hazard brings risk. Some of the risk creates harm. Some of that harm starts to feel painful. Some of that pain becomes hurt, and some of that hurt becomes trauma. We tend to wait until the hurt and trauma show up, and then you know have a bunch of programming when we could have done something about this six months ago, if the person was able to just come and talk. They just need to sit down and talk to Dave about his experience or talk to what he's, and they feel better. But we wait, and that's that's not what we do. We we try to act tough. We try to act strong, and when we end up is hurting each other by not sharing our you know experiences with each other and just helping each other,
Dave Washington 28:04
very true. Well, once again, Las Vegas, we have Dr. I. David Daniels. He's a colleague. He's an international speaker, and he's doing some phenomenal work that I hope that people will take heed to. So, we certainly thank you, Doc, for coming on the show, and I think that this will do a lot of good for a lot of folks because we have a a growing audience and this is a good show that I will certainly be encouraging people to listen to. So we absolutely
I. David Daniels 28:31
yeah yeah yeah. And if if I can before I go, you you know for sure that I I wouldn't be doing some of this had it not been for people like you. You all those years ago, when you sat across the table from me when I was going for promotion, and and gave me an opportunity to get you know that promotion that I got, there are people whose careers were derailed because they got the wrong person on the other side of the table. Yeah, well, and I was fortunate enough to have someone like you.
Dave Washington 28:57
No, man, you snatched that when when you walked out of the room. We said, "Well, we don't know who's coming in second, but we know who's first. So once again, Doc, thank you so much, and man, I appreciate your friendship. Tell your wife and family, Marsh, and I said hello, and look forward to seeing you somewhere along the line. Take care of yourself. All
I. David Daniels 29:15
right, thank you very much. All right, take care.
Music 29:47
All the smoke in the air, feel the hate when they stare. All the pain that we bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai