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I learned about leadership from that!

  • Published
  • By Col. Jim Weber
  • 305th Maintenance Group commander
McGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. --  I received an e-mail the other day that was as unexpected as it was tough to read. It seems one of my stalwart maintainers, from my last assignment at McChord Air Force Base, Wash., Staff Sgt. Chris Wolff, is currently hospitalized in Tacoma, Wash. He is in the ICU and on a respirator as the physicians there try to fight off some kind of infection that has attacked his nervous system and left him (at least for the time being) paralyzed from the belly button down. Knowing him, as one of the more animated and pleasant guys to be around, increases the shock of the news exponentially. More to the point of this story, his name also conjures up one of the greatest leadership lessons I ever learned -- a lesson learned as a result of my own failure to take decisive action.

I was the Maintenance Group commander at McChord for almost a year when, shame on me, one morning I noticed an Airman on top of the fuselage of a C-17 conducting a panel inspection. Glaringly obvious to even the casual observer was the fact he was not wearing a fall-protection harness of any kind. I recalled, from my C-141 days, Military Airlift Command restricting access to the upper wing to wingtip stands if fall protection was unavailable after several people had fallen off the upper fuselage when exiting the forward fuselage hatch. Now, a fall from the C-141 was high enough at 17 feet to cause grievous injuries, so knowing the maintenance hatch on the forward fuselage of a C-17 is five feet higher, I went right to our maintenance supervision staff to enquire "Why?" You see, in this day and age of Air Force Occupational Safety and Health and Occupational Safety and Health Administration regs mandating fall protection, some for surfaces as low as four feet, it struck me as odd we could possibly even be allowed on top of the jet without a harness -- even if we wanted to. Yet I was assured, by reference to manufacturer's guidance and our own Air Force and Air Mobility Command instructions, it was perfectly allowable. Besides, as it was put to me quite passionately, the restraint harness was a nightmare to try and disentangle and don properly. I did watch a demo of an Airman trying to don the harness, and indeed it certainly bore some resemblance to Captain Nemo fighting the giant squid from the deck of the Nautilus. But after all, I thought to myself, the jet was purpose-built with little receptacles all over the upper surfaces so anyone wearing a harness can maneuver like Spiderman on top of the jet unimpaired, therefore shouldn't we be using it...?

So I hesitated, and I failed to take immediate action to correct what I felt in my gut was intuitively wrong. Then, just days later, I got the type of 5 a.m. call every commander in the aircraft maintenance business dreads -- "Sir, we just got a call from the team at Christchurch (New Zealand); one of our deployed troops, Senior Airman Chris Wolff, fell off the upper fuselage. An ambulance is on the way. We have no other information." Horrible thoughts run through one's mind at that point, including how in the safety business most falls more than 35 feet are fatal and most more than 20 feet may leave the victim paralyzed. Chris had just fallen 23 feet to the tarmac. It was another nail-biting 30 minutes before we were informed he was on his way to the hospital with "only" a compound fracture of one of his ankles, a severe twist to the other, and some pretty hefty bumps and bruises. Consequently, it took no less than moments to make the call to halt operations on top of the jets without fall restraint. As a matter of fact, we rewrote our operating instructions, ran them through Quality Assurance, and had them approved and published by close of business. Adding insult to injury, we found out that same day our Boeing counterparts had a much-improved harness on hand that made donning and doffing the harness as easy as putting on a new suit at a department store!

As the dust settled, the realization came quickly to me -- had I done a week earlier what I had no problem doing this day, I wouldn't have had to meet Airman Wolff and help him with his crutches as he deplaned the following week. To his credit, his first words to me were, "Sir, don't feel so bad. If my falling off the jet and just breaking an ankle keeps someone else from dying, then it's worth it." I barely heard him in the background as he related to his young wife and those assembled around him how his last thoughts, as he slowly slid off the jet, were to spread his arms to keep himself upright and bend his knees ... I was too busy choking back some tears.

After what we learned and experienced, we went command-wide and I shared what happened with my colleagues and the AMC staff. I assumed changing the tech data to mandate the fall protection harness wear would breeze right through, and interim guidance would be published at all the user's locations immediately. Well, best I can say is, never assume ... One colleague did reinforce use right away -- Col. Dennis Daley at Dover AFB, Del. -- and none too soon! One of his troops did a header off the upper surface, and the only injury he suffered was to his dignity as "buddies" gave him no end of ribbing to capture this mental "Kodak moment." However, it took an aircrew member falling face-first (suffering career-ending injuries to include a crushed face and compound fracture of the femur) just several weeks later to bring this to the attention of the then-AMC Vice Commander, Lt. Gen. Chris Kelly. He's a pretty decisive guy who mandated 100 percent harness wear for C-17s -- immediately.

So what was my greatest lesson? Be decisive -- if you know intuitively something is wrong, fix it on the spot. You may be the lone voice in the wilderness, but you know what? As a leader, that's what you get paid to do. Great leaders don't hesitate -- they act. Besides, you'll sleep better at night...

As a postscript, please keep Staff Sgt. Chris Wolff and his wife in your thoughts and prayers as they work though a very difficult turn of events. He's one of the good guys.