102: The Williams Key

We talk to LA County Firefighter Trevor Williams, inventor of the Williams Key, a very cool and effective forcible entry tool used by firefighters everywhere. We talk about how he came up with this tool, but we take a long and windy road to get there cuz Trevor is SUPER INTERESTING. He tells us about growing up in Zaire in a missionary family during a civil war & a genocide, then returning to the US at age 8 for a few years to ride bikes and go to the movies. Then at age 12 his family moves, to Haiti, where he lives until his senior year of high school when he moves to LA, while his family moves back to Haiti. He goes back to visit his family in Haiti a couple years later when, while hes visiting, a devastating earthquake destroys the country. Trevor tells us first hand what this was like, thinking his family had died, and staying for weeks to provide aid and search for victims. We eventually get to him inventing the Williams Key, we also get a cool story from Danny, who fought fire on the Venice beach boardwalk a couple days before.