The Pallbearer Deck

Firefighters use an apparatus (fire truck) as a caisson to transport the casketed remains of a fallen fellow firefighter. The hose bed is where the casket rests, but the hose bed, depending on the type of apparatus, can be quite high making it difficult to load and remove the casket. That’s where the Pallbearer Deck comes in.

Download the PDF directions by clicking here. If there is anything in the directions that I missed or should be added/changed, please let me know.

Firefighter Jesse Clifton of Trussville (AL) Fire Department and I talked about this in passing when I was there in 2019 training and certifying both the police and fire honor guard units. I finished teaching there, went to Missouri to teach for another week, visited Whiteman AFB Honor Guard and by the time I was headed back to Trussville, Jesse had bought the materials, created the plan in his head, and built the whole thing! The only information I provided was, “I think the deck should be ‘this’ big” after we had some of the trainees stand together. The only requirement for the deck was that I needed to be able to collapse it and fit it into my trailer.